Adventures in Architecture
United Nations analysts estimate that 81 per cent of the world's population will live in urban areas by 2030. We live, work and move around in buildings. Architecture is incredibly important to us but all too often we take it for granted. In Adventures in Architecture, historian Dan Cruickshank celebrates architecture as a creative force that can help us understand ourselves.
Why Architecture?
Dan describes the series as a story of people, told through architecture. And people, in all their diversity, are at the centre of his journey to some of the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments. All structures, from soaring skyscrapers to shanty town shacks, are designed and built by people. What inspires them? Adventures in Architecture answers this question with eight themed programmes, on Beauty, Death, Paradise, Disaster, Connections, Power, Dreams and Pleasure.
Lovely Bones
People are certainly at the heart of one of the most bizarre places on Dan's itinerary - but they're dead people. The extraordinary Sedlec Ossuary (an ossuary is a chapel for bones) in the Czech Republic contains intricate decorations made from the bleached bones of around 40,000 people who died between 500 and 600 years ago. The Ossuary was said to contain earth from Christ's burial place in Jerusalem, making it an attractive place to be buried. Most of the strangely beautiful decorations, including columns, chandeliers and coats of arms, were fashioned in the 19th century by a woodcarver.
A Dying Art
Dan's enthusiasm and optimism is a key part of his charm and effectiveness as a communicator and broadcaster but there was an element of sadness in his report on the building of an igloo in Greenland. He marvels at the skill employed to build an igloo but he is recording what could be the last years of an ancient tradition. The skills that Greenlandic people have used for countless generations are dying as younger people turn to imported timber houses. But, even more worrying, the conditions needed for igloo construction are disappearing, as the Arctic succumbs to global warming. This is a story about people and architecture that we all wish did not have to be told.
Dan describes the series as a story of people, told through architecture. And people, in all their diversity, are at the centre of his journey to some of the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments. All structures, from soaring skyscrapers to shanty town shacks, are designed and built by people. What inspires them? Adventures in Architecture answers this question with eight themed programmes, on Beauty, Death, Paradise, Disaster, Connections, Power, Dreams and Pleasure.
Lovely Bones
People are certainly at the heart of one of the most bizarre places on Dan's itinerary - but they're dead people. The extraordinary Sedlec Ossuary (an ossuary is a chapel for bones) in the Czech Republic contains intricate decorations made from the bleached bones of around 40,000 people who died between 500 and 600 years ago. The Ossuary was said to contain earth from Christ's burial place in Jerusalem, making it an attractive place to be buried. Most of the strangely beautiful decorations, including columns, chandeliers and coats of arms, were fashioned in the 19th century by a woodcarver.
A Dying Art
Dan's enthusiasm and optimism is a key part of his charm and effectiveness as a communicator and broadcaster but there was an element of sadness in his report on the building of an igloo in Greenland. He marvels at the skill employed to build an igloo but he is recording what could be the last years of an ancient tradition. The skills that Greenlandic people have used for countless generations are dying as younger people turn to imported timber houses. But, even more worrying, the conditions needed for igloo construction are disappearing, as the Arctic succumbs to global warming. This is a story about people and architecture that we all wish did not have to be told.
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