Superstructure - Hardcover

Power, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002202050 ISBN 13: 9780002202053

Publisher: HarperCollins Illustrated, 2000

Synopsis

Inspired by a global event, the Dome at Greenwich has been a British construction project of unprecedented ambition, an engineering feat of mind-boggling statistics. Superstructure is a remarkable record of the Dome’s genesis up to the day that it opened to the public, 1 January 2000.

The photographer Mark Power was granted privileged access to the site by the New Millennium Experience Company; he first visited the North Greenwich peninsula in October 1996, and in well over one hundred subsequent trips recorded its transformation from toxic wasteland to architectural icon. The Dome he portrays is a monument to human endeavour, a challenge of epic proportions realised against almost overwhelming odds, a place where colossal architectural components and brutal machinery have been tamed and harnessed through highly choreographed teamwork. His photographs are deliberately devoid of people – feeling that it would be inappropriate to focus on the role of individuals, he instead pays homage to the team spirit that has driven the project.

Companies from virtually every sector of the British economy, and further afield, have left their collective stamp on the Dome. Providing a counterbalance to Mark Power’s photographs, a list of over ten thousand names records the contribution of the vast number of organisations and individuals without whose tenacity the project would simply not have been possible – from those who decontaminated the peninsula to those who welcomed the first public visitors. Focusing on the people behind the project, this comprehensive roll call gives a very different perspective on the human resources that have brought the Dome to life.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Power is an experienced documentary photographer whose work has been exhibited widely and published in several major magazines, including the Sunday Times, the Observer, the Independent and the Daily Telegraph. His book, The Shipping Forecast, a photographic documentary of Britain’s most far-flung, seabound places, has to date sold over 10,000 copies. He has been a member of Network Photographers since 1988. In his other life he is a Senior Lecturer in Editorial Photography at the University of Brighton.

From the Back Cover

Mark Power is a photographer who has had exclusive, unfettered access to all areas of the Greenwich millennium site since 1997, when it was merely a derelict, polluted building site. Since then, virtually day by day, he has captured the creation of the Dome and its contents on film.

His pictures are astonishingly powerful; they are certainly the most coherent, complete vision of the Dome by and individual photographer. Having visited the Dome well over a hundred times, Mark Power has truly managed to convey the spirit of the place.

Many tens of thousands of people worked to build the Dome – undoubtedly Britain's most famous new landmark – in little over two years. At the back of this book is a unique roll call listing every single one of their names – this book is a testament of the boldness of their endeavour and their sheer hard work.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins Illustrated
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0002202050
• ISBN 13: 9780002202053
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208