In this lecture, based on his new book Terror and Wonder: Architecture in a Tumultuous Age, Pulitzer Prize-winner Blair Kamin surveys the period bracketed by the September 11 terrorist attacks and the opening of the world’s tallest building in Dubai. As the book reveals, this was an era of extreme oscillation-between artistic triumph and urban disaster, frugal energy-saving architecture and giddy design excess. It was a Dickensian construction zone, a time of terror and wonder, and buildings were central to its narrative.

Recorded Thursday, October 7, 2010 at the Lecture Hall Gallery, Chicago Architecture Foundation.