Explore architectural marvels and engineering feats across the globe as experts rank bridges, transport megastructures, and museums and galleries. From iconic spans like the Brooklyn Bridge to transportation wonders like the Trans-Siberian Railway, and architectural gems such as the Louvre, this series celebrates human ingenuity and cultural landmarks.
00:00 Top 10 Bridges
Architects take a look at the greatest bridges in the world and marvel at engineering ingenuity that made them so iconic. Featuring the Brooklyn Bridge, Dom Luis I Bridge, Tower Bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Erasmus Bridge, Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, Gateshead Millennium Bridge and Millau Viaduct.
53:00 Top 10 Transport Megastructures
From subway systems, to cross country rail, engineers rank the greatest transport superstructures in the world. Featuring the Trans-Siberian Railway, New York City Subway, Channel Tunnel, Suez Canal, Marmaray Tunnel, Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway, Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Project, Highway 1, Panama Canal and Interstate Highway System.
01:45:00 Top 10 Museums and Galleries
Museums and galleries don’t only contain beautiful works, then can also be stunning pieces of art themselves. Experts rank the 10 greatest Museums and Galleries in the world from an architectural perspective. Featuring the Guggenheim Museum, Rijksmuseum, Museum Aan De Stroom, Uffizi Gallery, Hermitage Museum, British Museum, National Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern Gallery, Louvre and Palace Museum
Do you love engineering, history and binge-watching? Then this is the channel for you! From the groundbreaking developments in aerospace engineering to the colossal structures right here on Earth, we’ll be publishing the best historical documentary series that are all about engineering.
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[Music] Humanity has been bestowed with great gifts perhaps greatest of all is our imagination because ultimately it’s our imaginations that enable us to shape the world around us the most obvious examples of that are the great buildings and architecture all around us but which works of architecture should we see during our lifetime find out in top 10 the art of [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] architecture in this installment we visit the top 10 designed and engineered bridg of the world beginning with the oldest and ending with the aesthetic shock of the new Bridges not only make our lives easier they can also make the world a more beautiful place they are a living metaphor for making connections whether you walk or drive over them or pass under them in a boat so now on top 10 Let’s cross over some of the great in bridge design [Music] Brookland Bridge New York City [Music] USA the Big Apple in all its Glory you think of the Statue of Liberty the Empire State and krysler buildings and the Brooklyn Bridge it connects the Burrows of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River the story of the Brooklyn Bridge has it all a family Dynasty the American dream and the Very 19th century type of faith in technology as the solution to all our problems the man you might call the father of the Brooklyn Bridge was an American architect and engineer of German descent one John Augustus robling robling began work on the project in 1867 after his untimely death robling son Washington robling took over Construction Washington decided to use kons large watertight wooden vessels which scrape along the riverbed to build the massive foundation of the Brooklyn Bridge I think from everywhere every aspect all the details even of that bridge I mean it feels very European to me which is the basis of New York and its Beginnings were European and so it feels like beautiful European Bridge architecture to me but it sits perfectly in New York and in this place constru production commenced on January the 3rd 1870 on the Brooklyn banks of the East River a Kon sized 50x 40 m was lowered into water after The Quon steel blades dug deep into the riverbed the hugely ambitious construction began there were two groups of workers one which worked above the water line on top of The Quon building the foundation of the bridge tower out of huge Granite blocks the second group worked inside The Quon digging down until they reach solid [Music] Bedrock you feel that it’s a really strong bridge and and you feel like it’s it’s going to support you and it you feel in this architecture uh this heavy brick and stone architecture you feel early New York work you know you just feel that that it’s in the right context working with the air compression chamber was difficult and dangerous 27 people lost their lives to make the Brooklyn Bridge a reality many of the workers suffered from decompression sickness including Washington robling himself when the second Manhattan side Tower was built with its foundation laid at much lower depths Washington fell ill when he did so he turned to his wife for support he explained all the mathematics and mechanics of the bridges construction to Emily so that she could take over in the event of his death in the end it was Emily robling who saw the project to completion [Applause] [Music] it Remains the oldest suspension bridge in the USA and continues to be a historical landmark it’s an integral part of the New York [Music] skyline when both Bridge Towers were finished they stood over 80 m above water level instantly becoming the tallest structures in the Western Hemisphere at that time for its day and age before electricity the Motorcar and skyscrapers this was astonishing Brooklyn Bridge was inaugurated on May the 24th 1883 1,800 M long and with a span of nearly 500 M it was until that time the last largest suspension bridge ever built it cost $15.5 million an enormous amount of money at the [Music] time over the decades this national landmark has been reconfigured to include a six-lane road and a path for pedestrians and cyclists but lost nothing of its [Music] charm Dom Lis I Bridge Porto [Music] Portugal in the Portuguese city of Porto known for its sweet dessert wines of the same name you will find one of the most beautiful bridges in the world the Dom l this bridge is located in the historic Center high above the valley over the river Duro the Magnificent Bridge was built in honor of ludvig I the hapsburg king of Portugal between 1881 to 1886 the architect was the German designer and engineer theophile serig a disciple and colleague of Gustav Eiffel yes that’s as in the Eiffel Tower this bridge hit a record for the biggest trust arch bridge at the time it opened it’s an elegant structure and its filigre like construction gives it a special [Music] likeness the so-called truss arch construction of the Dom Lis the first Bridge uses thousands of triangular or rectangular bars which give it its strength to withstand the elements this double deck Bridge intended for horses and carts but carrying trams and Automobiles to this day when it was built it was the world’s longest bridge for a [Music] while the height difference in the points of of movement is the fascinating part that there are the cliffs on the top and how there can be this movement on this upper level and the lower level you know it’s a little bit um nervous looking uh especially if you’ve experienced it the bridge obviously fits in quite splendidly with the local topography but it’s a thing of beauty from an engineering perspective too not just a Scenic One its finished structure comprised of sets of triangles and gives the Dom Louise the first Bridge its distinctive appearance in the 19th century the supporting structures of these massively ambitious engineering projects were worn proudly and on the outside it was engineering architecture and its bold structures that inspired lausier in the early 1920 20s to write his Manifesto toward an architecture containing the famous advice let us listen to the councils of American Engineers but let us beware of American architects [Music] discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and AdFree podcasts presented by world-renowned historians all from history hit watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to explore everything from the wonders of ancient Pompei and the Mystery of the princes in the tower to the life of an Balin and D-Day sign up via the link in the description this bridge in particular is is uh very uh strong in its expression of the two types of of uh visual movement of the arch and the straight Parts but it’s it’s a f fascinating that somebody would use this combination at any rate the Dom Lise I Bridge was opened on October the 31st 1886 and a year later the lower deck intended for normal ground transportation was opened as well Porto in those days was still at the crossroads of once popular trade routes when The Bridge opened it was a welcome shortcut for weary Travelers who had been used to traversing the deep valley of the river Duro the city itself is no longer The Market Hub it used to be but the presence of bridges in the Portuguese city is still a quintessential part of the skyline the most imposing Bridge of all is undoubtedly the Dom Louis I Bridge [Music] towerbridge London United [Music] Kingdom in the heart of historic London is one of the most famous bridges in the world the tower bridge it’s expands the river temps with souk on the south bank and Tower hamlets and the East End on the North side the East End was originally located outside London City walls it was a place where the ships had been built and repaired since the Tuda era but in the second half of the 19th century it transformed into a center of industry and Commerce building developers industrialists and immigrants all would benefit from a new [Music] bridge a special expert committee was established in 1877 eventually the board announced a tender to which more than 50 proposals were submitted the winner was the project from City architect sir Horus Jones he would die shortly before its completion the neogothic style of this bridge and the combination of a suspended bascule Bridge makes this piece of simple engineering work unique in the city the Bridge’s engineering works with attention to the retractable deck were drawn up by Horus Jones chief engineer a certain John Barry Barry designed a two tower bridge where the two halves of the deck can be lifted up to allow a ship to to pass [Music] through to shorten the section of the deck which has to lift up the bridges Two Towers were set on pillars in the middle of the river bed instead of on the river banks as you might [Music] expect the confidence in it the way it was designed the confidence with within which different systems of engineering were combined uh just it’s it’s even expressing how at that moment in history Engineers could do this could do it this way to protect the steel core of the bridge some parts of the bridge were covered by Cornish granite and Portland Limestone the up and down bridge deck was initially powered by a steam engine later replaced by engines installed in the towers foundations in order that part ing ships not disrupt pedestrians two separate covered walkways connected The Two Towers after Horus Jones death the legendary George Stevenson so-called father of the railways took over the project for one thing he changed the architectural design of the bridge Towers which Jones planned to cover with bricks Stevenson chose a more decorative style of the then f fashionable Victorian Neo [Music] Gothic London Tower Bridge an incredibly elegant drawbridge was open for business on June the 30th 1894 the ceremony was attended by royalty in this case the Prince of Wales the Future King Edward iith and his wife princess Alexandra of Denmark anyone with an interest in the history of this beautiful engineering structure can visit the excellent interactive exhibition located inside the bridge the tower Bridges high-rise foot Bridge with a modern transparent floor offers some of the most breathtaking view of the modern Metropolis London [Music] Harbor Bridge Sydney [Music] Australia Sydney Australia’s largest city is renowned for its far from ordinary opera house looking out onto Sydney Harbor which of course is spanned by that architectural icon and Australian symbol the Sydney Harbor [Music] Bridge the idea for the bridge was first floated in the year 1914 the year the first world war broke out half a world away that was when a certain John Bradfield the chief engineer of Metropolitan Railway construction came up with the idea of a Cy lever Bridge without peers anchored on the seabed but it would not be until 1930 that the bridge would finally be completed the regulations from construction permits had to be Rewritten to allow the bridge to be built the tender to undertake construction was eventually won by the English company Dorman longan Company Limited from middle Bor which had Rich experience in constructing large steel Arch Bridges by 1926 the groundwork was completed to enable building of the massive foundations of the bridge Towers at the same time deep in the ground next to the bridge Piers foundations were built into which steel cables were anchored to secure the Bridge’s unfinished Arch from collapsing [Music] this Arch Bridge has a pillar at either end these pillars also have another function apart from supporting the load from the arch of the bridge construction of the arch known colloquially as the coat hanger began in 1928 over a period of 13 months material and workers were transported to their destination by two large cranes mov moving on Rails and the arch bridge was painstakingly assembled thanks to Flawless calculations and synchronized workflow the two arms linked together exactly on August the 19th 1930 after the last bits had been riveted together and the securing cables removed cranes started to gradually enlarge the deck in both directions from the middle of the arch finishing the deck lasted until June of the following year the final steps included removal of all support structures completion of the Monumental Granite pylons and preparation for a load [Music] test the load test lasted 3 weeks during which time the bridge bore the weight of 96 steam locomotives the concept to show the technology of the time and to show the vaulting uh the arch which is still suspending the platform below was important and there could have been other types of bridges there but there was the desire to to celebrate the passage there these days the Kanga is an extremely important arterial road every day some 180,000 Vehicles cross over it in addition to its 8 Lane Road the Sydney hover Bridge has two railway tracks a bicycle path and sidewalk for pedestrians if you appreciate Unforgettable views you can climb to the top of the arch of the bridge and look out over the bay and the city this activity takes around 3 and 1/2 but for many the feeling of having the whole of Sydney at their fingertips is well worth [Music] it Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco [Music] USA San Francisco’s Famous Golden Gate Bridge has spanned the Golden Gate straight for almost 80 years it’s a symbol of the city and of Californian [Music] cool yet the Golden Gate is subject to harsh weather conditions at times with sudden gusts of wind temperature fluctuations and strong sea currents bashing against the shores but the extreme environmental conditions were not sufficient to discouraged Joseph bman Strauss the spiritual and actual creator of the Golden Gate Bridge Strauss an american-born structural engineer had the dream of building a bridge that would exceed all existing bridges in every important respect his opportunity came when the city of San Francisco announced its intention to build such a bridge across the Golden Gate straight so the best results are achieved when an excellent architect and designer meets an excellent structural engineer and everyone involved works together to develop the structure work on the Golden Gate under strauss’s supervision began in 1930 with the cooperation of the engineer Leon moev and the architect Charles Ellis who lent the bridge its memorable Art Deco appearance the most difficult part was the building of the foundation for the southern pillar this is located 300 M 984 ft away from the shoreline some 30 m or 98.4 ft deep The Next Step was to build the massive Foundation plate of the South pylon no easy feet [Music] problem of that bridge is that the weather the the clouds pull into the bay they completely mask the bridge uh and you you have no feeling of its presence but to to watch the clouds disappear and the sun take over and and illuminate this fantastic structure you know it’s it’s a very breathtaking experience after the completion of the concrete plates that are the bridges Foundation came the construction of the towers riveted from huge steel segments for each Tower about 600,000 rivets were used workers on the bridge charged with making sure every single one of those rivets was screwed tight operated along an intricate Maze of corridors with 90 different routs linked together by 27 ladders both pylons were completed in the summer of 1935 at 227 M or 745 ft they immediately became the highest bridge structures in the world in the Autumn of the same year springing of support cables began [Music] the construction of the Monumental Bridge was at last completed on May the 27th of 1937 the day the bridge was inaugurated 200,000 citizens of San Francisco took the opportunity to cross the Golden Gate Bridge annual maintenance is the work of 28 painters whose task it is to prevent corrosion at critical points there’s a myth that the bridge is being continuously top coated but in actual fact it has been painted a new only [Music] twice nevertheless few would dispute the claim that Golden Gate is among the most photogenic bridges in the in the world the second half of the 19th century was a golden age of invention with unprecedented advances in science and technology it was largely thought advances in construction mechanics and Metallurgy that projects only dreamt about before could be turned into very tangible reality [Applause] the following five Bridges belong to the recent past they can all be said to be associated with developments such as globalization that are particular to the last 50 years [Music] arasmus Bridge Rotterdam the Netherlands the Netherlands may be a small country but it undoubtedly ranks among the world powers at least in terms of [Music] architecture this country has a rich tradition shaped by generations of fine Dutch Architects but even today the Netherlands has as its architectural World Stars these certainly include the couple Ben van burkel and Caroline booze from un Studio it is their signature on the project that has become a symbol of the city of Rotterdam [Music] the arasmus bridge is a fully functioning work of art in the center of Rotterdam bridging North and South this elegant Bridge sits adjacent to the roots of two Motorway tunnels Mass tunnel and the Benelux Tunnel open since 1996 its Ace symmetrical pylon shaped like an inverted letter Y Rises to a height of nearly 140 M the pylon shape resembling the body of a swan turns out to be functional as well as [Music] decorative it bother the k for this construction the cat cam method was used the construction concept and final plans were all created with the help of digital technology because the pylon is not typically straight and conventional instead being beveled at 2/3 the arasmus bridge is much less pressured by physical forces that impact it from support cables [Music] the course of load Moments by oblique stray cables is more even on the console pylon that on pylons of usual shapes even bending moments are significantly smaller originally the pylon was to be made of concrete but it turned out to be too expensive and difficult to make so in the end The Architects found a way to do it with steel the southern part of the 6,000 800 ton heavy Steel Bridge integrates a 90 M bascule Bridge which is considered the biggest and heaviest in Europe the arasmus bridge demonstrates what can happen when Architects and Engineers follow a uniform design principle these days constructions like this take in urban planning infrastructure and public relations this was the ’90s when architectural software was just coming into its [Music] own architectural design begins with the initial sketches and ends in the final phases of construction in this case five differently shaped concrete pillars Fender Harbors de details fittings connections and service equipment all had to be designed the interior of the bridge which connects the southern part of the city of Rotterdam to the north conceals a large concrete stairway leading to a parking garage special architecture uh maybe even can be more remembered for its power in at night because it’s you don’t see all the the limits uh that are exist in the visual frame of reference during the [Music] day at night this unusually subtle Bridge wears its air of understated cool well thanks in part to the play of Lights [Music] the Akashi Kyo Bridge kobay [Music] Japan the Akashi Kiko bridge is the largest suspension bridge in the world it is a miracle of Japanese construction and Engineering which links the city of cobay to iwaa on aaji island and is also part of the honu shikoku highway the idea to connect aaji with coob had emerged at the end of the 1950s in response to the tragedy which occurred in the Bay of Akashi in 1955 Collision of two fairies had claimed 168 victims however it took more than three decades before the bridge was built the task of um engineering for earth quakes is an immense task which is for me even till now unbelievable how uh the techniques of engineering against Earthquakes uh evolved and and how they are sophisticated but it wasn’t political or economic reasons which prevented construction for so long but the right techn ological solution that only came by the end of the 1980s boom years for Japan Akashi Bay is a place used to extreme natural conditions the seabed around here is some 100 m or 330 ft deep and the shore faces massive tidal streams at up to 4 1/2 m/ second it is close to Major International Shipping Lines but also located in a typhoon Zone worse the bay is located above the border of two tectonic plates and sees frequent earthquakes these were the factors which had to be carefully considered when designing the giant Bridge the construction of the pearl bridge as the link between coob and aaji Island was nicknamed commenced in 1988 work began by building massive bases for the embedding of the loadbearing cables simultaneously construction of the foundations of the future 300 M High Bridge Towers began on sea the towers are based 60 M below the sea surface and composed of gigantic steel cylinders it took 7 years to complete the two towers and to stretch the loadbearing cables over the bridge deck when it seemed that the construction was progressing successfully to its completion a devastating earthquake struck because of the extreme conditions in the region this bridge was designed to absorb shocks and Tremors caused by typhoons and earthquakes in 1995 an earthquake destroyed many buildings in Kobe but the nearly completed Bridge The Unfinished pearl bridge miraculously withstood the Quake the opening ceremony was attended by more than a thousand prominent guests including his Imperial highness Crown Prince Narito and his wife princess masaco thanks to 1,737 light installed on all parts of its structure the pearl bridge lights up in practically any [Music] color orison Bridge Denmark and Sweden orison Bridge is a critical component of a modern transport infrastructure that connects the Danish capital of Copenhagen with Malmo in Sweden altogether it is over 16 km long and consists of four parts a 3.5 km long underwater tunnel an artificial about 4 km Long Island a significantly smaller Peninsula built up by the Danish Shore and finally the bridge itself named after the orison strait which ient crosses the gigantic proportions of this almost 8 km long structure the combination of Road and rail traffic and the fact that the bridge connects two states and two great cities Copenhagen and malmer makes this construction one of the most interesting in the world the official contracts for building the orison bridge were signed in 1991 but the idea to connect the two countries is considerably older Architects and Engineers had been trying to solve the problem since the 1870s the most logical idea seemed to be placing the bridge at the narrowest point of the orison strait between the Danish helsingor and the Swedish heling born about 40 km north of Copenhagen there the waters are only 4 km wide eventually however the current site was chosen even though it was four times as long economic factors and transportation routes had a lot to do with the Bridge’s final location Works began in August 1995 with its last part being fitted 4 years later from a structural point of view the orison connector frame is a mixture of suspension bridge and classical Bridge the length of the whole structure which is the second longest bridge in the world is the remarkable 7,845 m [Applause] the first day of July 2000 became an historic day for both Denmark and Sweden as the oresund road and rail Bridge was officially opened the first train set off from Malmo to Copenhagen on July the 2nd 2000 at 6:09 a.m. Vehicles had begun crossing the bridge the night before this kind of connection is is is uh about Freedom it’s about freedom of movement it’s and I think the bridge in that part of the world the bridge has a completely different meaning I think life probably wouldn’t exist normally for them without these Bridge connections and this particular bridge is fascinating that that you come in or out through let looks like an artificial island in the water to cross this bridge so I think it’s it’s absolutely amazing [Music] a combination of reinforced concrete decks with supporting trusses underneath was used in this construction connection of the orison shores has not just fulfilled the old dream of the Danes and their Swedish Neighbors of shortening the journey between Malmo and Copenhagen to just 35 minutes it has created a completely new economic [Music] region Gates head Millennium Bridge Newcastle upon time United Kingdom [Music] the gates head Millennium Bridge is a pedestrian and cyclist tilt bridge that once seen is not quickly forgotten it spans the river TI in England between Gates heads Keys Arts quarter on the south bank and the key side of Newcastle upon th on the North [Music] Bank because of how it seems to open and shut to let ships pass through locals call it the blinking eye Bridge it’s the first Bridge which turns around its own axis to allow ships to go through and which when necessary can raise the whole pedestrian and cycle deck in point of fact its appearance owes as much to function as to form the whole Bridge rotates on the h huge joints embedded in the concrete struts on both banks of the river by turning thus the bridge allows for the passing of ships below it’s an unconventional solution but one which really makes this Thorofare for pedestrian traffic and cyclists One of a Kind the bridge is comprised of two main components the bridge of structure itself and the mechanism that elevates or more precisely rotates it by a few degrees the bridge is essentially made up of a pair of Steel parabolic arcs one of which is a supporting Arch that carries the deck curved in the direction of the river flow using the supporting rods on the deck there are two separate paths ensuring safe passage for both pedestrians and cyclists the elegantly shaped railing is reminiscent of luxury ocean liners from the golden days of cruise ship travel if this engineering can inspire people to move uh to to observe to appreciate engineering then it’s successful the second part of the structure is of course the tilting mechanism it consists of two large cylindrical pins [Music] these not only rotate the bridge but hold it together the tilting itself is performed by six hydraulic arms the tilting mechanism of the bridge consists of a pair of parabolic Steel archers one of which forms a curved bridge deck which is held by the second one utilizing a system of suspension rods embedded into the giant joints tilting of the bridge during which both archers act as counterweights lasts less than 5 minutes during this time anyone waiting impatiently on the banks or at the helm of a boat should thank the sophisticated hydraulic system run by eight powerful yet energy saving electric motors each time the bridge tilts it tidies itself up Earth’s gravity causes all the litter to slide into special bins placed on the bridge [Music] deck a competition to design the bridge was eventually won by the Wilkinson air architect studio in London and civil engineering firm of gford and partners on November 20 2000 the pre-assembled bridge was delivered to its new home location thousands of curious Spectators watched its installation it was performed using a Giant floating crane Hercules II which was brought by towboats from the Netherlands they were able to walk the bridge the very same day the official opening of the bridge which is since appeared on the one coin was not held until May the 7th 2002 with none other than Elizabeth II present evidently bridges are a real draw card for European monarchy in 2000 the 850 ton Bridge was awarded the most prestigious prize of the Royal Institute of British architects [Music] moo Viaduct moo [Music] France the Mio of Viaduct is a masterpiece of contemporary architectural engineering and a standout even among the quite stupendous bridges of the last few decades it definitely for me reflects French thinking uh that that if if we can do something Grand if there’s a reason to do something Grand and and uh it’s it fits to the place let’s do something Grand uh even Grand doesn’t mean overdone but Grand can be that let’s do the best bridge that could possibly be built here uh this the thinnest Bridge uh the the most narrow uh columns and and towers and this bridge expresses that when French Engineers began a new stretch of the motorway a75 between the cities of ferand and bezz near the town of moo they encountered what you might call a surmountable problem there were several ways of traversing the deep valley of the tan River taken into consideration a conventional concrete frame Bridge was seriously considered as were several types of truss and Arch Bridges finally the designs of the renowned Michelle Vira for as suspension bridge with eight spans were selected the collaboration between Architects and Engineers to applying new types of Technology was very important during the whole construction of the bridge the designs of Ura one of the best Bridge Engineers of our time Drew on a combination of concrete and steel which if properly maintained can ensure a working life of at least 120 years voga opted to use steel and concrete not just because of durability but because he believed the brid’s finished structure would then be graceful and aesthetically pleasing he invited the celebrated British architect so Norman Foster to cooperate on the final design thanks to Foster’s artistic upom and Vera’s engineering skills the bridge despite its size does not appear bulky in fact the contrary it almost hovers over the valley of the Tar River the lightness and at the same time stability of the bridge is ensured by the huge concrete pillars resembling Blades of grass there are seven of them with the shortest being 78 M or 253 ft tall when you factor in the steel masts on which the supporting steel cables are fixed the highest pylon reaches a daunting height of 343 M each of the loadbearing reinforced concrete towers sits on four cylindrical bases the lower part of the loadbearing tower is a hollow concrete parallelogram at height of about 90 M below the bridge deck the pillars divide into two Hollow sh shs in a y shape for good reason this solution increases the strength of the deck in its longitudinal Direction while reducing the stress caused by temperature change after they were erected in 4 meter sections the outer scaffolding slid off automatically and the inner scaffolding was moved with a crane supporting truss steel structures were constructed in between between the pylons at the top of each pylon a specially designed sophisticated hydraulic lifter was installed whose task was to lift the deck up at regular intervals and move it a few inches closer to the center of the bridge as it took shape the construction of the bridge deck is an unbroken steel girder supported by a butman and seven intermediate pylons work on the deck progressed from both sides at a speed of about 10 m or 33 ft per hour after completion of this process when both parts of the bridge deck had been precisely matched welders connected the bridge and the steel masts bearing the supporting cables were placed on each pylon the resulting Mila Viaduct merges harmoniously with its surrounding landscape another example of how Form and Function [Applause] mix today’s Great Bridge Building engineering Works would not have been possible without sophisticated computers cuttingedge Building Technology and new materials with Incredible features they are fascinating breathtaking structures that often seem to deny the laws of nature as long as we need to get from one place to another Bridges will remain inherently linked with the march of progress and of [Applause] [Music] civilization Humanity has been bestowed with great gifts perhaps greatest of all is our imagination because ultimately it’s our imaginations that enable us to shape the world around us the most obvious examples of that are the great buildings and architecture all around us but which works of architecture should we see during our lifetimes find out in top 10 the art of architecture the word Mega structure which in today’s world is widely used is actually made up of two words from different languages classical Greek and Latin Mega is derived from the Greek word megas which means big or huge while structure originates from the Latin verb stura meaning to compose construct or assemble so it’s fitting that the first mega structures were built by ancient civil izations especially the Romans who going as far back as 2,000 years managed to cover ancient Europe with a network of paved roads measuring an impressive 150,000 km [Music] the Trans Siberian Railway Russia one of the most expensive challenging and daring constructions in world history must surely be the Trans Siberian railroad even today more than a century after its first tracks were laid it Remains the longest railway in the world this 9,289 km long Railway line passes through 7 time zones and takes more than 6 days beginning to end connecting Western Russia with its eastern coast so the transiberian highway fulfilled already its all purpose until today it winds through wild Landscapes traverses the wide waterways of Russian rivers and streams and continues relentlessly through seemingly endless forests the first point of departure is the yuros slavski terminal in Moscow from the Russian Capital the railway passes through yaroslav crossing the vulga Europe’s longest river at its 1,777 colomer in the urel mountains the railroad traverses the geographic boundary between Europe and Asia Yet to Come are the cities of ainur Omsk on the river ATI and Nova the Ural Region’s largest Metropolis going over the river OB as it does so close to the city of cras the Railway crosses over yet another large river the Y in Utz one of the largest cities in Siberia the railway track passes through the paved shores of Lake Bal thought to be the world’s deepest and oldest Lake after anulan UD capital of the Republic of budaka the track leads towards the border with China at the city of kabaro it crosses the river Amur its final destination is the city of vavoso on the Pacific coast the main track also connects to other lines International routes such as the China Far Eastern Railway ending invasion Beijing and the trans Mongolian Railway which also takes passengers to Beijing but by crossing the Mongolian Plains Russians needed really to have this ril from one Eastern side to the western side of the country proposals for a railway line that would connect Siberia with the Pacific coast had been around for a while but the idea of building a railway line making the vast isolated Siberian territories more accessible became popular in the 1880s during the reign of Zar Alexander III a connecting line between St Petersburg and Moscow had already been built by 1851 but it took until 1890 before the plans for the Trans Siberian Railway were officially approved Sergey Vita who later became Minister of Finance was appointed as its director the track was divided into several segments and squads of workers moved by stages from each end of the track towards a central meeting [Music] point the construction was not without problems a lack of time and financial constraints meant that there was not enough money for Dynamite so the workers had to dig all the tunnels manually meager wages and for conditions enticed few so prisoners and later soldiers were called to work on the railway but the soldiers refused to work side by side with criminals and rioted overflowing Rivers disease ridden swamps extreme weather and backbreaking toil all these factors plagued the railways assembly with laborers forced to work like slaves despite such setbacks the track was finally completed and offici opened in 19005 the jewelry designer Peter Carl Fab created one of his famous eggs to celebrate this feat of engineering and bloody-minded determination Zar Nicholas II gave the egg to his wife Empress Alexandra Fedorova nice for [Music] some the New York City subway system New York City United States the New York City subway is one of the most famous Transport Systems in the world in its own way it has become one of the symbols of the city the subway was opened at the beginning of the 20th century but its roots go back to the need for a safe and dependable public transport system to relieve the crowded streets of New York this was already already a concern by the mid 19th [Music] century by that time the United States had become the number one destination for millions of immigrants from around the world looking for the chance of a new life due to New York City’s strategic location on the west coast that’s where most ships loaded with immigrants were headed [Music] the best part of it it is that actually you you go on the ground but you also see the city there you hear the music people are playing you actually it’s another world underneath the ground that is super interesting for a city to also have private companies in the 18 unds provided the option of horsedrawn carriages but some means of Passenger transport away from street level became increasingly necessary in the 1860s and 1870s two track steam powerered elevated railroads were built over some of the major Avenues but the very first Subway tunnel in New York was initiated by inventor Alfred elely beach in 1870 it was only 95 M long yet a team of six diggers managed to build it in a mere 58 days it carried just one pneumatic car Beach’s Transit became a great attraction but could not meet public transport needs after 3 years of operation the tunnel was closed the difficulty of building uh Urban underground Railway system was always the interaction between the tunnel and the the streets and the houses above so the engineers had to be very careful a significant incentive for building the subway was the Great Blizzard that struck the east coast in 1888 it brought surface transport to a standstill making the benefits of an underground Railway line all the more evident in 1898 Central New York and its surrounding towns and Villages were Consolidated into the city of Greater New York helping to streamline construction of an extensive underground transport system the work began with a new century in the year 1900 tunnels were built from the surface using the so-called cut and cover method the subway was eventually opened on October the 27th 194 City Hall which had financed the operation a initially leased the subway to two private transport companies inbar rapid Transport company the IR and the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Corporation BMT in 1932 another line was built and this was operated by the city-owned company the independent subway system in in the 1940s the city bought both private companies however the even to this day the lines can be distinguished because of the different parameters of the tracks IR operated smaller cars therefore its tunnels were narrower and turns in the track were sharper compared to those of BMT even today the former IR tracks are designated as a division while the B division consists of former BMT tracks today the new New York City subway has 469 stations most of which are open 24 hours the total track length is about 1,000 km of which more than 700 km are located [Music] underground the rest of the tracks are either overhead or located at street level in 2014 the subway was host to more than 1 and 3/4 billion passenger [Music] Journeys the channel tunnel United Kingdom [Music] France throughout history many rulers have aspired to unite Great Britain with France they have strived for political unification or for more power over both countries with mixed results however these two countries divided by the English Channel have been United since the end of 1994 by the railway tunnel that runs under the bottom of the English [Music] Channel the idea to link the two countries was first discussed in the 19th century on both sides of the channel in 1880 tesed and construction surveys were carried out on English and French territories however the British backed out over concerns for National Security after World War I the construction of a tunnel was discussed a new but without any tangible [Music] result during World War II after after the surrender of France the British were concerned the Germans might start to dig such a tunnel with the purpose of invading [Music] Britain I think in general when you do this kind of Mega structure project what you actually do is in the same as in the internet you connect people much faster the mid 1950s brought about the renewal of geological research an agreement between the two countries was eventually signed in 1973 by British prime minister Edward Heath and French President George pomu and a year later the digging of tunnels began in 1975 however the British labor government called time on the project it wasn’t until 11 years later with the conservative party’s return to power that the agreement was renewed it was signed by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and French President franois miton in 1986 in the British cathedral city which gives the agreement its name the Treaty of [Music] Canterbury especially for people if you imagine that you travel from the center of City from Paris to the center of London in very short time with highspeed trains there’s nothing to [Music] compare in 1988 the French began digging a tunnel at COA in the department of P de Cal while the British started near the kentish town of folston the British used a mole tunneling boring machine for cutting through chalk M as originally outlined in designs from the early 1960s two tunnels were made for transportation and a third located midway between them was dug for Maintenance and Service [Music] it’s interesting to note that the public was always in favor of an automobile tunnel ventilation problems and the difficulty of dealing with traffic accidents however provided unassailable obstacles so it was decided to concentrate on the railway alternative nowadays Eurostar train passengers can travel the 50.5 km long tunnel of which almost 38 km lies below the bottom of the English [Music] Channel obviously commuters and travelers are cated for by eurotunnel shuttle freight trains are also allowed to make use of the tunnel stations on either side of the channel are connected by highways ensuring better access for those traveling by car or bus moreover at the turn of the Millennium the British built a high-speed Railway track from London St panr station to the channel tunnel the journey from London to Paris only takes 2 hours and 15 minutes one of the first passengers to ever make the trip on the undersea line was Queen Elizabeth II who together with French president franois mitan officially opened the tunnel on May the 6 1994 according to Eurostar since then more than 366 million passenger Journeys have been made through the so-called [Music] channel the sewers Canal Egypt connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and opening up the shortest route for for ships sailing between Europe and Asia Egypt sewers Canal is one of the greatest construction Endeavors in history the First channels in the area were created by the ancient rulers of Egypt and Persia but they gradually became blocked with river sediments and sand from the sprawling desert in the 15th century a sea route around the Cape of Good Hope was discovered but as Maritime transport developed shortening the journey to the far East became ever more [Music] desirable attempts to build a channel reemerged in 1798 with Egypt’s Invasion by Napoleon bonapart nearly 60 years later a French engineer and Diplomat named Ferdinand deeps tried to revive the grand scheme when you plan the channel as a su Channel you have to choose very carefully the place or the route where the channel will be built in 1854 he obtained a concession to build the canal from his powerful friend SED Pasha a grand viser of the Ottoman Empire a few years later LPS founded the corporation compan Universal de Canal marim Dez in which his Patron SED paser was one of the major shareholders under the terms of the contract SED Pasha was obliged to supply Manpower so he called in Egyptian Farmers the workers were divided into two groups those advancing North from the new established Portside and south from the city of Suz the two work Crews were to meet at the great Bitter Lake s’s successor isma was accused by the British of exploiting slaves to do the hard work Ismael promptly dismissed the workers and gave LPS money for the purchase of vital construction equipment things began to progress much faster sand excavated from the seabed by mining machines was used in the cement which reinforced the Channel’s wall and floor construction of the 164 km long Canal was finally completed in 1869 when the Canal was officially opened it’s effective but it also a very challenge concerning nature and resources and so for me nature coming first and then we have to find out how we can deal with it isma paser had a sense of occasion to commemorate the Canal’s opening he ordered the building of the Cairo opera house which staged the premere of V’s Opera AA the sewers Canal has more than once been caught up in interventions by foreign powers nationalization of the canal in 1956 was to be a principal cause of the conflict known as the Suz crisis Israeli French and British forces pushed into Egypt toward the sez Canal angering the US and creating a major diplomatic [Music] incident the canal was also extended many times for instance in 19 1956 it had a width of 148 m in 2010 that was up to 313 m in 2014 work began on the so-called new sewers Canal a parallel Canal between the 60th and 95th km the new Canal is intended to ensure two directional parallel traffic and accelerate the speed of traffic the 2001 built ladan Railway Bridge which crosses the canal near the town of ishala is to date the world’s largest swing [Music] Bridge Mamay tunnel turkey the Bosphorus whose Shores embrace the Turkish capital of Istanbul is more than simply a straight between the black and marous seas since time immemorial it has been regarded as a Gateway between Europe and Asia but the boss for Strait has been an important strategic Point since ancient times the ancient Greeks originally founded a settlement called Byzantium on its banks the straight was well enough known to be mentioned by the historian Herodotus and dramus escalus to fulfill the the kind of green new transport [Music] system the first person to connect its banks was Persian ruler Darius I around 513 BC he ordered the creation of a floating bridge made up of the hulls of ships from his Fleet in modern times two suspension bridges span the Bosphorus the first named simply the Bosphorus Bridge was completed in 1973 the second built in 1988 is called the faith Sultan mem Bridge both bridges are slightly over 1 km in length istan buul of course is a teeming Metropolis with more than 10 million inhabitants so it goes without saying that traffic through the Straits whether between sea or land is heavy in response to this the Turkish government at the turn of the Millennium decided to build a 13.5 kilm long railway tunnel part of which would run under the bottom of the bosphorous straight the almost 1.4 km long section of the tunnel is more than 4 M below the tube tunnel it was also built to withstand earthquakes something which plague is [Music] dble it is made out of fireproof concrete specifically developed in Norway the undersea tunnel section which weighs some 18,000 tons consists of 11 sections each approximately 110 M long on average the route connects the Kazi Railway Station built in the European part of the city in 1872 to the newly built terminal erck Shi on the Asian side the Turkish Engineers had more difficulty with geology because it’s quite uh heavy tectonic base and uh the risk of earthquake was very present construction work was preceded by an archaeological survey of the yenu site on the European Shoreline intended to become one of the terminals instead archaeolog discovered the remains of a byzantian port dating from the 4th Century ad if you compare European um Channel Crossings and uh Turkish marar tunnel there are similarity that you connect uh the continents the archaeologists also discovered the remains of 37 ships ranging in date from the 7th to the 11th centuries these fascinating discoveries however delay made the actual construction work and the Planned opening of the tunnel in 2009 has been postponed more than once currently the Reconstruction of the original tracks and their adaptation for use by modern trains is underway the existing 11 stops will eventually be joined by another 36 connecting the stations Halal and GZA located over 75 km apart there there is a sense in which all these Mega structures are children of the 19th century Industrial Revolution and its boundless optimism and faith in technology for good or ill and sometimes both it was this technological Industrial Revolution which radically changed the shape of the world around us and gave rise to our modern industrialized civilization the primary needs of this new Society included the fast effective and safe transport of ever greater numbers of people and huge volumes of goods it was the need for efficient mass transport that gave birth to Mega structures and to our contemporary transport [Music] infrastructure Beijing Shanghai high-speed Railway China [Music] the high-speed Railway which links the two Chinese mega cities of Beijing and Shanghai was first launched on June the 30th 2011 and highspeed is an accurate description while its track is some 1,38 km or 819 M long trains move along it at speeds of up to 300 km per hour with this dizzying speed the travel time between the two cities has de increased to a mere 5 hours yet according to the original plans the speed of the trains was supposed to be a staggering 80 km [Applause] faster however to run a railway track with operating speeds of 380 kmph turned out to come with some unforeseen economic disadvantages [Music] [Music] the railway’s original implementation whose cost was estimated at $220 billion was entrusted to the Beijing Shanghai high-speed Railway company they had to design a track that could sustain 220,000 passengers per day who at rush hour are transported by trains leaving the stations at 5 Minute intervals the track faces steep climbs as well as numerous rivers and valleys it includes a total of 224 Bridges two of which are truly unique the first is a 164 km Long Bridge system or Viaduct called the danyang kunan Grand bridge and it’s the longest bridge in the world the second also impressive is the 114 km long Viaduct between Ling fing and quinkan and at the time of its construction the second longer structure of its kind on the 1,300 plus km Journey there are also 22 tunnels along the way making making up a total length of 16 km the railway which surprisingly is not actually the holder of any speed records is utilized by several types of trains made in [Music] China firstly there are G category trains their Construction and design are based on proven German ic3 high-speed trains deploying Seaman crh3 technology in 2011 92 trains were made in cooperation with this company they come in two designs with either eight or 16 [Music] cars each is equipped with first and second class sections in open space cars and of course course this being modern China luxury business class there are also dining and sightseeing Cars located at the end of each train 65 of the trains travel at 300 km per hour while the rest are about 50 km slower it is also possible to travel the track at night in Sleepers Preparatory construction work began in April 2008 while track laying commenced 2 years [Music] later high-speed Railway construction was completed on February the 4th 2011 thanks in large part to the 130,000 laborers who worked on the Assembly of this ultramodern transport system [Music] The honu shikoku Bridge Project Japan The honu shoko Bridge Project is a transport system connecting the largest Japanese island of honu with shikoku the country’s smallest island once only accessible by sea the system which itself has become synonymous with the word Mega structure is made up of three sections the idea of connecting the two islands first gained popularity in the late 1950s in response to a tragic accident that occurred at Akashi Bay the Collision of two fairies claimed 168 victims but it was a full decade before the Japanese government would venture on such a complex and expensive project it was not however political or economic reasons which prevented construction from going ahead for so long but the absence of technology for building bridges in this tectonically active area technology which only emerged in the early 1970s when Japanese tried to connect the bigger cities in Japan they had no choice than to fight very very difficult conditions mountains the Seas the bays and also the conditions like earthquakes Preparatory work started with a field survey in 1970 but construction itself was delayed due to the oil crisis of 1973 implementation of the first stage lasted a decade and cost $7 billion more than3 A2 million cubic M of concrete and 75,000 tons of steel was employed in the process and although stringent security measures were applied this gigantic project still cost 13 lives all mea structures are exposed to the weather so the weather influences a lot the structures its materials and very often its lifetime is very short the first of the three sections is 46.6 KM long and consists of nine suspension bridges connecting the seven small Islands this route also includes a dense network of access roads and feeder roads the second route called the central route due to its position is 32 km long and together with a railway track for shinkansen high-speed trains has been in operation since April 1988 it passes through a set of six Bridges 9 1/2 km long in total the last of the three sections is at 89 km the longest due to its geographical position it is known also as the Eastern route it incorporates the longest suspension bridge in the world and one of the most beautiful of all Japanese Bridges the Akashi Kiko Bridge nicknamed the pearl bridge spanning a staggering 3,911 M the pearl bridge was completed in 1998 The honu shikoku Bridge Project which has contributed to the development of Japan not least as an economic Powerhouse was not completed until 2006 it consists of a system of double story mostly truss suspension bridges Japanese Engineers deployed concrete and steel in the construction of these Bridges as well as that high-end technology and knowhow that is justly celebrated around the world [Music] Highway 1 Australia although Australia is planet Earth’s smallest continent and a country with a human population smaller than that of Tokyo it has one of the longest road networks on the planet the Australian National Road known as Highway 1 is a Ring Road leading anticlockwise from Melbourne to Adelaide it is 145,000 KM long 9,000 M and winds its way through major Australian cities such as Sydney Brisbane cans Darwin broom Perth and [Music] Caravan up until 1941 Western and Eastern Australia were connected solely by Telegraph and Railways the first modern Highway in Australia was only built during World War II by the Army in cooperation with the office of Allied Works Council established in 1942 after the war in 1947 the government adopted a new road law the highway one in Australia was actually planned it was not created by centuries from small roads to bigger roads and then to highways it was really planned the construction of Australia’s Highway 1 began in Earnest in 1955 yet Highway 1 is not a Motorway in the true sense of the word it is more like a standard two or thre Lane Road the third lane here is the passing lane or overtaking Lane in Australian English actual motorways of the European or American type with grade separated intersections are rare in Australia such motorways have only been built in recent decades especially near the larger cities many sections are therefore still under construction an interesting feature of some highways or freeways as these longdistance roads are called in Australia are there side lanes for cyclists so it’s Highway that encounters all possible engineering problems you may have speed limits are generally 110 km per hour but in the Northern Territory a car can hurtle along some 20 km faster anyone who decides to travel around Australia by car and take the circular Highway 1 must take into account the fact that the network of gas stations and rest stops are quite often located 100 or more kilm apart [Music] Highway 1 is the only Australian road to which all major roads are connected there are about 83,000 km of roads on this continent 472,000 of which are paved roads the rest consists of local and Country Roads of which which around 20% are dirt roads and only traversable 7 to 8 months of the [Music] year Panama Canal [Music] Panama since 1914 the continents of North and South America have been linked by a canal built in the ismos of Panama a thin strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean plans to build such a canal had been around for some 300 years a canal connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic would have shortened the route of ships by thousands of kilometers ships would also have been able to avoid the Hazardous Route Around Tiera del Fuego in 1876 the ambitious project was taken up by a gentleman experienced in such undertakings this was Ferdinand LPS the French engineer and author of the sewers Canal it was to be one of the most expensive construction projects in history works that were preceded by extensive clearing of Panamanian forest and difficult grading Engineers had to tackle a mountain range through which they cut a narrow artificial Valley the so called Kera cut the plight of the workers who had only primitive tools was made worse by heavy rain and landslides a yellow fever epidemic killed hundreds of laborers every month unsurprisingly the work slowed down and costs went up neither the concealment of inconvenient truths to investors or the national Lottery could save the company from bankruptcy and the French government from Scandal as ministers were accused of taking bribes among the accused was the engineer Gustav Eiffel who had come aboard to create a series of locks as typically found on canals the project ground to a halt and Ferdinand LPS died in disgrace but 17 years later the project was taken up by the US government not not only on construction itself but also on planning of such a structure they need to take precaution of uh different effects of geology of uh Hydraulics of uh power supply Etc the Americans bought the land with the remains of the unfinished Canal for 10 million US president Theodore Roosevelt put John Stevens in charge of the work thanks to heavy machinery the workers managed to excavate as much soil during a single day as the French had managed in a month attacks of yellow fever also decreased so far so good in May 196 however the shagra River flooded with landslides destroying mining [Music] Machinery his spirits crushed Stevens began to question the entire project proposing in instead a system of locks as begun by Gustav Eiffel a few months later Stevens was replaced by one Colonel George [Music] goles ironically goles supported the idea of a system of locks under his leadership locks were built near the artificial gutan Lake on the Caribbean coast and Pedro mguel and Mira Flores locks were built at the entrance to the Gulf of Panama break Waters were constructed near the approach channels to both oceans in October of 1913 The Works of the Cabra cut were successfully completed the first ship sailed through the canal the following year the over 77 kmet long Canal is crossed by several Bridges the most famous the bridge of the Americas is located in Panama City for many years it served as the main Bridge of the Pan-American [Music] Highway even today the engineers are still finding ways to improve the Panama Canal extending its parts and making the transport system flow [Music] faster the interstate highway system United [Music] States it seems hard to believe nowadays but the United States of America only began building its interstate highway system in the 1950s champion of this project was Dwight Eisenhower legendary American General and president it was thanks to his initiative that the crucial Federal Highway Act was adopted on June the 29th 1956 but the origin of the system was not only to move people from one side to the other but also to be prepared for the world war [Music] the path to making the Federal Highway Act a reality was a bumpy road despite the support of Ike opponents thought that building a road network was an enormous waste of money but the 1950s were marked by the Cold War and the threat of nuclear a conflict so when the network started to be discussed in terms of National Security its opponents eventually gave Eisenhower’s proposal the green [Music] light Eisenhower will forever be connected to the interstate highway system in ways quite personal to his life and career the first was back in 1919 when the still young major Eisenhower was a part of an army Convoy from Washington DC to San Francisco the purpose of the Convoy was to test Vehicles Road quality and transport speed in the event of War on the existing network of Roads 81 military vehicles moved at average speeds of a mere 6 kmph leaving a lot to be [Music] desired even if you get all the all the car driving on green uh kind of electricity or some other green uh um Innovation that uh then it still take up so much space that uh it will be a big change I guess the second experience which convinced the future president the US would need modern highways was the march of the Victorious American Army across Nazi Germany Eisenhower was impressed by the Reich highway system the reich’s autoban back in the peacetime us the 1956 Federal Highway Act allowed for the construction of 41,000 Mi of highways at a cost of $129 [Music] billion according to the letter of the law 90% of the construction was to be financed by the federal government with the remaining 10% coming from individual states the government drew the necessary funds from higher taxes levied on each gallon of gasoline sold at the same time the government set strict standards and specifications like multi-lane roads or interchanges of which there are now 16,000 in operation [Music] final construction of the US interstate highway system was only completed in 1981 and this network still has the densest traffic and highest speed limits in the world the average speed limit is around 70 mph but it can go significantly higher the routs are laid out in a check board pattern even numbered routes go from north to south while odd numbered routes indicate connections between East and West we can mention also the system uh riding in the Convoy so many cars can join with the automatic system so there are many tools and many inventions that can be placed in highway system although the massive project was continued by Eisenhower’s presidential successes such as F Kennedy Lynden B Johnson and others the interstate highway system Bears the name of its founder Dwight [Music] Eisenhower that’s why even today you can find the inscription Eisenhower Interstate System on most highways under a circle of white stars on a blue background [Music] the mega structures we have looked at together represent the three essential modern Transport Systems that is to say rail ship and Road each Mega structure is a masterpiece of its time enriching and simplifying the lives of many millions [Music] worldwide these hugely ambitious Creations often took decades to build and involved astronomical Financial costs but also a considerable degree of human sacrifice on balance though the costs in monetary terms and even Blood Sweat and Tears were not in vain if we consider the progress in science technology and quality of life these Mighty Mega structures brought with [Music] them Humanity has been bestowed with great gifts perhaps greatest of all is our imagination because ultimately it’s our imaginations that enable us to shape the world around us the most obvious examples of that are the great buildings and architecture all around us but which works of architecture should we see during our lifetimes find out in top 10 the art of architecture museums are treasure houses of human history in the past they were usually private and only after time did their collections become accessible to The Wider public buildings dedicated to storing preserving and displaying collections started to emerge whether by transforming existing buildings or by erecting brand new new purpose-built edifices the 10 museums we look at in this episode are some of the most visited buildings in the world each one rightly famous for its impressive design [Music] Guggenheim Museum bilau Spain on the Left Bank of the river nearon in belar the larger city of Spanish Bas country stands at the distinctive Guggenheim Museum bilb designed by the world famous Canadian born architect Frank oi it is a groundbreaking Exemplar of 20th century architecture housing modern and Contemporary Art the gugenheim museum bilb is one of the three museums operated by the Solomon R gugenheim Foundation founded back in 1937 in the late 1980s Basque authorities put a lot of energy into revitalizing bilar and in 1991 they approached the Guggenheim Foundation about the building of a museum in BB’s former Port area displaying Treasures from the Guggenheim collection and if you compare that with some other modern museums that have been built since then uh the balance can can can kind of um um tilt over a bit that the architecture takes over the space and the art becomes secondary in the thing and then it becomes difficult the foundation chose a boldly ideosyncratic design by giri who in 1989 had been awarded the pritsker architecture prize the Nobel Prize of architecture giri designed a curved irregularly shaped titanium glass and Limestone structure supported by Steel the building is coated with around 33,000 titanium sheets that reflect light and change color according to weather and light conditions [Music] this this building has actually become a representative for a whole way of [Music] thinking construction on the 32,000 plus square m site started in 19 1993 and the museum was opened 4 years later by the then king of Spain Juan Carlos [Music] I the heart of the museum and one of its signature features is the atrium around which are the three floors which house the galleries 50 m high and with large glass curtain walls The Atrium is flooded with light and trapped by a huge metal Skylight in the shape of a flower the Museum’s 20 galleries are connected by a network of curved catwalks staircases and glass elevators they provide different perspectives on the exhibition spaces which take up approximately 11,000 square m some of the galleries are built along classical lines While others are more irregular or organic in their proportions you don’t know anything about the inside of it but you have the feeling when you see all these forms that maybe how is the proportions nobody tells you about that or what is inside actually the largest Gallery is 30 m wide 130 M long and completely free of columns it houses Richard Sarah’s Monumental installation the matter of time which consists of his 100 m long steel sculpture snake and seven newer sculptures positioned around it outside the gallery a Motorway Bridge was cleverly incorporated into the Museum’s exterior [Music] design the gugenheim museum Museum bilau half sculpture half building is one of the world’s most spectacular buildings in the deconstructivist style the most important building of gir’s architectural career it is an instantly recognizable icon of the city of [Music] Bill the reiches museum Amsterdam the Netherlands the first reich’s Museum originally opened to the public in 1800 as the National Art Gallery in the Haag in 185 the entire collection was shifted to the new capital of Amsterdam and the museum was given its present name the reiches or imperial Museum and by analyzing existing architecture and and also you you you can learn a lot about it the present building on museum Square was first opened in 1885 after 9 years of construction it was designed by the Dutch architect Pierre cpz also responsible for Amsterdam Central Station and numerous churches in the Netherlands [Music] his Neo Gothic red brick design for the reiches museum mixed Gothic and Renaissance Styles and employed materials and decorations lifted straight from Dutch art looking not unlike a fairy detail Castle from the outside the interior was divided by a thorough Fair creating two inner Courtyards the facad was richly decorated with reliefs sculptures tiles and stained glass windows while the interior was adorned with murals mosaics and rectangular columns numerous alterations were made during the 20th century in order to do away with any interior decorations which competed for attention with the master pieces on display colored walls were whitewashed and additional exhibition rooms were added to the two courtyards [Music] from 2004 to 2013 the museum went through a major refurbishment directed by the Spanish Architects Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz they combined the Museum’s original layout with modern facilities climate control and security features probably most impressive was the transformation of the courtyards into a double Atrium linked by a passageway below this cre created a new entrance hall to the museum glass vaults in the atrium meant sunlight was restored to the courtyards the auditorium and Museum shop below the Limestone floors are now at 9.25 M below sea level you can you can actually strip down a lot of old buildings to their their organization and their structure and the ideas and there are some very very nice ideas in the of these old buildings in some of the Museum’s main Halls including the night watch Gallery designed to Showcase Rembrandt’s world famous painting of the same name a team of restoration experts went to work the gallery’s Interiors had originally been designed by the French designer Jean Michelle Wilmont most famous for his Interiors in the M de the museum presents the world’s largest collection of Dutch pain paintings from the 15th to the 19th century but is most celebrated for its paintings from the 17th century golden age of Dutch art including the work of artists such as rembrand and France HS today’s reich’s museum is case study of how Creative Solutions responded to the challenge of renovating a building already considered a National Treasure eventually it was not so much renovated as reinvented [Music] Museum andest antp Belgium this museum is the youngest of all the buildings in our top 10 and the only one where the permanent exhibition is not devoted to Fine Art and art history Instead This Museum’s focus is on ethnography and the history of the Belgian city of antp and by extension the world to which antp has been connected for centuries VI its thriving sea port the museum on the River or the mass for short is located on the right Bank of the river shelf between the two oldest docks in antp on the site of the former htic house an important trade and shipping office and Warehouse well until it burned down in 1893 in 2000 the do architectural firm ning Ric won the tender to design the new Museum building actual construction took four years from 2006 to 2010 the museum opened with the exhibition masterpieces in the mass five centuries of images in antp contrasting the city depicted by the 16th and 17th Century Masters with that of contemporary artists it’s the same as in the S pomu you see the people on the outside moving across the facade and you can understand the building when you look at it from the outside and I think that’s important to give people a chance to actually understand the building the 10-story rusty red Warehouse is in some ways an homage to the 19th century warehouses typical of the harbor District it also resembles a pile of gigantic box piled one on top of the other the 60 M high tower is supported by a Central Concrete core encasing elevators and fire escapes steel frames which can be seen inside the exhibition Halls are suspended from the core the outer walls of prefabricated concrete panels are attached to the ends of these frames thus the whole exterior becomes an adjustable space one level with that then they turn it a bit then it’s glass then they turn it a bit and it’s bricks and it’s it’s a playful thing with a high house a facade of corrugated glass can be rotated a quarter turn at each level of the building these corrugated curtains of glass are 5.5 m High the interior space with an escalator inside forms a kind of large spiral staircase affording constantly changing views of the city the building is covered by large panels of handcut Indian red Sandstone with a computer generated four-colored Mosaic pattern a recurring Motif are metal ornaments in the shape of hands symbol of the city of antp which adorns the exterior the same pattern is repeated inside the square at the foot of the tower is made from the same natural red stone and is an ideal space for events and open air exhibits construction of the mass was part of the Redevelopment of the harba district which is coming back to life as old warehouses are converted into Lofts and several other large public buildings have opened the mass the largest museum in Antwerp and a unique public space has become an icon of this Dynamic urban renewal [Music] the E Fitzy Gallery Florence [Music] Italy the museum with the finest collection of Italian Renaissance paintings is unsurprisingly located in Florence Italy the city’s his historic Center was listed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 1982 the EIT Gallery is close to the Ponto Veo the famous bridge across the river Aro and The Palazo Veo Florence’s Town Hall in front of which proudly stands a replica of Michelangelo’s David the gallery is housed in The Palazo Deli yitzi which was commissioned by the Duke of Florence Kimo I de medich in 1559 to hold all of the various Florentine officers or yitzy in Italian it was designed by the famous painter and architect Giorgio vasari it was however Kimo Med’s son and successor Francesco the first who insisted the top floor of the EIT become a repository for the medich art collection the gallery was created in 1581 on completion of its East [Music] Wing in more historical buildings you walk kind of often through the rooms in in the center of it so you you will enter a room and then you have the exhibition all based on the fact that you hang paintings on on the walls around it and then you kind of enter through from one room to the other or along the Galleries at the side where you kind of go into these spaces this Gallery was only accessible to certain VIP visitors but in 1769 the future Holy Roman Emperor Leopold of the House of Lorraine inherited all of the medich property when the dynasty finally came to an end it was Leopold who first opened the gallery to the public a classic example of architecture from the late Renaissance mannerist period the palace forms a u shape with a long and narrow open courtyard lined by a double logia of columns which connects with the river Aro and the Piaza DEA senorina a portico opens up from the courtyard to the river and forms a picture that is most pleasing to the eye [Music] the symmetrical outline of the building’s exterior is not however repeated within an irregular ground plan is divided into halls and corridors of various shapes and sizes the ground floor also incorporates remnants of a Romanesque church one of the many buildings demolished before work first began on the the construction of the palace but the heart of the gallery is the domed octagonal Hall on the second floor known as the tribuna it displays the most important masterpieces from the mediche [Music] collection in the old days when they exhibited paintings in these rooms you had the walls covered with paintings um you actually didn’t have this thing like you have in modern art where you have a big white wall and you have this single painting but you have 20 paintings on the [Music] walls over the centuries the gallery has continued to expand from the top floor to the lower levels the mum’s exhibition space has also doubled in size over the past few decades due to constant renovations the palace was arguably Georgio vasari’s finest architectural achievement and a true Masterpiece the first building in Florence that was fully conceived as a model of Urban Design the beautiful views of the EIT from across the ano are testimony to vasari’s Visionary genius [Music] Hermitage Museum St Petersburg Russia founded in 173 and once The Shining new capital of the great Russian Empire Today St Petersburg is Russia’s second largest city situated just 100 km from the border with Finland the city is home to the Hermitage Museum which contains a vast collection of some 3 million works of art including some of the most important European [Music] artists four buildings for different purposes in the beginning and they are mirring in the water the museum is housed across seven buildings from the 18th and 19th century five of the buildings make up a formidable interconnected Palace complex on the banks of the river Nea this includes the Winter Palace former Imperial residence of Russian monarchs since its conception in 1753 the already colossal Barack Winter Palace with more than 460 luxuriously decorated rooms was continually expanded by the Zars in 1764 Empress C Catherine the Great soon ordered that a new Wing effectively another Palace be added to it intended as a place of retreat from the formalities of the court she named it the Hermitage and furnished it with at least 225 paintings by femish and Dutch [Music] Masters even though these buildings are quite Monument mental there is still some peace in it I think In This Very Organized way of of doing a building the Hermitage now known as the small Hermitage was built in two stages first the Russian Court architect Yuri Velton combined the Barack Style with the new fashion for neoclassicism to create the southern [Music] Pavilion in the second stage French architect Jean Baptist valand Lort built the northern Pavilion adopting the more auster neoclassical [Music] style the two Pavilions were then connected by Hanging Gardens and galleries to complete the small Hermitage in [Music] 1775 in museums of Modern Art you need a completely different flexibility from what you needed in Old museums where you would traditionally have rooms where you place sculptures and you have rooms where you hang paintings on the [Music] walls Catherine the Great bought up masterpieces in large quantities to create a collection comparable to those of other European monarchs not finished yet she ordered the construction of a larger building next to it on the embankment this neoclassical building was named the great Hermitage and was intended to house all the palace collections plus the [Music] library Katherine’s grandson Nicholas I commissioned the new Hermitage Russia’s First purpose-built Art Museum it opened the public in 1852 the remaining two buildings of the Hermitage complex are the Hermitage theater and The Winter Palace this was declared a museum in 1917 after the October Revolution overthrew the romanof dynasty in the Hermitage Museum European designs still feature strong hints of traditional Russian architecture while The Splendid exhibition Halls are a monument to the byon Imperial Dynasty no wonder it has been dubbed the Russian BL there are many museums not just popular with visitors for the artifacts they have on display but due to their architecture the 20th century was an especially Rich era in museum design spawning Creations which would become icons of their host cities in the instance of buildings from an earlier time one can admire their Grandeur but also think back on the historic events to which they stood Silent Witness or in some cases those events which swept right through them [Music] British museum London [Music] UK although the building is not as Grand as the Hermitage the collections at the British museum in London are more than twice the size of its Russian counterpart indeed the British museum is home to one of the largest permanent exhibitions in the museum world the British museum was first established in the 18th century when the physician naturalist and collector sir Han Sloan bequeathed his private collection to King and Country in in historical times it was often a show of of wealth and what you have and in modern times one has started I think since the ‘ 80s ’70s 80s started using Museum as an Impulse the British museum was originally housed in a 17th century Mansion which stood on the present site in the Bloomsbury area of C London however after the king’s Library a collection of books created by George III was donated to the nation a new building was needed the new quadrangle building surrounding a large Central Courtyard with four wings and a grand South Front was designed by Leading English architect Sir Robert smirk in 1823 smirk designed the building in the then popular Greek Revival style this style is a parent on the south entrance with its stairs rows of columns and crowning pediment however smirk was no mere slave to tradition but a genuine innovator he used The Cutting Edge technology of his day the frame of the building was made from cast iron and embedded in concrete foundations the walls were made of brick and the facades were encased with Limestone the most important for a building is of course that it functions for the use of it the first completed Wing was of course dedicated to the king’s Library the grand double height room is characteristic of the so-called Age of Enlightenment its size was made possible by the pioneering use of cast iron beams to support the ceiling the building was officially completed in 1852 and yet construction Works continued as more space was needed to contain the ever expanding Collections and so over time other buildings in the block surrounding smirk quadrangle became integrated into the [Music] museum as early as 1857 a separate reading room was built in the middle of the courtyard a masterpiece piece of bid 19th century technology the 42 s m domed room was constructed using cast iron concrete glass and with the latest Heating and ventilation systems at the turn of the 21st century the whole inner Courtyard was enclosed by a glass roof with the reading rooms at its Center making it the largest covered Public Square in Europe but arguably the most spectacular aspect of the British museum are its collections which come from all over the [Music] world they include Antiquities from the great ancient civilizations most controversially there are the Elgen marbles classical Greek sculptures taken from Athens at the start of the 19th century with its huge variety of exhibits the British museum sheds light on virtually every Epoch in the history of [Music] mankind National Museum of Modern Art Paris France [Music] the second largest collection of modern and Contemporary Art in the world after the Museum of Modern Art in New York is to be found at the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris the building that accommodates this collection is as famed as any of the artworks within indeed Sal pomu is possibly the most radical example anywhere of structural expressionism the so-called high-tech architecture of the 1970s a style known for displaying the structural components of buildings on the outside as well as the inside what is fascinating with that building is that what they have done there is that they’ve actually managed to create this very very large through a very complex uh construction very large spans big spaces where you can um really exhibit anything in 196 9 President George popu commissioned the construction of a cultural center that would place the National Museum of Modern Art an important public library and other cultural projects all together under the same roof the competition to design the new building attracted 681 competitors from 49 countries and in 1971 the jurry announced the winning design it was the work of a team of three Architects Renzo Piano and Gian Franco franchini and the Englishman Richard Rogers all three were relatively young and unknown at the time but piano and Rogers were both later awarded the pritzer prize the Oscar or Nobel Prize of architecture [Music] in simple terms the SRA pomu is a building turned inside out on the exterior all the services lifts and escalators wiring and piping rest on a metal frame leaving the vast interior space uninterrupted by loadbearing structures and thus capable of multi-purpose adaptation facilities for moving people around such as lifts and escalators are concentrated on the western side of the structure towards the plaza below but all of the technical equipment and pipelines are on the opposite side muffling the sound of the traffic from the street with some 15,000 tons of steel and 11,000 square m of glass a truly pioneering building was the result a worthy air to the great iron buildings of the Industrial [Music] Age pidu really celebrates the art and the movement of the people it’s a very people-based building a very Democratic [Music] building four boldly distinctive colors brighten the facade of the sura pomu following a code laid down by The Architects blue for air conditioning ing yellow for circulating electricity green for the circulation of water and red for the movement of people such as escalators and [Music] elevators named after president pomu who died in 1974 the center was completed in 1977 it has since become one of the most visited monuments in France both for its influential exhibitions of Contemporary Art and as a Triumph of architectural [Music] engineering futuristic in so many vital aspects its revolutionary character has made the sura pomu an emblem of 20th century [Music] architecture Tate modern Gallery London UK as fine example as there is of the adaptation and repurposing of an existing building the former bankside Power Station in London houses the modern and Contemporary Art of Tate modern jewel in the crown of the Tate family of galleries Tate modern was originally founded by Henry Tate owner of a number of sugar refineries he donated his collection of paintings to the nation contributing large sums to the Redevelopment of the gallery building the point at which the art entered the museum that’s when the building was fulfilled before that it was uninteresting [Music] actually a calf fired Power Station had existed at bankside since 1891 but was replaced by a new more environmentally friendly oil fired station on the same site in 1947 the bankside power station later reach used by Tate modern was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and is an imposing steel-framed and brick clad building typical of the era it consisted of a huge turbine Hall which housed the electricity generators and a boiler house parallel to [Music] that but with the Tate modern you have in a way a very um Monumental very great existing building and I I think what they’ve managed to do is is is to keep um quite a low profile and to leave these big and use these big spaces the big entrance space there were two chimneys one at each end of the building in the original plan but only one Central 99 M tall chimney was actually built any structure that might have dwarfed St Paul’s Cathedral across the temps was considered in bad taste the new Power Station was constructed in two stages the Western half and the chimney between 1947 and 1953 and the eastern part between 1959 and 1963 but in October 1981 the Power Station closed because of increasing oil prices and pollution at first there were plans to demolish it this despite the fact the building was already considered an architectural achievement worthy of preservation fortunately in 1994 it was selected as the site for the new Tate Gallery Swiss Architects erog and deeron who were later awarded the priter architecture prize were commissioned with its [Music] redesign their outlines retained much of the original character of the power station the turbine Hall became an impressive entrance hall and display space for large sculptures and installations The Boiler House was given a two-story glass extension to become Gallery space seven Gallery floors were created using a steel framework built within the existing walls of the power station this framework also supports the brick facade the building was sealed watertight and environmental controls permanent lighting fixtures stairs lifts and escalators were all installed the interesting thing is that the building comes from a time when industry was celebrated so if you would do the same thing now and take a uh industrial building that was built in the ‘ 80s or ‘ 90s and convert that to a museum would be much more difficult since it opened in 2000 Tate modern has attracted millions of visitors each year who also come to admire Shakespeare’s Globe just next door and the Millennium Bridge Tate modern is now a success story of urban regeneration and the ReUse of an otherwise obsolete [Music] building but the story of bankside power station is not over yet yet after converting the power station’s three huge underground oil tanks into a performance and exhibition venue Tate modern is now in the process of completing a new 11-story building this is situated above the boilers and will allow for even more exhibition [Music] space l Paris France one of the largest and most famous art museums in the world came about as the direct result of a bloody Revolution the French Revolution to be precise the L Palace had previously been the Parisian residence of French royalty before it was trans transformed into a museum and open to the public in August 1793 just before the onset of the so-called reign of terror and on the one hand the old Lou is very traditional it has these rooms and these corridors and a lot of paintings and you used to have to go in on one side and then you would kind of walk through hundreds of 18 19th century French paintings which one can like like or not like before then all the tourists arrived at the monaa the Lou stands on the right Bank of the river San and comprises a complex of wings and Pavilions which surrounds two large Courtyards the Renaissance K the square Courtyard and the larger 19th century K Napoleon the Napoleon Courtyard [Music] the lra was built on the site of a former Fortress that was demolished in the 16th century by King Francis I in order to make way for a new Royal residence it was Francis who initiated the vast art collections to be handed down to generations of French royalty his Acquisitions included what is now the most famous painting in the world Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa [Music] they renew it with this glass pyramid in a sort of U post-modernistic style you know and it looks very beautiful inside there the architect of the new Palace was Pierre leco and indeed the oldest part of today today’s Lou Bears his name the architect of the leco wing was influenced by mannerism not unlike the EIT Gallery in 16th century Italy over time the Royal residence gradually developed in the styles of French Barack and classicism the pet de twer was linked to the LV Palace and the architect Claude pero completed the K car with a masterfully constructed row of columns in in the 19th century already a working Museum the lra underwent the largest extension in its history two major Wings extending West were added creating the Napoleon Courtyard by 1871 the lva had arrived at something like its present shape and then came pay and he said wait a minute you know we put an entrance in the middle and then we start spreading from there [Music] at the end of the 20th century the museum was modernized and extended yet again amenities were constructed beneath the Napoleon Courtyard with the main entrance to the museum now situated in its Center most controversially in 1989 the entrance was graced with a glass and steel pyramid designed by Chinese American architect I M pay he also oversaw renovations to the wing which once housed France’s Ministry of Finance this means that the whole of the Lura Palace complex is now an art [Music] museum the present day loua displays more than 35,000 works of art and its collection of French paintings from the 15th to the 19th century is unparalleled but the site is also exceedingly rich in architectural Styles and artifacts from many major eras in world history 30 years ago the pyramidal entrance was intended to receive 4.5 million visitors a year but now welcomes more more than twice that number this makes the L the second most visited Museum in the world after the Palace Museum in Beijing our final destination for this [Music] Show Palace Museum Beijing China the Palace Museum in Beijing is indeed the most visited Museum in the world like the loua in Paris and the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg it is housed in a palace though one rather different in design the Palace Museum is located in the Forbidden City the residence of Chinese Emperors for almost 5 centuries in the center of Beijing it is this philosophical way of thinking and I think the whole forbidden to is based on this philosophy after Jud D of the Ming Dynasty became emperor of China he ordered an Imperial Palace to be built in Beijing the palace was thus constructed between 146 and 1420 centuries later in 1925 it was declared a Palace Museum this after the last emperor had been over throne and the People’s Republic established in China at that time more than a million items were listed in the museum collection that number has risen to more than 1.8 million [Music] a UNESCO world heritage site since 1987 the Forbidden City is a 72 hectare rectangular walled complex measuring 961 M north to south and 753 m east to west situated along a Central north south axis this follows the traditional Chinese system of Fu there are hundreds of halls and palaces made of wood red brick and white marble with painted ridges and carved beams topped by yellow roofs spread out on both sides of the central Imperial Way however because these buildings were usually supported by wooden frames they were susceptible to fires extensive reconstruction Works were therefore common over the years yet all the work done over the centuries has respected the original design and the roofs are in in tiles and in the Forbidden City they are yellow all the roofs are almost yellow at its heart are two large Courtyards the outer court site of the emperor’s court and his Grand audiences and the residential inner Court each wall of the city has a gate but the main entrance has always been from the south through the Meridian gate this is one of the tallest buildings in the entire complex beyond the gate lies a courtyard containing the inner golden water river traversed by five white marble Bridges the river leads to the gate of supreme Harmony which in turn opens onto the outer Court in the outer Court stand three main Halls one of these the Hall of supreme Harmony in the very center of the forbidden city is the largest and most imposing serving as the throne Hall it is lavishly decorated golden dragons Adorn its exterior and interior and the 10 figurines of each of its roof Corners Proclaim its Imperial pedigree [Music] [Applause] with collections representing 5,000 years of Chinese civilization the Palace Museum is a masterpiece of Chinese Imperial Palace architecture illustrating the Grandeur of the Ming and Ching dynasties [Music] there is great diversity in the buildings housing some of the world’s most visited museums but they all have one thing in common they are dedicated to preserving and passing on cultural heritage for generations to come in order to do this the designers of museums have continually found new ways of displaying their collections sometimes constructing bold and attracted new buildings at other times redeveloping and renovating old and historic buildings either way there can be no doubt that such museums represent some of the finest achievements in the history of architecture