Lost Buildings

Have you ever wished that you could have seen King Solomon's mighty Temple in Jerusalem or climbed to the top of the legendary Tower of Babel? What must it have been like to have paraded up and down the great glass galleries of the Crystal Palace in London in 1851? Why is the Euston Arch, demolished in 1961, still missed? What would buildings described in much loved books have been like if these had existed outside their author's imaginations? Imagine walking through the labyrinthine corridors of Mervyn Peake's mythical Gothic fortress Gormenghast, or visiting Toad Hall. And what of the current trend for reconstructing buildings which were destroyed in wartime or for political reasons? "Lost Buildings" is an invitation to visit buildings long vanished or those demolished within living history, some by dim politicians, others by war or "acts of God", that we would pay good money and travel a long way to see, if only they existed, today. It looks, too, at buildings from literature, myth and children's stories, and some lost opportunities - fantastic, ambitious designs that were never built. There are countless buildings that remain vivid in the collective memory, whether they were once real or were only ever imagined. "Lost Buildings" brings these together for the reader's curiosity and delight.

Introduction; 1: Legendary Buildings'; 2: Lost in Peace; 3: Lost in War; 4: Acts of God; 5: Political Dreams and Nightmares; 6: Fictional Buildings; 7: Self-Destructing Buildings; 8: Architectural Fantasies; Index.