If Melbourne’s claim to be the ‘world’s most liveable city’ can be taken seriously, it is largely because of its capacity for reinvention, the adaptability of its buildings and infrastructure to an expanding population, and changes in transport, communications, patterns of work, and the general lifestyle of its inhabitants.

Robyn Annear’s sparkling new book follows the development of central Melbourne through the eyes of that legendary change agent, Whelan the Wrecker. Like her first book, Bearbrass: Imagining Early Melbourne (first published 1995, now reissued by Black Inc.), A City Lost and Found is an instant classic, offering new ways of seeing familiar places. Annear presents demolition as a creative act, ‘building in reverse’, even ‘a kind of archaeology’.