I used to have a recurring dream about Hiroshima, about the one building left standing after the nuclear bomb fell, the Industrial Exhibition Hall, standing in the middle of an ocean. I later read that a few weeks after the bombing, the Ota Rive overflowed and flooded the whole area, taking the remaining bridges and foundations with it.
Because the explosion was almost directly overhead, the building's vertical columns were able to resist the downward force of the blast from 2,000 feet above, which destroyed most of the surrounding areas. Everyone inside the building was killed instantly. It became known as the Genbaku ("A-Bomb") Dome, and is now preserved as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. But in my mind, it is an exhibition hall of human atrocity, aided by our industrial ingenuity.
