Abandoned Palaces - Michael Kerrigan

. .

Résumé :
Built to last, built to impress, built with style and grandeur - it is all the more remarkable when the most ostentatious of buildings fall into disrepair and become ruins. From imperial residences and aristocratic estates to hotels and urban mansions, Abandoned Palaces tells the stories behind dilapidated structures from all around the world.
From ancient Roman villas to the French colonial hill station in Cambodia that was one of the final refuges of the Khmer Rouge, the book charts the fascinating decline of what were once the homes and holiday resorts of the most wealthy. Ranging from crumbling hotels in the Catskill Mountains or in Mozambique to grand mansions in Taiwan, and from an unfinished Elizabethan summerhouse to a modern megalomaniac's estate too expensive ever to be completed, the reasons for the abandonment of these buildings include politics, bankruptcy, personal tragedies, natural and man-made disasters, as well as changing tastes and fashions.
With 150 outstanding colour photographs exploring more than 100 hauntingly beautiful locations, Abandoned Palaces is a brilliant and moving pictorial examination of worlds we have left behind....

Biographie:
Michael Kerrigan was educated at St. Edward's College and University College, Oxford, England. He is the author of Native American Wisdom, History of the World, Ancient Peoples in their Own Words and The History of Death. He is a columnist, book reviewer, and feature writer for publications including the Scotsman and the Times Literary Supplement. Michael Kerrigan lives with his family in Edinburgh....

Sommaire:
From imperial residences and aristocratic estates to hotels and urban mansions, Abandoned Palaces uses stunning photographs to tell the stories behind dilapidated structures from all around the world.Built to last, built to impress, built with style and grandeur - it is all the more remarkable when the most ostentatious of buildings fall into disrepair and become ruins. From imperial residences and aristocratic estates to hotels and urban mansions, Abandoned Palaces tells the stories behind dilapidated structures from all around the world.
From ancient Roman villas to the French colonial hill station in Cambodia that was one of the final refuges of the Khmer Rouge, the book charts the fascinating decline of what were once the homes and holiday resorts of the most wealthy. Ranging from crumbling hotels in the Catskill Mountains or in Mozambique to grand mansions in Taiwan, and from an unfinished Elizabethan summerhouse to a modern megalomaniac's estate too expensive ever to be completed, the reasons for the abandonment of these buildings include politics, bankruptcy, personal tragedies, natural and man-made disasters, as well as changing tastes and fashions.
With 150 outstanding colour photographs exploring more than 100 hauntingly beautiful locations, Abandoned Palaces is a brilliant and moving pictorial examination of worlds we have left behind....