It seemed almost unavoidable that having written a book entitled Why Buildings Stand Up, I should be pushed by my friends (and my wonderfully friendly editor, Edwin Barber) to write another called­ what else?-Why Buildings Fall Down.
I have at long last given in to the temptation of explaining structural failures in lay language, a simple but exciting task, but only because the coauthor of another of my books, Matthys Levy, a master of structural design, has enthusiastically accepted to write it with me.
He and I can apply eighty-five years of design and teaching experience, and sixty of investigations into structural failures, to the job of helping us relieve the fears of the uninitiated, while tak­ ing the reader on an interesting and, we hope, entertaining trip that will make the reader see buildings as never before: with a clear understanding of why they stand up and why, yes, but once in a blue moon, they fall down.