In the Zone: Construction Zone by Cheryl Willis Hudson

Who can resist the drama of the rising man-made mountain--a huge, towering, complex structure alive with human activity and imagination?

Cheryl Hudson's Construction Zone is a three-year celebration of this modern wonder, the account of the construction--from architect's idea to the bustling, humming human workplace that is Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Stata Center in Cambridge. Richard Sobol's photos, from closeups of architect Frank O. Gehry's documents and drawings to sweeping wide shots of huge yellow power shovels and soaring cranes, dutifully detail the progress of this one-of-a-kind skyscraper as it rises beside the Charles River.

Hudson's text carefully tells the story, stopping frequently to explain and define terms, set off in bright yellow construction-tape boxes at page bottom, and occasionally rising to soaring prose as the building begins it own life.

Nighttime falls at the construction zone.

It is quiet and still.

Inside the building lights are shining. Outside trees have been planted on a rooftop.

The pieces of the puzzle have finally fit into place.

Pair this one with Deborah Hopkinson's Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building which tells the unforgettable story of the building of an earlier iconic skyscraper, the Empire State Building, reviewed here in my post of November 23, 2007.