TELEVISION
We've all seen the footage of Khrushchev hammering a podium with his shoe, but when's the last time you saw him breaking ground at a construction site? Back in 1960, the Soviet premier threw the first stones into the Nile with then-president Gamal Abdel Nasser as the building of the Aswan High Dam got under way. The Russian-Egyptian alliance, of course, was as much about superpower jockeying as massive engineering.
Most documentaries on great building projects merely stand in awe of their subjects and ignore the politics behind them. Luckily, Building Big - a five-part PBS miniseries focusing on improbably large structures - isn't afraid to get its hands dirty. Each hour-long documentary focuses on a different set of constructions (bridges, domes, skyscrapers, dams, and tunnels), and how they've escalated in scope over the centuries. Many famous structures such as Hoover Dam put in appearances, but Building Big also includes lesser-known behemoths like the 12,600 megawatt hydroelectric power plant at Itaipu, on the border of Paraguay and Brazil.
On location at most of these sites is host David Macaulay, author and illustrator of The Way Things Work. Though dwarfed by the projects, he brings the understanding of each down to size. Sketch pad in hand, he explains the basic principles behind each building - even the progressively more complicated interplays of stress. As a narrator, Macaulay is not teachery per se, but he exudes a sort of excited energy one might dread in an early-morning college lecture. You get the feeling that he's holding back a tide of information just to keep from drowning out the essentials.
In a matter-of-fact tone, Macauley offers frank assessments of failed projects and discarded designs. We learn, for example, that the Houston Astrodome, once lauded as the "Eighth Wonder of the World," now lies dormant in the middle of a huge parking lot. Turns out Houston's baseball fans didn't want to be protected from weather on sunny days, so the Astros discarded the 'dome in favor of one with a retractable roof. Building Big also digs up characters like Washington Roebling, chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, who was unable to attend the opening of his own project because he was housebound by psychosomatic illness after recuperating from the bends. Macauley and the WGBHproducers have built a riveting program by letting history do the talking
Building Big: Tuesdays 8 pm in October (check local listings). "Bridges": October 3; "Domes": October 10; "Skyscrapers": October 17; "Dams": October 24; "Tunnels": October 31. PBS:www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig.
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