Some of the world’s most magnificent structures — the Golden Gate Bridge, Malaysia’s Petronas Towers, Hoover Dam, Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia — are the obvious stars in PBS’s new documentary series “Building Big.”
But ultimately, this five-part series is really about nature.
Narrator David Macaulay was reminded of this in a most annoying way as he stood in the Egyptian desert taping a segment on the ancient Sadd El Kafara Dam. The sun overhead was blazing hot, much of the ground around him was littered with camel and donkey droppings, and, seemingly every time the camera clicked on for his remarks, a fly would land on his nose, forehead or chin.
Macaulay, dripping with perspiration, needed extra takes to complete the bit, but his effort was, well, a mere fly speck compared with problems that faced architects of the 35 or so structures highlighted in “Building Big.” These structures and their built-in challenges are all neatly packaged into one-hour categories that will air locally in weekly installments beginning Tuesday on WTTW-Ch. 11. Bridges kicks off the series at 10 p.m. (after the presidential debates), followed by domes Oct. 10 (8 p.m.), skyscrapers Oct. 17 (10 p.m.), dams Oct. 24 (8 p.m.) and tunnels Oct. 31 (8 p.m.).
This PBS production gives a fascinating, perfectly understandable glimpse at how the structural challenges behind the more notable structures were sometimes met and solved by moving mountains and changing the courses of great bodies of water, when not burrowing under or over these natural obstacles. In the case of Hoover Dam, for instance, diversionary paths for the Colorado River had to be first blasted through the craggy mountains on the Nevada side before the dam itself could be erected.
“What I’m after,” said Macaulay in a phone interview, “is to show that no matter how complicated things look, once you break them down into the simplest responsibilities and problems trying to be solved, it’s pretty easy to figure the logical events that go into the design and construction. If you’re not careful enough at the beginning, you’ll build the wrong solution.”
A tunnel, for instance, is basically an extended arch and the principle has remained the same since the construction of Rome’s ancient sewers right up to the recently completed, 24-mile Chunnel that connects France with Great Britain. Only the materials, quality of tools and acquired wisdom in problem-solving have changed.
The architecture involved in the early domes, such as St. Peter’s and Hagia Sophia, built to glorify religion, is basically the same used for modern structures such as the Astrodome and Georgia Dome, built to glorify athletics.
Macaulay, an illustrator as well as an architect (he has a degree from the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design), has spent nearly 30 years writing and publishing books explaining the principles behind almost anything that functions.
His best-known book is “The Way Things Work” published in 1988, but there have been quirkier subjects such as “Motel of the Mysteries,” a future archeologist’s examination of a present-day Holiday Inn; “Rome Antics,” a pigeon’s eye-view of the Eternal City; and “Castle,” in which he demonstrates how to build a medieval fortress.
A number of PBS specials on his work have made him a familiar, comfortable figure on TV who, with sketch pad in hand, has a gift for making the building of large, complex-looking structures seem almost a no-brainer. Or, in the case of “Unbuilding,” which illustrates how he would dismantle the Empire State Building, he can be adept at explaining how to take things apart.
“Everything boils down to a battle with nature,” said Macaulay. “We expend a lot of energy and money in this fight, but ultimately it’s nature that dictates what we do with her gravity and wind.”
The human element, whether it’s dam workers’ perishing in avalanches, tunnel diggers crushed under the earth, or Brooklyn Bridge designer John Roebling’s dying from an injury during construction, does not get overlooked in “Building Big.” An incalculable number of lives have been lost in this age-old conflict with natural forces and, if nothing else, this series also is a reminder that in our expanding Internet era of virtuality, real objects occupying real space aren’t to be taken for granted.
“Most of the things we show, with the exception of a few refinements, are put together by armies of people busting their butts building this stuff in all kinds of weather,” said executive producer Larry Klein. “It’s just amazing.
“We went to Brazil for these dam sites and it could just as easily have been the 1930s. Yes, there were new trucks and better dynamite and things were a little bit safer, but they were still losing people.”
The skyscraper segment pays homage to Chicago as the birthplace of this contemporary form and tells the story of architect William Le Baron Jenney, whose observation in the 1880s of a bird cage supporting a heavy book led to the concepts necessary to build taller structures than ever before constructed. Jenney used these principles to complete the 10-story Home Insurance Building here in 1885.
Chicago didn’t keep pace in skyscraper competition after ordinances were adopted limiting heights of buildings — residents were concerned that taller structures would block the sunlight — and the race to erect the world’s tallest buildings quickly shifted to New York, where size always has been a source of pride. Companies such as Singer Sewing Machines, Woolworth, Chrysler, and Metropolitan Life Insurance entered the field there.
The Sears Tower in Chicago eventually wrested the “world’s tallest” honor away from New York. Now it is Malaysia’s Petronas Towers that has seized the title and, according to Klein, there is no comparing it to the Sears.
“The Petronas Towers is about making a statement and, when you’re there to see it, you see it rivals anything Gustave Eiffel, or anyone else, ever designed,” said the “Building Big” producer. “The Sears Tower is actually very ugly in comparison. It’s just a bunch of boxes stacked on top of each other and welded together. The Petronas Towers isn’t about filling up the air with a bunch of rental space.”
It is the skyscraper segment that also serves up the gripping, but under-publicized, account of the Citigroup (formerly Citicorp) Center in New York, a building billed as one of the lightest, most innovative ever built when it was completed in the heart of Manhattan in 1978.
Unknown to the public was the fact that a mistake in construction specifications — joints were welded together instead of bolted — had made it vulnerable to toppling over in high winds.
The discovery was made not long after the skyscraper was finished and just before Hurricane Ella was forming over the Atlantic Ocean with New York in its predicted path.
An army of welders worked in secrecy around the clock for three weeks to correct the flaw. But the moment of truth was averted anyway when the winds shifted and Ella headed north to Newfoundland. The story was kept secret and went unreported for more than 15 years.
“Even when we go into outer space to build things, nature will be calling the shots,” said Macaulay.
“You’ll have no gravity and great heat and cold and no oxygen, and it’ll be our job to solve these factors while tending to our needs.”
That’s material for another series and, make no mistake, Macaulay is already thinking about it.
