WEBVTT

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[music]

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It’s sometimes said

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that buildings tell a story, that
architecture is a testament,

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a record of things that men believe in.

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The first function of
architecture is shelter,

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shelter for all the needs of daily life.

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In providing shelter,

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buildings reveal something
of the spirit of their time.

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[music]

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What about our buildings?

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All these familiar places,

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what do they say about the times we
live in, about the things we value?

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[music]

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There is a mystery here.

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Many of these shapes and
forms are chosen pillars,

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have come to us from times not our own.

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Towers and columns from the
distant past reflect the

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struggles and the dreams of other men.

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[music]

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The story of these buildings
begins not with us

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but many thousands of years ago.

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[music]

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Very early in our western history,
a certain view of life and death

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were shaped in stone.

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[music]

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The King in Egypt was supreme
ruler counseled by the God’s,

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worshipped as God himself.

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The palace life was rich and graceful

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and yet, another world was never far away.

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Much of life on earth was taken
up with ritual preparation

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for the life to come.

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[music]

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The king’s journey through the temple

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symbolized every man’s journey
to the world beyond our own.

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[music]

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In the inmost hall, the
king’s own image stood,

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a darkened shrine, where
man might speak with God.

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[music]

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On sunlit seas, the Greeks explored
new shores and built new cities.

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[music]

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The leading beauty of the body and beauty of the
spirit to be one. They sought a harmony of body,

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mind, and soul.

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The legends of the Gods filled the Greek
mind with a sense of fate and human destiny.

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Their rituals of worship grew into
drama, enacted in the earliest theaters.

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[music]

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The Gods were close at hand,

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fully involved in human
lives and destinies.

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[music]

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They themselves were much like men on
earth, but idealized and perfected.

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Temples built in their
honor, should then embody

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perfect harmony and balance.

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[music]

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At the center,

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the God of love or war, or wisdom.

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[music]

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In the Greek city states, buildings
reflected a harmony of civic life,

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a sense of beauty, a balance,
underlying man’s relationship

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with the world he lives in.

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[music]

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Rome, the Conqueror.

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[music]

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Greater by far than any city state,

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Rome and her empire grew in
power, in her buildings, scale,

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and splendor, to suit an age
when man himself is glorified.

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[music]

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Symbol of Rome’s conquests
was the triumphal arch.

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And in the arch, the Roman
engineers found many uses.

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[music]

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From intersecting arches grew the dome, a lofty
covering for great assembly halls and monuments.

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[music]

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After Rome fell, the empire’s capital

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renewed to a new Rome, Byzantium.

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[music]

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Hagia Sophia, the Church of Divine
Wisdom, built for a Christian emperor.

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Above it, rose a dome pierced by 40 windows

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described as the Great Lantern(ph)
hung from the heaven.

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[music]

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The Byzantine tradition spread in
Christian Europe and in Muslim Asia

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and long outlived Byzantium herself.

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[music]

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North of the Mediterranean,

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peace was slow in coming after Rome’s
fall and the Dark Age of barbarian wars.

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[music]

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Fortress and castle rose on many a
hilltop guarding the lands nearby.

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[music]

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As generations passed,

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the medieval towns of Europe
grew around their castles.

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[music]

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Like city-states of Greece long before,
each was a separate island to itself.

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[music]

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Here, craftsmen and merchants
might work in peace.

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[music]

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In gothic churches, mind and eye
followed tall verticals upward

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to pointed arches, to lofty vaulted space.

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No heavy walls to hold
the weight of the roof.

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Now, slanted buttress of stone carry
it outward and down to the ground.

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[music]

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Every line leads upward and walls
with lifted load are pierced

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to let the light flood in.

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[music]

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No more of the castle, but the cathedral,
the cross, at the heart of the town.

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[music]

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Then, the past reappeared.

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The ruins of the ancient world came
again to light in the 14th century.

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[music]

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In Italy, artists and scholars rediscovered

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the forgotten glories of Greece and Rome.

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[music]

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The stately Roman arch became the
keystone in a new mode of building.

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[music]

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The painter took delight

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in his new grasp of perspective.

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[music]

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His imagined view of an ideal town square often
inspired the building of the square itself.

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[music]

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In Italy and France, the squares provided new
prospects of ordered spacious city life.

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Symbol of this rebirth in art and building

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was the royal palace, a stately setting
for pageants and ceremonies of the court.

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[music]

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The Sun King of France,

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a brilliant autocrat crowning the
most glittering court in Europe.

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[music]

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Absolute ruler. Patron of art and science.

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A new Apollo echoing the
splendors of Greece and Rome.

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[music]

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Versailles,

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an entire court and government set
amidst open space and formal beauty.

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Here, the dream of an age was realized

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in the scale and breadth of plan,

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foreshadowing the needs and
methods of our own times.

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[music]

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Now came an age of iron and coal and steam.

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[music]

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It began in Britain. It’s landmark,

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the great exhibition of 1851.

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[music]

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Working models and engines, marvels
of invention and power were on show,

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the shape of things to come.

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[music]

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And overall, even the tall trees of
Hyde Park rose the greatest wonder,

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a crystal palace of iron and glass.

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[music]

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This was a new kind of structure,

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built with surprising speed
from prefabricated sections,

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a triumph of engineers
rather than architects.

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[music]

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The secret was cast iron, which
industry could now produce in quantity.

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[music]

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Within 40 years, in Paris, a structure
even more remarkable astonished the world.

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[music]

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Steel, and the knowledge
won from building bridges.

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Industry could now convert iron into steel.

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A structural engineer could
raise a tower a 1,000 feet.

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[music]

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It proved that buildings in an age of steel

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could grow in a new dimension.
It fired the dreams and plans

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of those who looked ahead.

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[music]

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Because of it’s great height,

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the skyscraper is built on simple principles,
an open cage of steel or reinforced concrete,

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the outside walls, or screens, no
longer basic elements of structure.

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[music]

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Light and strong,

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the steel skeleton suggests
new shapes and new solutions.

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[music]

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Concrete,

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first used in Roman times, can now
be formed in free organic shapes.

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[music]

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A covered stadium,

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an aircraft terminal, or any structure
needing uninterrupted space.

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[music]

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An office building can be hung on a pole,

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very deep and strong foundations.

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The floors like ribs branching
from a spinal column.

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The walls, a little more than

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a curtain of glass.

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[music]

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Materials and means for modern building,

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their use has spread around the world.

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In every continent, they
bring new opportunities.

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New shapes arise in ancient towns,

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in Rome and others older still,

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whose ruins remind us, how long it
is that men have lived in cities.

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[sil.]

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Around us, our age is taking shape

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from day to day. Everything we build

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expresses in some way the things we value.

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[music]

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What do we build?

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How will the story read
when our time has passed?

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[music]