How Humans Built The Tallest Buildings | Supersized Structures | Spark

paper was light gold in medieval times [Music] oh no tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong from the ancient world to the modern history tells the story of our ever-growing need to be ever-growing the story of how some people will go to extraordinary lengths to expand create to advance to push the realm of possibility to prove that size matters this series will explore larger than life creations that have influenced every facet of our society the way we live work and travel [Applause] the way we build empires and the way we dream we look back at the ways we've strived to make the biggest heaviest tallest the best [Music] we hear from experts about the technology that made these feats possible the challenges that were faced and the problems that were solved some of these inventions have changed the world and our way of life others not so much whether a success or a failure these giants have demonstrated mankind's need to build big in this episode we explore the tallest towers the biggest palaces the grandest tombs and ancient temple complexes that were forgotten for centuries having a house that's taller than other people's houses having a church that's taller than other people's church has always been something that people have wanted to do we look at the best the biggest the most modern and journey back to see how technique technology and ambition has grown these structures from big to bigger to biggest [Music] we start the journey with the buildings that dominate the skylines of today skyscrapers with modern design and technology a single building can accommodate thousands of people living and working but in a modern city there simply isn't the space to spread out we kind of have two choices we either build out or we build up it's much much more sustainable to build up create dense compact cities where people have access to public transportation than it is to build out and what building has gone further up or solved as many of the problems of building tall than the burj khalifa [Music] when it was completed this was the tallest skyscraper in the world it's not just the tallest building in the world it's actually nearly 200 meters or so taller than the second tallest building i was lucky enough to visit the burj khalifa site during its construction in 2008 and and really it's an engineering marvel construction took 22 million man hours and involved some quite staggering statistics over 45 000 cubic meters of concrete was poured and when you're at those very very high heights the wind is creating an enormous amount of force the burj khalifa is never going to be pushed overnight because it is so wide down at the base and it's got a much wider area to spread the load of the building itself on what it adds up to is a building that boasts the highest number of stories in the world at 160 the highest observation deck in the world and the highest occupied floor in the world and the innovation that goes into something like that is pretty awe-inspiring burj khalifa is a showcase of cutting-edge architecture and engineering a testament to ambition and a powerful statement on how far skyscrapers have come since they first transformed a city skyline but it is here in new york we find what was for many years the tallest and what remains the most iconic skyscraper in the world [Music] the idea for the empire state building is said to have arisen through a rivalry between walter chrysler of the chrysler corporation and john jacob rascal of general motors we take you now to the chrysler building in new york city to the office of the president chrysler had already begun work on the chrysler building the gleaming 319 meter skyscraper in midtown manhattan in retaliation rascald assembled a group of well-known investors there was a story that the developer held out a pencil and said make it as tall as possible like this [Music] the building was constructed in just over a year under budget at 40 million dollars and well ahead of schedule at times the structure grew four and a half stories a week that is much faster than we build skyscrapers today there were many reasons why they were able to achieve this it was a great depression there was a lot of labour available so 4 000 workers were on site at certain times [Music] the way that they walked on beams and they sat on beams to have their lunch would not happen today at the time of its completion the empire state building at 102 stories and 381 meters high was the world's tallest skyscraper the empire state building still this iconic building has enjoyed an eventful history the pilot of a mitchell bomber circling over laguardia airfield decided to divert to newark because of fog his course took him straight into the empire state building the plane crashed into the 78th and 79th floors at about 200 miles an hour blazing petrol set fire to 11 floors of the building i just thought this was the most fabulous fabulous creation that you could create what is in effect a spire of modern capitalism the empire state building will always be an icon synonymous with new york although losing its title as the world's tallest building to that city's world trade center in 1972 the twin towers of manhattan's world trade center stood at 110 stories each accommodating 50 000 workers in 10 million square feet of space the original twin towers were really innovative buildings at the time they were one of the first buildings to use a new structural system called a framed tube system two large hollow tubes supported by closely spaced steel columns encased in aluminium the skin of the building would be strong enough that internal columns wouldn't be necessary to support it the towers were designed to be strong enough to withstand a collision with the largest aircraft flying at the time it was assumed such a plane would have to be lost in fog for such a thing to occur what brought down the world trade center was not the impact it was the fire after it was the heat from that as the floors destroyed by the impact began to collapse they delivered a load onto the lower structures which broke the clips linking the floor joists to the outer box columns now a new addition to the new york skyline freedom tower soars to 541 meters and is the western hemisphere's tallest building already an iconic new york landmark its very height is 1776 feet tall you know the date to the american independence in a way this proud statement is a good statement you can do that to us as a country but you don't stop us as a nation that's the state than it makes in the west where it holds the record a tall building like freedom tower demands respect and attention in the east such a big structure symbolizes anticipation of things to come of climbing in order to see further [Music] and from 101 stories above the city of taipei it is possible to see a very long way the 580 meter tall taipei 101 has 101 floors and 61 elevators and was until the opening of the burj the world's tallest building but taipei 101 is symbolic of something more something rather special [Music] what separates the design of taipei 101 from its peers is the deep meaning behind its structure it's designed to culturally respond to its surroundings it rises in eight canted sections a design based on the chinese lucky number eight and the eight sections of the structure are designed to create rhythm in symmetry [Music] the form is a kind of exaggerated pagoda so pagoda is a an asian piece of architecture that that fans out as it gets taller the tower is built on 380 concrete piles buried 80 meters into the ground massive steel outrigger trusses span between the columns on every eight floors it was one of the first towers to use what was called a tuned mass damper to resist the wind load this is an 800 ton pendulum over four stories in the top of the tower in an atrium and if you're lucky or unlucky enough to go up there in a storm you can stand around this atrium and see this giant pendulum swinging taipei 101 is a dynamic piece of architecture a symbolic design that brings together modern day engineering and architecture and chinese tradition to make taipei's tower 101 unique you can see the brand actually in the title taipei it's saying look at this city look at our innovation but if taipei 101 is supersized then what are we to call shanghai tower [Music] designed as nine cylindrical buildings stacked on top of each other shanghai tower's inner layer of skin encloses the stacked buildings while a triangular exterior layer creates the second skin which rotates as it rises [Music] so this is one of the few buildings where you can actually see through a building and see another building inside it it's really innovative because it's the first tour building that really captures the idea of vertical villages while it may look like it's 121 stories essentially it is nine 12-story buildings stacked on top of each other each with their own ground floor the whole idea of this is to humanize the tour building experience to break it down into more manageable chunks the tower aims to be one of the most sustainable tall buildings in the world the facades taper texture and asymmetry all work to reduce wind pressure on the building which saved about 60 million dollars in terms of construction and also thousands of tons of materials that's concrete less steel the result is a more sustainable and efficient building the building's spiraling parapet collects rainwater which is then used for the tower's heating and air conditioning wind turbines located directly beneath the parapet generate on-site power [Music] shanghai tower is revolutionary in architecture and sustainability it's only a matter of time until the skyline is pierced by even bigger giants but buildings whose size is simply awe-inspiring have been constructed for many centuries to accommodate people of importance we ended the skyscraper story in china and that is where we start the story of immense palaces [Music] palace is designed for display and show to be a canvas as a base for you know arts and culture as well as a symbol of royal authority in ancient china it was forbidden to enter the emperor's palace without special permission of the emperor and so it has become known as the forbidden city the world's largest palace complex the super-sized forbidden city covers 74 hectares that's about 105 football pitches it is surrounded by a 52 meter wide moat and a 10 meter high wall forbidden city has more than 8 000 rooms all the buildings are constructed in small clusters of three and six following the idea of connection with heaven and earth construction of the forbidden city began in 1407 and continued for 14 years [Music] the forbidden city is said to have occupied a million workers including 100 000 artisans driven into long-term hard labor water drawn from wells was poured onto the road in winter to set as ice along which the huge stones were dragged to the city the red city wall has an angular shape 8.6 meter wide at the base reducing to 6.6 meters wide at the top the design prevents people from climbing over it the forbidden city is an example of building without compromise or consideration of cost from architectural standpoint it is amazing treasure many monumental structures are a great deal more modest than the forbidden city such modesty is even true of the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world today windsor castle is an official residence of the queen and is still very much a working royal palace [Music] william the first chose to build windsor as part of a string of fortifications around london in the 1070s so windsor recited with a commanding view over the thames valley and 16 years later his castle was complete subsequent monarchs have added and modified windsor castle seen in this fine area of view is being renovated and the alterations are not quite complete there are 951 rooms in the castle more than 200 of them are bedrooms so spring cleaning could be compared to taking the paintbrush to about 105 three-bedroom houses it's quite striking that a structure that started as a fortress in homeland has evolved over so much time can still be considered to be a more intimate space like a home as well the largest room st george's hall is more than 55 metres long and can seat 162 for a banquet the great kitchen is the oldest working kitchen in the country 33 people work there surrounded by clocks that are always set five minutes fast to make sure that the queen never has to wait for her food [Music] it's really become strongly associated as a symbol of royal authority as opposed to government per side since it was first built the role of britain's monarch has changed most dramatically power has long since shifted away from windsor to another palace further along the thames [Music] a palace not occupied by a monarch but a super-sized super decorative super famous complex of buildings occupied by british parliament [Music] the buildings on this site are known as the palace of westminster the palace of westminster has a long and varied history it was originally built as a palace in the middle of the 11th century by edward the confessor there's over 1100 rooms 100 staircases several miles of corridors covers around about eight acres sitting on over three hectares the complex has three towers the tallest the victoria tower peaks at just under 100 meters the next is 96 meters tall and the most famous it is the elizabeth tower known around the world as big ben the hour hand is over two and a half meters long the minute hand more than four meters and the diameter seven meters big bend to be correct is the our bell and they used 16 horses to bring it to westminster in 1859 westminster is one of the most iconic structures on the skyline of london but the palace of westminster has come to represent more than the government of great britain a palace built with a parliamentary purpose its name describes a system of government just across the english channel is another palace that has come to represent its age and the people who built it it stands for the blind extravagance of a complacent elite this palace was built to be beautiful boastful and very very big [Music] the chateau de versailles is an achievement of 18th century french art [Music] the site originally louis xiii hunting lodge was transformed and expanded by his son louis xiv [Music] each of the three french kings who lived there added improvements in an effort to make it more beautiful the facts and figures that tell the story of this folly are truly dazzling [Music] the gardens sprawl over more than 12 000 hectares and include more than 400 statues and 1400 fountains huge figures but the palace is big enough to swallow them all the palace has 700 rooms it also has 67 staircases as well as four chapels an opera house and the famed hall of mirrors that in the days of the kings was illuminated by 20 000 candles when the sun was not shining through any of the palace's 2153 windows it is very monumental so this building was built to impress versailles kings and courtiers are long gone the gardens and corridors now walked by over seven million visitors a year across the pyrenees an even grander palace was built to proclaim the might of what had been in its day a far grander empire that could quite literally lavish on its kings and queens the wealth of the americas [Music] the royal palace in madrid stopped being the official residence of the king of spain in 1931. since then the palacio real has been the venue for state ceremonies official banquets and other state feature that strikes the visitor as soon as you go there is the sheer imposing size and monumental scale of the palace the palace's origins can be traced to the 9th century when the muslim king of toledo built a defense which was later used by the christian kings of castile [Music] they built the former alcazar in the 16th century the current royal palace was built big inside the palace there's a monumental and imposing staircase reportedly carved out of one single piece of marble versailles 700 rooms seem insignificant the palatio real has 3 418 rooms arranged on 135 000 square meters [Music] there are 252 bedrooms there is spanish marble mahogany and works of art inside a palace which occupies 13 hectares the largest and considered to be one of the finest palaces in europe it's a remarkable expression of golden age spain royal palaces from beijing to madrid were built to house and flatter earthly rulers around the world there are monuments that dwarf even these big palaces and they were built not to house men but to praise that which was not of this earth [Music] when the ancestors of those who built the polytheoreal were still living in huts on the other side of the world in the largest urban concentration on the planet a structure was being built that is so stupendous it staggers visitors to this day cambodia's angkor wat built by sariava man ii is the earthly representation of mount meru abode of hindu gods dedicated to the lord vishnu it is the largest religious structure in the world it is [Music] dazzling it is so difficult to convey how big that is still being determined the very latest aerial laser mapping continues to locate parts of the complex that have been overgrown by a rampant jungle well ancore is pretty remarkable everybody knows it there's a bunch of big temples but that's like knowing new york as manhattan new york stretches a very long way in many directions [Music] current measurements come to 162.6 hectares and it was constructed from sandstone 5 million tons of sandstone the initial construction of angkor wat involved 300 000 workers and 6 000 elephants and they worked for 35 years it's built out of rough blocks and then it's surrounded by a scaffolding and then it's chiseled from the top down to do the decoration inside the central temple complex is the gallery of a thousand buddhas to get to the upper level involves climbing incredibly steep stairs because reaching the kingdom of the gods is not supposed to be an easy task [Music] angkor wat is a temple that is still used every day but there are other holy sites that are just only being rediscovered after almost being consumed by the jungle to visit one we must travel across the world to central america it took archaeologists from the university of pennsylvania 13 years to uncover the 16 square kilometers of structures that comprise tikal guatemala's most famous cultural site [Music] i think it's very clear people wanted to build something that they thought was going to last perhaps forever they wanted to put up something so big that even if it fell down it would still be some enormous thing there [Music] but much of tikal has yet to be unearthed covered by jungle and remaining an unknown mystery for centuries tikal was abruptly abandoned by the mayans over 1 000 years ago dating back to 300 bc at its height the population of tikal may have reached more than 90 000 and dominated some 200 square kilometers of surrounding territory its grandeur is even today hard to comprehend tikal is made up of over 3 000 structures from courts to markets to reservoirs the largest of these structures are the three giant pyramid temples ranging from 41 to 70 meters high the most famous of these is the temple of the great jaguar used as the tomb of jason chan khaweel the first who ruled from 682 to 734 a.d building colossal things is our fascination with trying to conquer our mortality and the fact that we want to show that we are much more than what thin present shows and demonstrates a world away another civilization was building monumentally here were people who built on an epic scale in praise of both their gods and their kings this was the work of the civilization that flourished on the banks of the river nile today we call it luxor a thousand years before christ it was the great city of thebes the heart of the empire of egypt the jewel of its greatness was karnak the largest temple in the land there's no doubt at all that karnak would have been the biggest temple complex in egypt and it probably was the biggest temple complex in the world karnak can be divided into numerous sections with the largest being the temple to the god armon ra [Music] thirty pharaohs contributed to building the complex using sandstone quarried 160 kilometers away and shipped down the nile one obelisk alone weighs 328 tons and is 29 meters tall a boeing 747 weighs just over 180 tons and its tail height is under 20 meters the great hipper style hall covering 5000 square meters about the size of a football field had a roof supported by 134 columns up to 10 meters in circumference and so the blocks were just placed on top of one another and what we think they did was put the lower courses in place first then fill the space with rubble and so forth so you had a level area and then with ramps and drag up the next lots of columns so that that gradually constructed the actual structure [Music] this grand and ancient temple may have been beaten down by the years the weather and the predation of tomb robbers but its scale its ambition and its craftsmanship is as spellbinding as when it was freshly built [Music] there are other sacred sites that carry the scars of turbulent times one is at the center of a troubled region the last and venerated remains of a once mighty temple that was the most holy place for its people [Music] this is the wailing or western wall the second temple the heart of judaism was destroyed by rome in the year 70. it had been one of the greatest grandest buildings of the age and the story of its construction by king herod is almost legendary [Music] nothing of that building remains today but herod also built a great plaza around the temple [Music] temple mount is that plaza to construct it herod built a box on top of mount moriah and filled it in expanding the available land with an area approximately 480 by 300 meters retaining walls formed the box and the cartel or western wall that is so revered today as the holiest site in modern judaism is one part of the western retaining wall it's a place where presence is signaled by absence so people go there in order to place their prayers in the crevasses in the walls the wall is 5 meters thick and built from stones that weigh between 2 and 100 tons one weighs 400 tons there is no mortar between the stones and the precision with which such stones were placed two thousand years ago is simply mystifying it's still very very very holy [Music] there is little of the second temple left but there is something in moscow there is a great cathedral built in recent times with modern tools because nothing remains of the original christ the savior blown to pieces by stalin in 1931. originally commissioned after the defeat of napoleon in 1812 the enormous cathedral was eventually consecrated in 1883 but in 1931 the cathedral was destroyed to make way for a proposed palace of the soviets itself a contender for the title of one of the most influential pieces of architecture never built the design would have stood over 400 meters high with a vast statue of lenin at its peak the eiffel tower is only 300 meters high in 1941 russia is attacked by nazi germany it's a fight for life only the foundations had been laid when the second world war brought an end to the project but the story of the cathedral was not over [Music] following the collapse of the soviet union the moscow mayor joined forces with the orthodox church to resurrect the cathedral in a 340 million dollar reconstruction project orthodox cathedrals are built on either a square or an octagonal model and they have domes rather than spires and this because rather than representing the body of jesus on the cross they represent their model of the universe completed in 2000 the new cathedral loosely based on the original designs but constructed with modern building materials and at 103 meters the tallest orthodox church in the world commemorates russia's imperial heritage as opposed to its soviet past it's the most important of the orthodox cathedrals in russia but what if instead of worship you want to remember around the world colossal structures have been built to house and honor the dead [Music] but we begin this chapter of the story of very big buildings with kings who have been dead for a very very long time return to egypt [Music] khufu second ruler of fourth dynasty egypt had the great pyramid the pyramid of giza really is absolutely massive it's its volume has been calculated as being two and a half million cubic meters of stone it is the oldest and last remaining of the seven wonders of the ancient world and the one man-made object that can be discerned from space khufu's builders oriented his pyramid almost perfectly north they incorporated into its structure about 2.3 million stone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tonnes each and a total of five and three-quarter million tons the empire state building by comparison only weighs 365 000 tons to achieve the pyramid size of 230 meters long and 139 meters high the workers would have had to set a block every two and a half minutes what they probably did was get silt from the nile and pave sort of a road using silt and then when you wet that it's almost like grease it's incredibly slippery and so you can you can drag something across the surface easily the pyramid has three burial chambers the king's chamber held a red granite sarcophagus placed almost exactly at the center of the pyramid and is accessed through the eight metre high grand gallery i knew what they looked like i thought i knew how big they were and then you walk up to them and the blocks are taller than you are it's it's just staggering the great pyramid has stood for ages and for ages it has puzzled and beguiled [Music] [Applause] another impressive tomb but one with a far less mysterious purpose takes us to the last resting place of a man who was in his day the greatest figure in europe this is the dome day in valides in paris people visited to stand before the sarcophagus of one of the great figures of history this is the tomb of emperor napoleon the first napoleon bonaparte built between 1670 and 1706 as a royal chapel the landmark known as leigh invalids was designed to glorify louis xiv and his armies [Music] it's a series of several buildings connected to each other there are about 17 courtyards across the complex itself but it's centered by the eglise du dome louis for the brilliance of his court was known as the sun king and the golden dome of leyenvalleeds was created to shine as a tribute to him it shines with more than 12 and a half kilograms of gold leaf louis xiv had the courtyards built so that he could parade around the entire army inside the courtyards of the complex so it was not only a place of rest it was a place of spectacle it was not until april 1861 that napoleon was finally laid to rest under what is known as the church of saint louisa [Music] in a tomb sculpted from blocks of red quartzite and placed on a green voge granite base placed in the center of a polychrome marble floor inlaid with the names of eight great victories looked down on by a painted dome that rises 107 meters above the sarcophagus taller than a 20-story building it's very very grand i think it really does meet the kind of remit of the kind of monumental structure [Music] a similarly monumental but much plainer mausoleum contains the mortal remains of another of modern history's great figures but there is a singular difference between leon vellards and the mausoleum in red square in moscow you can still view the body of a figure from the pages of history [Music] lenin father of the bolshevik revolution and first leader of soviet russia died in 1924 but each day a steady line of visitors files past his perfectly preserved remains a year after lenin's death with a pyramid with layers of red gray and black granite the tomb was unveiled it is intended to be very durable so it uses the most expensive selection of stone russians in their tens of thousands have habitually paid tribute to lenin in moscow's red square the most important features of the buildings are that it is in a way inspired from egyptian pyramids while the mausoleum is comparatively small from the outside it has hidden depths there are two underground floors to the structure which used to house a rest area for vips and the kremlin guards and the laboratory that was used to supervise the ongoing embalming process of lenin's body in lenin's tomb it is a constant 16 degrees celsius with 80 to 90 percent humidity but it is still a constant battle against mold and discoloration in terms of form it is quite interesting because that building is following avant-garde that was present at that time in russia and it was a really leading kind of thinking in architecture at the time [Music] the remains interred in the next tomb have not been preserved the medieval city of assisi was the birthplace and is the last resting place of saint francis [Music] seen from a distance the basilica of saint francis of assisi seems to dominate the landscape [Music] but from the front its truly massive scale can be hard to discern in reality the building dives deep into the mountain as well as extending far out along the ridgeline it is a gigantic building 80 meters long 50 wide and with the nave 18 meters wide [Music] construction began on july 17 12 28 the whole complex consists of two major buildings the lower one is intended to be a crypt saint francis's tomb lies in a simple sarcophagus where it rests on bare rock and the upper church is built out of whitewashed stone and fully decorated there is a famous rose window and it's called to be an eye of the most beautiful church in the world but what really makes the basilica of saint francis of assisi supersized is the monumental nature of a building erected to house the remains of one man it is the greatest example of such a function in all of europe but not in the world there is one other marvel of architecture built as a tomb for a single person that is surely one of the most widely recognized structures in the world the taj mahal has been called the ultimate expression of love [Music] it's the tomb of mumtaz mahal who was the wife of one of the mughal rulers of india she died giving birth to their 14th child the construction of the taj mahal began around 1631 the principal mausoleum was completed in 1648 of the marble buildings have been stained or painted in contrasting colors creating intricate geometric patterns the taj mahal now over 300 years old is in frequent need of repair for centuries the work has been passed down from father to son the implements too by the look of it it is estimated that more than 22 000 people worked on the construction they toiled for 17 years to build the taj taj mahal is a remarkably beautiful building and it's deservedly famous throughout the world the dome of the taj mahal is 35 meters tall the overall height is 71 meters seven types of marble brought not just from india but from china tibet and afghanistan along with 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones were used in the construction [Music] the four perfectly matched sides of the taj are richly inscribed with carved calligraphy including the 99 names of allah the building is beautiful and a silhouette as part of a panorama but also up close the decoration and detail that's gone into every part of that when the visitor stands and absorbs the wonder of shah jahan's expression of love it is not the size that impresses it's the beauty as we have seen the biggest buildings can be strikingly beautiful and they have to be structurally brilliant i think it still remains with us as a contemporary society to really be in awe of a lot of these structures because of not only how they were made but really how they've lasted throughout centuries they are each testimony to the dedication and ambition of those who dreamed of those who designed and those who built these massive examples of human creativity you

Channel: Spark

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Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary, сити скайлайн, spark documentary, spark documentary 2021, india tallest building, honeywell thermostat reset, history documentary, haunting warzone, chrysler building, chrysler building new york, sears tower chicago, new york giants, eiffel tower at night, eiffel tower history

Id: 3qMT7l19gBw

Length: 53min 7sec (3187 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 18 2021