(upbeat music)
- Why are we obsessed
with building skyscrapers?
- We're just like, yeah,
let's see if we can do this.
Like, hey, can we make
buildings go more up?
- The higher up you go, the
closer you are to the birds.
I'm not supposed to be here.
Look at me, the h*m* sapien.
- Men have to break records.
Constantly.
- Just always seems to be a
size competition, doesn't it?
Whoever has the biggest
skyscraper wins, you know.
- [Narrator] Not so long ago,
our cities looked like this.
A hundred years and
5,400 skyscrapers later,
they look like this.
- Today, we are
building skyscrapers
around the world
collectively at something
like 26 feet every hour.
- As long as it just
keeps going up that fast,
doesn't come down equally
fast, I think we're okay.
- [Narrator] Skyscrapers have
transformed the
world we live in.
- They literally
and figuratively
are bringing the
world closer together.
Urbanization is probably
the most important social
and economic phenomena
in human history.
- [Narrator] They've
inspired our imaginations.
- Who's to say what's too tall?
- You ever watch
the sunset on top
of the Empire State Building?
It's breathtaking.
- [Narrator] And they've
stoked our darkest fears.
- I mean, King Kong
did not climb a house.
He climbed the Empire
State Building.
(King Kong roars)
- [Narrator] This is the
history of the skyscraper
and the race to the top.
From the 10th
floor to the 163rd.
(upbeat music)
- How tall do I think
a skyscraper is?
- Probably like 200 feet?
- I bring it at least
a hundred feet, right?
- I'm gonna say 500 feet.
- 1,000 is what I'm gonna guess.
- The question about
what is the height
that makes a
skyscraper a skyscraper
is a debatable question.
(tools bang)
(wrench ratchets)
- The word first was
used to mean a building
that was 10 stories or more.
- [Narrator] Today,
most experts would agree
that a skyscraper
ain't a skyscraper
unless it's at
least 492 feet high.
If we were to stack
all 5,400 skyscrapers
on the planet one
on top of the other,
they would reach
four times as far
as the International
Space Station.
(upbeat music)
But our dream of touching
the sky is nothing new.
(upbeat music)
- Skyscrapers are just
part of a long line
of a human desire, really a
need, to build grand projects.
- We told ourselves the
heavens are up there.
And so we're that much closer.
- I think humans have long
tried to ascend to the heights,
whether it's climbing a
mountain or building a tower.
- [Narrator] To dream
big is to build high.
But how high is too high?
If you lived 5,000 years
ago in the land of Babel,
you'd find the answer
lies in the number 5,433,
give or take.
According to the Book of
Genesis in the Old Testament,
the people of Babel tried
to build a tower so tall,
it will reach as high as heaven.
- The closer we get to the gods,
the better connected
we are to the gods.
- You're trying to
tickle God, baby.
That's what we're doing.
Ah, we're trying
to tickle the Lord.
You know what I mean?
- Scripture describes a
tower precisely 5,433,
and a bit, cubits high,
making it three times taller
than the tallest
skyscraper today.
- See, now I'm concerned.
Like these are people
trying to go to heaven
without earning the right to.
You wanna knock on
God's bathroom door?
Stop.
- [Narrator] But
even the number 5,433
isn't big enough
to reach heaven.
(thunder crashes)
So God comes down to Earth
instead and destroys the tower.
- [Disembodied Voice] Why?
- [Narrator] He scatters
the people about the Earth
and they end up speaking
different languages.
(characters speak
foreign language)
Unable to understand each other,
the dream of touching the
sky has become a nightmare.
(thunder crashes)
But as history will prove, it's
a dream that refuses to die.
(upbeat jazz music)
- Ever since people
began building,
they've been building
things taller and taller.
I mean the pyramids are
thousands of years old
and those were built to impress.
- The pyramids at Giza, Gothic
cathedrals, the Eiffel Tower.
These huge structures are
built to make an impression,
but they're not meant for
actual human habitation
or regular use.
- Humans were originally
hunter and gatherers.
And so, you know,
basically evolved to work,
live, eat, play on the ground.
- [Narrator] It turns out the
dreaming big is one thing.
Being able to live and
work in the sky is another.
And the higher you want to go,
the greater the
technical challenge.
(upbeat music)
(boat horn blows)
New York in the 1880s.
It's the city of the future,
but surprisingly the
architectural jewel
in its crown isn't a skyscraper.
It's the newly built
Brooklyn Bridge,
the eighth wonder
of the modern world.
Standing at 272 feet, its towers
are the tallest structures
in the city because New York
is still a low rise city.
Blame the number five.
- There was no actual law saying
that you couldn't build higher.
And of course, engineers had
figured out ways to do so,
but we don't see buildings
higher than that at the time,
because of a physiological
issue for humans.
- The maximum
height of buildings
is based on the
willingness of people
to climb a flight of stairs.
- Nobody is gonna climb more
than five flights of stairs.
- The most amount of
floors I would walk up
without an elevator really
depends on what's at the top.
- Yeah, if I was carrying
a bunch of groceries,
like I'd have to hire someone
to walk up the stairs for me
and then another person
to carry me on their back.
- I don't wanna carry
groceries up four flights.
- It's probably gonna
be like two flights.
No, it's gonna be three flights.
- [Narrator] And New York
might still be stuck somewhere
between the second
and fifth floors.
- My legs.
- [Narrator] If not
for an uplifting,
technological demonstration.
- Please.
- [Narrator] It's a story
that begins 30 years earlier
at the 1853 World's
Fair in New York City
where an exhibit will change
the world using one ax
and two ratchets.
Factories and warehouses
already have elevating systems
to lift and lower
goods, but not people.
No one wants to
dangle from a rope.
- Now there were lifts that
could hoist goods and supplies
up many stories with a rope,
you know, and pulley system.
That existed for a long time
before there were elevators.
Problem was, what
if the rope breaks?
(rope snaps)
(character screams)
- Oh my God, that'd be so scary.
I would just be regretting
all of the decisions
that led me up to that point.
I would be terrified.
- I'm claustrophobic actually.
So that would be bad.
Panic, have trouble breathing,
might pee myself a little bit.
- I'm a screamer.
And I tend to projectile
vomit when I'm scared.
So it's not gonna
go well for anybody
that is in that elevator,
including myself.
- [Jason Barr] If you think
going into this elevator
is endangering your life,
you're not gonna do it.
- [Narrator] Enter a
man named Elisha Otis
who rides an elevator
car to the top
of a demonstration tower.
And then his assistant on
the ground picks up an ax.
- [Crowd Voice] Don't do it.
- The crowds were scared.
They were, they thought
the thing was gonna fall.
- [Narrator] They're not wrong.
The platform does fall,
but only for a few inches
before it's stopped
by an ingenious
locking mechanism,
comprised of two ratchets.
- [Disembodied Voice] Science.
- History has recorded
that was the pivotal moment
in elevator technology.
- Otis had come up
with the first elevator
that had a breaking system
so that if the
elevator rope snapped,
that the elevator wouldn't
just crash to the ground,
it would stop.
- [Narrator] Otis's safety
break is a game changer.
- [Disembodied Voice] Going up.
- The elevator is one of
the fundamental innovations
that make skyscrapers possible.
So having a form of vertical
transportation that is safe,
rapid, and comfortable radically
alters the building
height equation.
- The first skyscraper
that had elevators in it
was the Equitable Building.
It was an insurance company
building right on Broadway,
and it was only
eight stories tall.
But still eight stories in 1870
was a ridiculous
number of stories.
- In many respects, the
Equitable Building it sort
of established the
precedent that business
can be conducted in the clouds.
- [Narrator] Standing at
a height of only 155 feet,
it's one small step
towards the sky.
But to trigger the giant leap
into the age of the skyscraper,
one really bad thing has
to happen in Chicago.
At number 137 West
Dekoven Street.
- So in 1871, Chicago was
the fastest growing city
in America.
- Similar to many
cities during that time,
the vast majority of the
buildings were made of wood.
- Even the sidewalks
are made out of wood.
- Not only was the city
of Chicago primarily
made out of wood.
There was an aggressive drought.
All you need is a spark and
the whole city is ablaze.
(siren rings)
- [Narrator] The first
spark is in a barn
behind 137 West Dekoven Street.
From there it spreads and
engulfs an entire city
in a three day conflagration.
- So the fire did two things.
It cleared away, for lack of
a better term, the old city.
And it created a kind
of a, like a blank slate
on which a new
city could emerge.
- [Narrator] The Great
Chicago Fire wipes
out three square
miles of the city,
destroys 17,500 buildings,
and 120 miles of sidewalks.
It kills 300 people and
leaves 90,000 homeless.
Chicago needs to rebuild.
- Architects, draftsmen,
engineers, builders,
construction workers poured
in from all around the country
to rebuild this great
growing young city.
- [Narrator] And
rebuild they do.
In the wake of the fire,
10,000 new building
permits will be issued,
including one for
Chicago's first skyscraper,
the Home Insurance Building.
At 10 stories, it's
two stories higher
than New York's
Equitable Building,
which might not
sound like very much.
But from here on in the
sky will be the limit
because Chicago's Home Insurance
Building has an advantage.
The secret of 33%.
Up until now walls have
been built of stone
or bricks cemented with mortar.
Since the pyramids, it's been
the way to raise yourself
above the competition.
- [Disembodied Voice]
Time to innovate.
- Fundamental problem
to building tall
was that a building
relied on the walls
to bear the load of the building
and those walls were
made of brick or stone.
The problem with load
bearing masonry walls
is that as you go taller,
walls have to get thicker
and thicker and thicker
on the bottom floors.
And this creates
several problems.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] The medieval
Italian town of San Gimignano
is famous for its towers.
They were built as displays
of wealth and status,
which is all they were good for.
- It doesn't really allow
for a whole lot of light
to get inside it.
And other than being tall,
it's not terribly useful.
- As the walls get thicker,
your rentable space on the
inside gets smaller and smaller.
- [Narrator] One young
Chicago architect
has a bird brain solution.
William Le Baron Jenney's
inspiration is a book
and a bird cage.
- [Disembodied
Voice] Tweet, tweet.
- And the bird cage is made
of this very skinny
pieces of metal.
But that nevertheless was able
to support a stack
of heavy books.
- The idea was by adding
iron inside the masonry wall,
you could reduce the
weight of the building
by reducing some of the
masonry that was needed.
- Once your building
doesn't need to be held up
by its exterior walls and
instead it can be held up
by steel cage or
framework or skeleton,
that allows a lot more
space for windows.
And that, crucially,
allows a lot more light
and suddenly, bing, in his
mind came this eureka moment
of I can build a skyscraper.
I think that's a great story.
So I'm not going to
say whether it happened
or it didn't happen.
- [Narrator] Jenney's 138-foot
Home Insurance Building
is made possible by a
steel framed structure,
33% lighter than
traditional masonry.
- That metal steel skeleton
has really been one
of the hallmarks of
what is a skyscraper.
- [Narrator] In the race to the
top, it's advantage Chicago.
But New York has its own secret
weapon, the five and dime.
(numbers click)
In 1889, just four
years after Chicago
unveils the Home
Insurance Building,
Paris reveals what's
truly possible
with the new technology.
The Eiffel Tower becomes the
tallest tower in the world,
breaking the 1,000 foot barrier.
One of the early sight
seers is Frank Woolworth,
the five and dime king.
- He starts out as a potato farm
and then he goes
onto the Eiffel Tower
and he loved the Eiffel Tower.
So it wasn't very hard to
convince him when he came back
to America to build the
world's tallest skyscraper.
And people flocked to it.
It was the Woolworth
Building in New York.
When it opened in 1913,
they called it the
Cathedral of Commerce.
- [Narrator] Unveiled in
1913, it cost $13.5 million
and was paid for in cash.
Standing at 792 feet,
it was the highest office
building in the world.
And America's skyscraper
frenzy was set for lift off.
(crowd cheers)
(cuckoo clocks whistles)
(dominoes click)
(ba*ls smack)
(dial clicks)
(upbeat music)
It's the 1920s.
The decade when New York
City becomes the Big Apple.
Since the turn of the century,
it's population has doubled.
Never before has it
had such confidence
and such wealth.
- 1920s New York, we just
got past the Spanish flu,
World w*r I, things
are building.
People are innovating.
People are growing.
(train wheels click)
- [Narrator] Penn Station is
a gargantuan transportation hub,
11 platforms, 21 tracks,
144 trains an hour.
- Everyone wanted to be a
part of what was going on
in New York City, whether
you were investing
in construction or you
were a construction worker.
- [Narrator] As the
city's population grows,
so grows the demand for space.
- And New York City was
growing at an insane rate.
And literally to the
point where buildings
were being put up
every single day.
So between 1924 and 1929,
the price of land in
Manhattan shoots up 44%,
which says a lot.
- Fundamentally, a developer
builds a skyscraper to fill it
with people who
are paying money.
- There's a careful calculation
that anyone making a
skyscraper has to go through.
And that has to do
with at what point
is the height the
most profitable?
- [Narrator] If you can
break even on 10 floors,
then every floor above that
will be hugely profitable.
- So the bigger the skyscraper
often better the
rents you can charge.
- [Narrator] But the
dream of reaching the sky
isn't fueled only by money.
- What kind of
personality does it take
to build a skyscraper?
- I think you kind of
have to be a little bit
of an egomaniac to
build a skyscraper
because it's very much like,
hey, look at me.
I am the tallest
out of everyone.
Pay attention to me.
- You have to be the big
swinging D in the house
in order to be able
to build one of those.
- Fricking Jeffrey
from my third grade
probably builds skyscrapers.
He took all the cake
at my birthday party.
Not cool, Jeffrey.
- [Narrator] It's a race to the
top that's powered by money,
ego, and 7 million cubic
feet of hydrogen gas.
- In 1928, Walter Chrysler
announces to the world
that he's gonna build the
world's tallest building,
over 800 feet high.
Taller than the
Woolworth Building,
the previous tallest building.
- At the same time,
the Bank of Manhattan lower
down on Manhattan Island
is building what
it claims is going
to be the tallest
skyscraper in the world.
- Well, Chrysler
didn't like this idea.
Chrysler, in secret,
developed a plan
to make his building taller.
The people at the Bank of
Manhattan Building got wind
of Chrysler's plan to
extend their building.
So they went ahead and
extended their building higher.
- So when the Bank of
Manhattan was completed,
it was looking like the tallest
skyscraper in the world.
It was going to win the contest.
But secretly, as the Chrysler
Building was being completed,
its architect had built
on the inside of its dome,
a 120 foot tall steel spire.
- [Narrator] On
October 23rd, 1929,
Chrysler's secret spire rises
like a telescoping antenna.
- At the point that the
Bank of Manhattan Building
was topped out.
- All's fair in love
and w*r and skyscrapers.
And not only a
tallest skyscraper,
but also the first skyscraper
taller than the Eiffel Tower,
at more than a
thousand feet tall.
And Walter Chrysler had the
tallest skyscraper in the world
and he got to brag
about it for a year.
- [Narrator] Only for a year
because less than a mile away,
another group of developers
is watching the competition.
- 61, 62, 63.
- [Narrator] And adding
floors to their design.
- 97, 98, 99.
- The original
Empire State Building
was gonna be 80
floors and 1,000 feet.
That would only have
been a little bit taller
than Chrysler's building.
That wasn't a lot
of room for comfort
because maybe Chrysler had
something up his sleeve.
And they came up with this
idea of a mooring mast.
The idea was to add
another 200 feet
to the top of the
Empire State Building,
really to make it taller,
but they told the world, okay,
we're gonna build this
mooring mast for airships.
- [Narrator] The
Airship docking station
puts the Empire State
Building over the top.
- [Crowd] Oh yeah.
- These passengers would
walk down a g*ng plank,
102 stories above the ground
and go in through the top
of the Empire State Building.
(robots beep)
- [Narrator] But 7 million
cubic feet of hydrogen gas
will prove inherently unstable.
Just six years after the
Empire State Building opens,
the Hindenburg
explodes in New Jersey,
k*lling 36 and the dream
of airships over Manhattan.
- So the image that you will
see of the airship docked
to the top of the
Empire State Building
is actually early Photoshop.
So it's faked.
- [Disembodied Voice]
Not the airships.
- [Terri Meyer Boake]
So it never happened.
- [Narrator] But
who needs an airship
when you've got an
elevator to the clouds?
When it officially opens
on April 11th, 1931,
the Empire State Building
is beyond comprehension.
1,454 feet, 66
elevators, 102 floors,
$44 million, over 2 million
square feet of office space
and a great view of
the loser's building.
(numbers click)
Vision, money, ego,
but that's not all it
takes to build a skyscraper
because when you're
1,000 feet in the air,
just six inches can
be the difference
between life and death.
- Am I scared of heights?
When I was 10,
I cried when my mom made me go
off the high diving board.
- It's not the height
that's the problem, right?
It's the falling
that's the issue.
- That was a lie.
I tried to go off the high
diving board last week
and I cried.
- Iron workers back
then had to have
been the most courageous
or foolhardy people
that there were.
- [Disembodied Voice]
Die if we have to.
- [Narrator] The iron workers
who built the steel skeletons
of skyscrapers were often first
or second generation immigrants.
Many first nations workers
traveled from Canada,
particularly from the
Mohawk nation near Montreal.
- In my classroom, obviously
I have the iconic picture
of the construction
workers sitting
on probably a six inch
beam 300 feet in the air
having lunch, but
they're all white,
which therefore
gives the impression
that construction
workers were all white.
- One reason we might not
remember these workers of color
and indigenous workers
is because there were
so many publicity photographs
done of the construction
of these skyscrapers,
but they focused on white or
European immigrant workers.
- [Narrator] The Mohawk
beam walkers are famous
for their fearlessness.
Their aerial ability is prized
by the skyscraper builders.
An American judge rules that
because their historical lands
straddle the US/Canada border,
Mohawk iron workers are
free to work in America.
- They'd come down during
the building season.
They would live in New
York City, for example,
they would live in Brooklyn.
They would just save all
the money that they earned.
And then they would sort
of send it back home.
- [Narrator] According
to official accounts,
five workers lost their lives
building the Empire
State Building.
Unofficially that number
may have been as high as 42.
- People did it because they
were willing to take the risk.
(numbers click)
- [Narrator] It was the heyday
of New York's skyscraper craze,
but that dream is about
to turn into a nightmare
in the shape of a
55-foot gorilla.
(King Kong roars)
- The rise of the
skyscraper coincides
with the Great Depression.
So as people are
suffering under all
of this economic collapse,
they're doing it
under the shadow
of these huge monuments
to capitalism.
- As incredible as
skyscrapers are,
when they were being built,
people were very
apprehensive and suspicious.
- [Sarah Lacy] What are
our overlords plotting
high up in those towers?
- [Narrator] Popular culture
begins to reflect this fear.
- Fritz Lang's Metropolis,
which was filmed in 1927,
really explores the shift
that's occurring in cities
at the time of these
skyscrapers for the wealthy
and the exploitation
of the poor working
in this underclasses below.
- [Narrator] It's no coincidence
the Empire State Building
is the backdrop to King Kong.
(airplane buzzes)
(King Kong roars)
But nothing dreamt
up in Hollywood
can come close to
the real nightmare.
July 28th, 1945.
(dramatic music)
- [News Anchor] The Empire
State Building like all New York
was hidden by fog as
a Mitchell b*mber,
trying to reach
Newark Airport crashed
into the tallest
structure in the world.
- It's a horrifying moment
in the city's history.
America's still at w*r
with Japan in 1945.
And you have this
iconic skyscraper hit
by one of its own bombers.
It's such an irony.
(numbers click)
- [Narrator] After the
w*r, the GI's return.
There's a boom in jobs,
wages, and babies.
And the demand for
office space skyrockets.
Developers spy an opportunity,
fueling a second
skyscraper boom.
One that relies on an 80
foot high bamboo pole.
Profit margins are key.
And the skyscraper's
traditional steel skeleton
is beginning to show
its limitations.
- There's a column and a column
and the bigger the building,
the more columns.
So the floor plates
were not open.
They had columns in them.
- [Narrator] The amount
of leaseable floor space
is being compromised.
A new technical
solution is required.
Enter Fazlur Rahman Khan.
- Many people consider him
kind of like the Einstein
of structural engineering.
His innovation was to
come up with new ways
to build tall buildings in a
much more efficient manner.
- [Narrator] Khan grows up
in a Bangladeshi village,
surrounded by bamboo forests.
The young bamboo shoots grow
into poles that soar 80 feet
and are as straight
as they are strong.
But what inspires Khan is
on the inside, nothing.
- [Terri Meyer Boake] Khan
invented a tube system based
on his understanding of
the way bamboo is so strong
and bamboo is a hollow material
with a void in the middle.
- [Narrator] Khan's eureka
moment is to place columns
around the perimeter
of the tower
to create a tubular structure,
rigid on the outside
and open on the inside.
- This perimeter tube would
span from that outside structure
to the elevator and
stair core in the center,
and they were able to start
to eliminate the columns
in the floor plate.
- [Narrator] From bamboo
jungle to urban jungle.
Khan's tubular design is the
new blueprint for skyscrapers.
- So we talk about revolutions
in structural engineering,
but fundamentally it was
about answering the needs
of developers who
wanted to build taller,
but using less money.
- Well, any system
that allows you
to get 75% more leaseable
space on a floor,
absolutely is a game
changer for skyscrapers.
- [Narrator] It
triggers another orgy
of skyscraper construction
through the sixties
and seventies.
The Chicago/New York
rivalry rises again.
Chicago has the one, two punch.
The Willis Tower at 1,729 feet.
And the John Hancock
Center at 1,499 feet.
(upbeat jazz music)
- Probably the two
most famous skyscrapers
that use this tube system.
And you can make a much bigger
space and a much taller space
because the rigidity
of each tube works
with the rigidity
of the other tubes.
And together they make a
much more rigid structure.
- [Narrator] New York
makes a stunning statement
with not one tower but two.
- The other most
famous buildings that
used the tube system
were the Twin Towers completed
in the early 1970s in New York.
- [Narrator] The American
skyscraper scene holds steady
through the final decades
of the 20th century.
Between 1970 and 2000, nearly
400 skyscrapers are completed.
An impressive number but
innovations were few.
(upbeat jazz music)
(dramatic music)
Then a terrible tragedy
threatens to change everything.
- After 9/11 people thought,
okay, cities are dead,
skyscrapers are over.
- There were some years
there where just the thought
of putting yourself
at the potential risk
of another dreadful
attack like that
just ruled that
idea out for people.
- What 9/11 taught people is
that skyscrapers are necessary
and important for cities
but they're going to need
to have more safety
features, better fire safety,
better structural
design that might help
against t*rror1st attacks.
So the effect of 9/11
on the skyscraper world
was basically to
make them safer.
- Evidence that 9/11
didn't scare off Americans
from skyscrapers is the fact
that half of the skyscrapers
in America today were built
after the Twin Towers fell.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] The higher you go,
the greater the
technical challenges.
For engineers, it often
means going back to basics
and Skyscraper 101.
Take, for example, the winds.
The first use of
the term skyscraper
was a reference to
a tall sailing ship.
As with a tall sail, a tall
building gathers more wind.
- It's what we call a
vertical cantilever.
When you start to build tall,
you have wind resistance,
and that can cause
a tower to shake.
- It's imperceptible
when a building
is only 30 or 40 stories high,
but if a building is 100
stories tall or more,
you can notice that swing.
- It's attached at the ground
and it's just sticking
out at the top.
So the wind can
cause it to move.
- [Narrator] So what
about areas of the world
prone to high winds or
earthquakes, or even both?
A place like Taiwan.
On average, the island is hit
by 3.7 typhoons every year.
It's also located in what's
known as the Ring of Fire
and is hit by an
earthquake 7.0 or higher
every four to five years.
- Yeah, if I was atop of
skyscraper it started wobbling,
I guess I'd just pray, hold
on to something and pray.
- It's concrete, concrete
doesn't wobble, right?
Or maybe it does.
Does it?
- [Narrator] Disaster
prone it may be,
but Taiwan has one of
the tallest skyscrapers
in the world, Taipei 101.
101 floors, 1,667 feet
to the tip of its spire.
(offscreen whistle)
- Big boy.
- [Narrator] The reason
it doesn't topple over
is an ingenious
technical innovation
high up in the building.
- At the top of the Taipei
101 is this giant damper.
It's basically a large pendulum.
- They hang that at the
top of the building.
It's attached back to the
structure with shock absorbers.
- So the idea is when
the wind starts blowing,
the damper starts to swing
in the opposite direction
and it slows down the
sway of the building.
- [Narrator] Welders
sandwiched steel discs
in concentric rings creating
a single giant cannon ball.
It weighs 728 tons.
- [Crowd] Hurray.
- [Narrator] And it swings.
- Essentially a
big weight hanging
in the center of the building,
which offsets the push and
the sway from heavy wind.
- [Narrator] For an
engineer, it's kids' play.
Imagine you're on a swing.
Instead of pumping your legs
to make yourself swing higher,
you draw your legs
back beneath you.
You k*ll the swing.
That's what the damper does.
It counteracts and kills
the structure's sway.
So you can rest easy
when the wind blows.
And the earth quakes.
(numbers click)
(upbeat music)
Technical innovation is
making the dream of living
in the sky a reality.
Or if you're in China,
1 billion dreams.
(train rattles)
- In China, since the 1970s,
we've been seeing this
huge movement of people
from rural areas to urban areas
seeking economic opportunity,
something that we saw in
Europe in the previous century.
- [Narrator] Over 1
billion people will move
from rural into urban areas
over the next 20 years.
It's an unprecedented
mass migration
and it promises to be vertical.
In 1979, four out
of five citizens
of mainland China
live in rural areas.
By 2020, over half of the
population lives in a city.
Mainland China didn't
have any skyscrapers
for most of the 20th century.
They got their very
first one in 1976.
This is Shanghai in 1987.
This is Shanghai in 2013.
Today 10 of the
tallest 20 skyscrapers
in the world are in China.
- And six more of them
are under constructions.
So within a couple years,
China will have 16 buildings
in that top 20 skyscrapers
in the world.
China has really taken over
in the race to the sky.
- [Narrator] The
Chinese are building
so many new skyscrapers,
they can demolish old ones
by the dozen.
- Many small cities
or non-existent cities
basically get
built from scratch.
So Chinese officials
will create a master plan
and they'll say,
okay, over here,
we're gonna have our
skyscraper district.
- So that is part of the
reason why we're seeing them
spring up across
China is they're not
quite as constrained
by the profit motive.
(numbers click)
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] For more
than a hundred years,
whether you're in New
York, Taipei, or Shanghai,
skyscrapers have looked
pretty much the same.
- They're all tall and upward.
- It's all these engineers
and like architects
just trying to impress
a girl, you know?
- Are skyscrapers
phallic symbols?
Absolutely.
- A hundred percent skyscrapers
are phallic symbols.
- [Narrator] But
that's about to change.
Thanks to the number 360.
- In 1958, women
represent only about 1%
of registered architects.
By 1988, it's up to 4%.
- [Narrator] One of these
female architects is Zaha Hadid.
- Zaha Hadid's practice really
began to challenge form.
And she started
that very early on
in her low rise buildings.
And that just sort of naturally
seemed to evolve into all
of the skyscrapers you see
coming out of that office.
- [Narrator] Zaha Hadid, an
Iraq born British citizen,
famously said, "There
are 360 degrees.
Why use only one of them?"
Hadid is called the
Queen of the Curve.
- Zaha Hadid is a good example
of someone with amazing ideas
that took a really long time
to actually see them realized.
She was awarded a
number of contracts.
Her projects had never
actually went through.
It wasn't until much
later in her life
that she saw her first
major construction project.
- [Narrator] Hadid took the
skyscraper and gave it a twist.
- She was see first female
to win the Pritzker Prize,
which is basically like the
Nobel Prize for Architecture.
- Hadid really challenged
the idea of a skyscraper
as this obelisk
phallic monolith,
and that there really are
other shapes you could use,
not just from an
aesthetic perspective,
but would also change how
people utilized the building.
Students in architectural
programs today
are about 50/50 male and female.
But when we look at
registered architects,
it's still only 17% female.
So we still have
a long way to go.
(numbers beep)
(upbeat music)
- From Chicago to New
York, Taipei to Shanghai,
it's a race to be number one.
But now there's a city
where one isn't enough.
Only two will do.
- When I think
skyline, I think Dubai.
- You wanna break
records and get higher.
I mean if they're
anything like me,
they just like
getting real high.
- [Narrator] It's 2003.
The oil rich Emirate of
Dubai wants the world
to know there is more
to life than crude.
They commission a skyscraper
that will break every
height record standing.
- [Jason Barr] You have a
central core that's buttressed
by sort of three wings on
each side of the central core.
It gives us this
pyramidal shape.
- [Narrator] When the Burj
Khalifa topped out in 2009,
it surpasses the Taipei 101
as the world's tallest building.
In fact, it's the tallest
structure in the world, period.
It's so high, you can
watch the sunset twice.
Sunset number one from
the base of the building
and sunset number two
from the 124th floor.
When the Burj Khalifa was
unveiled to the world,
one man was invited to the
top, but not via the elevator.
- I don't even know
what I'm looking at.
Is this man climbing
a building free hand?
Like no nothing.
- Whoa.
Oh, this guy's trying
to steal something.
- I could do this.
No, I couldn't, I would die.
- Is he okay?
Why am I asking?
He's clearly not okay.
- [Narrator] Alain Robert is
known as the French Spiderman,
but instead of eight legs,
he uses only two hands,
some chalk, and one pair
of rock climbing shoes.
- They wanted to do a big event.
That was for the kind of for
the opening of the building.
I enjoy climbing buildings
because it's a pure vertical.
It is something that actually,
you cannot really find it
if you're climbing
a natural landscape.
There is always a
reference point.
Visually when you climb a
building, you can see the cars,
you can see the trucks,
and you can see people.
- [Narrator] In his time,
Alain has climbed over
a hundred skyscrapers.
- I climbed the
Empire State Building,
but not all the way to the top
because I get
caught by the cops.
(police siren blares)
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] It might look
like Alain's one in a million,
but he's actually one in three.
That's how many of us
are afraid of heights,
including surprisingly, Alain.
- Everybody is afraid of height.
It's not that you're afraid
to fall, afraid to die.
I guess, not I guess, I know.
My love for climbing was
bigger than my fear of height.
- I'm one of those three.
I'm deathly afraid of heights.
I cannot look over a ledge
without having some
sort of panic attack.
(numbers beep)
(upbeat jazz music)
- [Narrator] The race for
the sky has been driven
by a series of astonishing
technical breakthroughs.
- Honestly, I don't
think we'll ever hit
this idea of too tall.
And the reason is because
of the technology.
- [Narrator] But what
if that technology
becomes out of date, like
169 years out of date.
- Right now, all of the
elements of the technology
except one are in place to
create a mile high skyscraper.
- [Narrator] The invention that
made the skyscraper possible
is now the hold up.
- The only thing that
we're missing right now
in terms of the technology
is the elevator.
- So elevator salesman
have their jokes.
Ask me how business is doing.
- [Offscreen] How's
business, Nick?
- It has its ups and downs.
Da da da.
- [Narrator] Elisha
Otis introduced
the passenger elevator in 1853.
169 years later his
invention will make
or break the next big thing.
(upbeat music)
In 2013, the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia
begins construction
of the Jeddah Tower.
Planned to be over one
kilometer or 3,000 feet high,
this is an ultra skyscraper.
But to get that high,
you've got to go back to
the elevator drawing board.
An elevator car
weighs 3,500 pounds.
It's passengers
weigh 3,500 pounds.
That's three and a half tons.
The steel cable
that lifts the car
weighs 1.78 pounds per foot.
A vertical run of 3,000
feet will yield a cable
that weighs 2.7 tons.
That's a total of 6.2 tons.
- Well, the problem is that
if you add a steel cable
stretched a kilometer,
it would stretch.
It's not a stable mechanism.
(upbeat jazz music)
- [Narrator] It's a new
technical challenge to overcome.
One solution is to
replace the steel cable
with carbon fiber ribbon,
which is 80% lighter.
- How do you test something
to go a kilometer in the sky
before that building
has been constructed,
knowing that everything that's
being constructed in the core
of that building is relying
on this technology to work.
- [Narrator] The
quest to build taller,
forces elevator
engineers to go deeper.
- [Terri Meyer Boake]
So what they did was
to construct a test pit
down into the earth.
- [Narrator] One company
constructed its test facility
in an active limestone mine.
It's the only one in
the world that can test
over 984 feet vertical.
With an elevator traveling
over 40 miles per hour,
you need that much distance
to ensure a smooth ride
from liftoff to arrival.
But there may be
another solution.
Instead of a 3,000 foot cable,
what if there was
no cable at all?
- The big problem
with building tall
is you can't just have
one elevator going
from floor 1, 2, 3, 4 up
to 300, 400 and so forth.
You need different shafts
and express elevators
and so forth.
Sooner or later, your ground
floor has almost no room
for offices or
apartments anymore.
It's just elevators.
(cars honk)
- [Narrator] It's an elevator
equivalent of a traffic jam.
But what if instead of a cable,
each cabin had its own motor
and the ability to
travel horizontally?
Elevator cabins would be
more like passenger vehicles,
able to move independently and
allow other cabins to pass.
(numbers beep)
(upbeat music)
But it turns out that the
future of the skyscraper
is subject to forces more
powerful than gravity.
In 2017, intrigue in
the Saudi royal family
puts the Jeddah Tower on hiatus.
The planned kilometer high
building is a 328 foot stump.
And in the skyscraper
capital of the world,
Chinese President Xi Jinping
declares a moratorium
on buildings over 1,640 feet.
And then this happens.
- The COVID pandemic's really
put a giant question mark
on the future of skyscrapers.
Now that employers
have recognized
that employees can
work from home,
they don't really need
these big commercial leases
in skyscrapers.
- [Narrator] When the
Empire State Building opens
for business in 1931,
it features an astonishing
2 million square feet
of office space.
In 2021, 40% of its tenants
are reportedly exploring
hybrid work options.
That's not the only problem
facing the modern skyscraper.
Just ask 600 million birds.
- Skyscrapers are
clearly unnatural,
but they're particularly
dangerous for birds,
especially at night because
they're attracted to the light,
don't realize that they're
flying into something.
So skyscrapers k*ll
around 600 million birds
in the US every single year.
And the city that's the
greatest offender is Chicago
because it lies on some
major bird migratory routes.
- [Narrator] Meanwhile,
the carbon footprint
of the concrete industry
is considered one
of the world's worst.
- There's, you know,
an increasing interest
in experimentation
with wood high rises,
trying to reduce the
embodied carbon element
and replace steel and
concrete with wood.
- But just goes to show you
that you can't always predict
what direction technology
and development is going to go.
Sometimes it will surprise you.
- [Narrator] For as long as
there have been human beings,
there's been the dream
of reaching for the sky.
(numbers beep)
- The history of skyscrapers
is the history of
American cities.
Skyscrapers grew up just
as America's cities grew up
and became an essential
part of that transformation
into the modern age.
And in a way, the technology
that they manifested
has a similar story in the
space program, the space race.
It's an example of what had
been unthinkable technology
blossoming into something
that became common place.
- Because I'll be honest.
If I could, I
wouldn't go to space.
I would want to build
the biggest building
in New York City,
because I feel like they
forget about your space trip
if you're a billionaire,
but that building
will be there forever.
- And if you go to Rome,
if you go to Paris,
you're going to
look at a church.
Well, if you're in
the United States,
you should look at our
cathedrals of commerce,
our contribution to
architectural grandiosity.
You should walk
inside these buildings
and just look up at a space
that was made to impress you.
That's the point of
these skyscrapers.
- [Jason Barr]
Honestly, I don't think
we'll ever hit this
idea of too tall.
- Eventually we're gonna
have skyscrapers in space.
- I always picture this
kind of Jetson thing
where the buildings are like
avoiding traffic, right?
- And I think we're gonna get
those flying cars soon, right?
So be easier to park
up by your apartment
that is in the sky.
- And they're all
made of glass, too.
All it takes is
one little meteor.
Phew, your head explodes.
- Space elevators.
It's gonna happen.
I look forward to it.
(upbeat music)
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01x15 - Skyscrapers
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This series is loaded with mind-blowing factoids and stats, entertaining expert interviews, and infographics injected with cheeky humor.
This series is loaded with mind-blowing factoids and stats, entertaining expert interviews, and infographics injected with cheeky humor.