This book is an exploration of a modern city and the variety of construction techniques and engineering solutions that are employed in the distribution and arrangement of utilities and facilities in the city. The book is brilliantly illustrated in a way that brings levity and humor to the pages, especially when ideal systems are compared to more realistic portrayals. Well researched as always, this book encourages readers of all ages to take a closer look at the world around them for the telltale signs of the various ingenious solutions that surround them on a day to day basis. For me, as a young reader, it helped to cultivate a real admiration for how much thought and skill and effort went into parts of the world that I had never thought about. ( )

Meticulous, detailed drawings accompany the descriptive, explanatory text; together, words and drawings convey the complexity of the systems underneath our cities: building foundations, water supply systems, utilities, sewers, storm drains, electrical, steam and gas distribution, and telephone. Back matter includes a glossary; there is no table of contents or index. ( )

The Association of Soil and Foundation Engineers liked this book enough to publish a special edition of it for the use of their members (for gifts, presentations, or other use). That's quite an impressive recommendation. ( )

David Macaulay neemt ons in "Ondergronds" mee naar de onzichtbare wereld onder de grond, funderingen en leidingen van gas, water en electriciteit en de metro. Niet zo indrukwekkend als "De kathedraal" maar nog altijd inspirerend. ( )

David Macaulay said about Underground:

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Underground was different from Castle and Cathedral and Pyramid, in that it really is intended as a guide for pedestrians wandering down the city street. So I start with a double page spread of an intersection that we’re going to look at in detail. And I put sort of circles around key familiar elements, like the fire hydrant, and a manhole cover, a ladder disappearing into the street, and a construction site excavation. I start with that. And you can move from this map, in a sense, to the corresponding page of the book, or you can just go through the book from beginning to end. Doesn’t matter. But it was intended as a guide, a kind of guide for pedestrians. Underground was a catalog of city sites that are clues to systems we completely take for granted until they break down, and then we say, “Hey, how come I don’t have any electricity? What’s wrong with the water?” We are so dependent on those systems, and that’s what motivated that book. I did the book because I wanted to say to people, “Hey, look again. This is amazing stuff. We all count on it.” I mean, I don’t know what we’d do without this stuff, but we just completely take it for granted.

Source (PDF)
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Underground of course is as brilliant as the rest of Macaulay's series. It has not aged as gracefully as some of others because infrastructure technology has changed since the mid-1970's, although much of it remains the same, and of course much of it still exists in place "underground." In 2009 the word "Infrastructure" was on the minds of most Americans, and Underground shows what that really means, in a playful and fun way for kids and adults. Probably the most outstanding aspect is Macaulay's use of perspective with floating buildings and tubes in an ocean of water with bedrock as the floor and tourists looking upwards. It has the capacity to forever change how one sees a building and city, from the "ground up", to visualize and appreciate the unseen man-made ocean of curiosity beneath our feet.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd ( )