The unseen enablers of urban development, construction workers have become a marginalized community at the very center of modern wealth, sacrificing their bodies in labor that earns them neither respect nor decent compensation. Long-time construction supervisor Lin Ya-Ching makes them the center of his critical yet empathetic gaze in this non-fiction paean to the men and women who build our cities.

The unseen enablers of urban development, construction workers have become a marginalized community at the very center of modern wealth. The buyers, residents, and renters of a building rarely think of the human effort that it represents, but every concrete foundation, plastered wall, and glazed tile was made useful by the hands of a construction worker. Yet the significance of their contribution, made via the sacrifice of their physical body, stands in stark contrast to their economic and social status. Construction workers are paid little and respected even less, while their presence and difficulties have been made invisible to society.