David Macaulay
(1946- )
Life:
Macaulay was born in England and moved to the United
States at the age of 11, when his father took a job in New Jersey.
The family relocated to Rhode Island five years later, and Macaulay discovered
a talent for drawing which led him to the Rhode
Island School of Design. He studied architecture, graduating
in 1969, and worked for a while in interior design and as a free-lance
illustrator, teaching part time at RISD. He continues to live and
work in Rhode Island and to teach at RISD. He has never practiced
as an architect, but uses his architectural training both in the obvious
sense of the subject matter of his first several books and in his breaking
down of large problems into smaller details.
As a child, Macaulay acquired his interest in mechanical
processes by observing his parents, both of whom worked on various creative
projects in the home. "We were blatantly encouraged to make things,
to understand how things went together and how they came apart," he said
in his Caldecott Medal acceptance speech. "By the time we got out
of that kitchen, we actually believed that creativity and craftsmanship
were desirable -- even normal." (qtd. In SATA 72, p. 168).
He began his career as a picture-book writer
with Cathedral (1973; Caldecott Honor Book 1974), which began as
a fantasy about a gargoyle beauty pageant. His publisher did not
want this story, but noted Macaulay's drawings of the Gothic cathedral
and asked him to develop a picture book about its construction.
Macaulay's next several books were similar
in format, with careful pen-and-ink illustrations and a narrative addressing
the process of building. The books attract across-generational audience
and have even been incorporated into college classes in architecture and
design. After several such books (and a second Caldecott Honor award
in 1978 for Castle (1977)), he attempted some more experimental
projects, including The Motel of the Mysteries, a gentle satire
on archeology, and Black and White (1990), in which he simultaneously
tells four different stories which are drawn together at the end.
Black
and White won him the Caldecott Medal for the first time.
Macaulay's longest work, The Way Things
Work, has been adapted to an interactive CD-ROM format. While
some people in the book world are threatened by the computer's assumption
of books' traditional role in disseminating knowledge, Macaulay finds interactive
multimedia to have enormous educational potential. "We're not going
to go back to books in libraries," he says. "The fact that we have
all these things available now because of digital technology, we should
not give that up -- as long as we know what we want." (Cafe
Z) Several of Macaulay's educational books have also been turned
into television programs on PBS.
Macaulay said in an interview, "I consider
myself first and foremost an illustrator in the broadest sense, someone
who makes things clear through pictures and teaches through pictures" (qtd.
in SATA 72, p. 167). In another interview, he said, "I'm always looking
for the best way to get the information across. If it's through telling
a story, great; if it's through more straightforward explanations, fine;
if it's through a visual sequence of images, fine. The point is always
to keep focused on the content." (Cafe
Z)
Books:
Macaulay's nonfiction books are especially
noted for their clear explanations, through text and drawing, of complex
human constructions; while the primary focus is on the building process,
his work also reveals a fascination with the relationship between buildings
and human society, as we can see both in his choice of subjects central
in some way to the life of their historical period (a castle, a cathedral,
a New England mill, etc.) and in the expression of those subjects through
fictional personalities.
Of the problem of design in general, Macaulay
says, "Design, initially, is knowing how to ask the right questions" (Cafe
Z). It is this process of questioning, breaking down a
large subject into a series of smaller, easier questions, that he employs
in his work.
In a review of City for Amazon.com,
one reader recommended it for the study of civil engineering in the Roman
Empire: "The Tool and Material lists are fascinating, and the drawings
are worth a thousand words. For an advanced study in Roman Civil Engineering
this book will go a long way to clearing up the meaning of Wordy text that
do not provide illustrations."
Questions to consider for City:
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Page produced July 21, 1998