DAN CRUICKSHANK: This is a journey to see how people live together and connect
through architecture.
How the poor can build their own city,
and create vibrant communities.
Architecture that dreamed of bringing people together
in a brave new world.
The oldest city in the world that still inspires the soul.
And a building of the modern age that reaches for the sky.
This is the wilderness at the heart of Brazil.
But in the middle of the last century,
it became the site for a giant experiment in city-building.
It was one of the most audacious architectural projects ever realised.
It was created at a time when people believed that architecture
could change the world, that architects could cure social evils.
They could transform, for the better, the way in which we live.
And all is to be achieved through a perfect city
designed from scratch.
The city was to be Brazil's new capital.
The site was remote,
600 kilometres from the nearest paved road.
But in just over three years, it was transformed.
They built Brasília.
The city was inaugurated on the 21st of April, 1960,
intended as a bold fresh start
for a country stricken by poverty and disease.
It was to be a new capital
to express the identity and aspirations of a new nation,
proclaiming social equality and belief in the future.
These buildings are all the work of one man,
the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.
Politically, a communist.
Architecturally, a modernist.
He realised the government's vision
through sculptural buildings liberated from styles of the past.
It's extraordinary to think that not one building in this city
is older than I am.
It's an infant.
It still has some of the exhilaration of youth about it.
I know most people are unmoved by modernist architecture,
but I think this little elegant building could bring about a few conversions.
Just open your mind to it. Just look at it.
It's the Palace of Justice.
And the building, all to do with light,
with glass walls letting light flood inside.
A beautiful space to occupy and to work in.
And it's to do with lightness,
the lightness of the construction, the minimal construction.
It's fantastic, really. The whole thing's supported on these
really elegant, beautifully shaped curved columns,
and they barely touch the ground.
This whole building seems to float in space.
Incredibly beautiful.
The greatest ornament of this building is simply
the means of its construction.
Modernist architecture has a reputation for being arid,
anonymous, machinelike.
But not here.
Niemeyer wanted to create an architecture
that reflected the nature of Brazil and its people.
So he used the curve to echo the curve of the Brazilian hills,
the curves of the clouds in the skies,
and of, as he put it, the form of your lover.
He was particularly taken, he said,
by the curvaceous baroque buttocks of Brazilian beauties.
And that's the sort of form, the sensuous form,
he wanted to put into his architecture.
The city's great centrepiece
is the building housing the Brazilian parliament.
This is very exciting.
I'm going onto the roof of the Congress Building.
The roof used to be open to the public, but it has been closed for decades.
I suppose for reasons of security, health and safety.
So, I'm very privileged. I'm about to have an experience
that is now denied to the citizens of Brazil.
Here we are. Gosh, it's wonderful.
It's strangely antique. Almost spiritual, really.
Up here is like being on the top of an acropolis, like in Athens.
And the ramps are like the ramps of Egyptian temples.
It's an amazing marriage, really, of old and new,
of the materialistic and the spiritual.
Creating a government building that's also, in a way,
a sacred building, the heart of the nation.
But what's surprising for me is that in a city conceived by communists,
rises one of the world's most spiritually-charged cathedrals.
A dark passage takes you down to the bowels of the earth,
into a grotto, into a tomb.
But you get here and suddenly there's an explosion of light.
This, of course, has to do with rebirth, resurrection.
The tomb becomes the womb.
All this is very obviously Christian, isn't it?
Christ's tomb, the Resurrection.
And the form of the building, the great concrete arches are like,
well, the crown of thorns.
But Niemeyer was an atheist, so it may seem amazing,
odd at least, that he would design such a powerful Christian cathedral.
But that, of course, is to miss the point.
This is not just to do with Christianity,
but a fusion of the beliefs of the people of Brazil.
Roman Catholics, older religions, religions brought here from Africa.
A fantastic monument
to the nature of the nation of Brazil.
But to comprehend the scale of Brasília's ambition,
to see how it embraces the modern age,
requires a different perspective.
Brasília looks fantastic from the air, looking down.
It's like a great architect's model.
Everything's ordered, in its place. Everything's designed.
Can't help but feel the architects always wanted
the city to be seen from a few hundred metres up.
It's been laid out in the shape of an aeroplane with swept-back wings.
It's clearly divided into zones according to use.
A modernist hallmark.
I'm now running next to the fuselage of the aeroplane, so to speak,
the central monumental axis
along which are set the government buildings, the ministries.
And at the cockpit, where the pilot would be,
the congress, the government.
There the wings meet the main axis, where the engines would be, so to speak,
are the, um... It's a commercial area.
Commerce offices driving the city. Fantastic symbolism.
And below me, on the curve of the wings, are the residential areas,
with housing slabs set in parkland.
It's really rather wonderful, actually. A great sculptural city.
Brasília's residential areas were planned with great care
to create a new classless world.
Blocks were limited to the height
from which mothers could hear their children playing below.
And apartments were to be distributed right across the social spectrum,
government ministers and labourers living side-by-side.
This was one of the first to be constructed.
Hello. Ah!
And Doña Olga has been here from the start.
Very good. So, I've come to see your lovely home.
There's a painting.
Yes, see, a little finger comes out there.
Yes.
She moved to Brasília when her husband was elected as a state deputy.
Did you feel you were
on the cutting edge of a new way of living in cities?
Would you ever move?
But Brasília was the victim of a changing world.
Brazil's socialist government fell,
and the egalitarian vision of the city was abandoned.
The gap between rich and poor opened up once again.
Doña Francisca works as a cleaner at the Ministry of Urban Planning.
(BOTH SPEAKING IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE)
But she can't afford to live in the centre of the city.
Like thousands of Brasília's low-paid workers,
she lives on its distant outskirts,
spending three hours a day on a bus to and from work.
She has an extra weekend job to make ends meet.
And what little time she has at home, she spends here,
in one of Brasília's satellite towns.
They're the city's alter ego,
unintended, disorganised and poor.
(IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE)
What's life like here? Is it inconvenient? Dangerous, even?
So what connection do you feel to Brasília?
What do you think would happen to Brasília
if the satellite towns didn't exist?
Brasília's a modernist's dream, architecturally stunning.
It was to show how people should live together.
The rich with the poor, workers and professionals.
But now I've been to the satellite town,
it's clear that this dream has failed
and the workers, really, have been betrayed.
This is Damascus,
the capital of Syria, at the heart of the Middle East.
Damascus is the oldest continuously-inhabited city on Earth.
Perhaps 7,000 years old.
Where the once great and ancient cities like
Persepolis, Babylon or Jericho
are now nothing but ruins or shrunken villages,
Damascus is alive and well, thriving.
I find it intoxicating because it appeals to all the senses.
It inflames, feeds the brain,
and moves the spirit.
To walk the streets of Damascus
is to see what makes it so successful and enduring.
From its earliest days, the city's been a centre of trade
between East and West.
And it's trade that's kept the city a living being.
This is the oldest street of trade in Damascus.
It's Straight Street, the Decumanus Maximus of Roman times.
Originally, it was four times this width,
with columns on each side. And behind the columns, shops,
selling the trade goods, the wealth and wonders of the empire.
The city's tradition of trade is revealed by its wonderful food.
Mmm.
It's emblematic of Damascus.
The markets are loaded with herbs and spices
from all over the Middle East.
Very good.
And sharing food is an important part of Damascus life.
It brings the people together, and makes them feel part of the city.
Ah, nuts. Nuts. Lovely, nuts.
-All from Syria? -Coffee?
Oh, well. Okay.
How lovely. I didn't expect that.
I come to buy some nuts and I get some lovely coffee.
-But I say, these all nuts from Syria? -Syria.
All from Syria. Toasted and roasted. Oh, what's that?
-Salt. -Salt, of course!
Of course, salted peanuts.
Very hot? Yes.
Good joke. Very hot. Yes.
And up there, endless bags of nuts, stored.
An incredible scene. An Aladdin's cave of nuts.
MAN: Come upstairs.
-"Damascus nuts," it says. Yes. -MAN: They are Damascus.
Pumpkin seed.
Can't beat that.
The constant commercial activity throughout the centuries
means that some of Damascus' finest and most ancient architecture
is devoted to trade.
A large number of khans survive in the old city.
A khan is a warehouse
which also included accommodation offices for merchants.
Mostly like this one, they're approached through a big arch,
off a major commercial street.
And they are, generally, architecturally wonderful, like this one.
This was built about 300 years ago, I'm told,
and was home to tobacco merchants.
Three domes in a row, with the sky open in the middle,
with the sky working like a sort of ornamental ceiling.
Amazing sort of little palace of trade.
The most magnificent khan is the As'ad Pasha.
Built in 1752, it's a stunning piece of geometry,
and as fine as any mosque in the city.
Along the trade routes leading to Damascus
travelled ideas, art and religion.
But rather than dividing the city,
different religions and people were absorbed
to enrich the culture of Damascus.
This site's been the sacred heart, the soul of Damascus,
for at least 3,000 years.
Various conquerors brought their gods with them,
and reshaped the building to suit their needs.
This portico here, with the columns, and the wonderful wall in front of me,
date from the 2nd century AD,
and are the remains of the Roman Temple of Jupiter.
This building shows how Damascus has survived
through its ability to adapt.
In the 4th century, the pagan temple was converted
into a Christian cathedral.
And when the Muslims conquered Damascus in 636,
they shared the building with their Christian neighbours
for nearly a century.
This court's a fantastic architectural space.
But incredibly, it's only a shadow of its former self.
Originally, all these surfaces were covered with mosaic.
Imagine it, gold, glistening in the sun.
They were executed in the 8th century.
But some of the mosaic does survive, it's behind me here,
in this colonnade, now rather faded.
It shows, I suppose, Damascus in the 8th century.
There's the river Barada, full of water.
The trees, plants, little houses,
palaces, mosques... An image of paradise.
The Muslims rebuilt within the ancient walls in 705
to create the greatest mosque in the world.
But they didn't just sweep the past away.
Inside are rows of Corinthian columns from the cathedral.
The memory of the old building was kept alive
in this vast Muslim prayer hall.
And this historic structure is still a living place of worship.
I love this mosque. It's warm, welcoming.
A sense of calm. A sense of peace.
People come here to contemplate. To pray, of course.
Families wander round. A wonderful atmosphere.
Terrific carpets everywhere.
And the sounds, the sounds of...
(TELEPHONE RINGING)
Telephones, chanting,
people just going about their daily life.
It's very, very reassuring.
One can't help but sitting here and feeling that
within these ancient walls still resides
the soul of the ancient city of Damascus.
And Damascus has survived and prospered
because people of different religious faiths
found a way of living together.
So, the city was divided into separate areas,
each home to a trade or religious group.
So there'd be a Muslim quarter, a Christian quarter, a Jewish quarter.
And each of these groups would feel secure
in their maze of streets, with their gates,
and almost fortified tower entries.
A place that would be utterly confusing to unwelcome strangers.
The miracle of Damascus
is its strong sense of history and identity.
An identity that does not depend on one culture or religion.
And one way the past is kept alive
is through the tradition of storytelling.
(READING IN ARABIC)
(MAN CHEERING)
(PEOPLE APPLAUDING)
(THANKING IN ARABIC)
Very good, very good.
It's incredible to think that Damascus was ancient
when Rome became a power in the land.
It was old when the Pharaohs ruled in Egypt.
The city's had a turbulent history.
Attacked by the Christian Crusaders in the 12th century,
pillaged horribly by Tamerlane and his Mongols in 1401,
but it survived.
It's seen empires and tyrants come and go.
It offers a fantastic object lesson
in how people can live together, creatively, and in harmony.
It's a wonderful city in which to be in.
This is New York City, the stunning City of Towers.
The skyscraper, the building of the modern age,
has been with us for just over a century,
ever since we learned how to build huge metal frames
to carry their massive loads.
The skyscraper transformed the way cities are built,
and the way they are lived in, for good and for ill.
From the earliest days, they've had their enemies.
But the city high-rise is here to stay.
Getting its design right is vital
if we're to live in harmony on this overcrowded planet.
In midtown Manhattan, there's one skyscraper that's long intrigued me,
the soaring tower of the Rockefeller Center.
It's part of a vision of a better way of living and working
in a crowded modern city.
The tower is staggeringly tall and slender.
The setbacks, the small sections cut into it like steps,
give the tower an abstract, sculptural quality.
Although it looks wide from the side, from the front it's almost blade-like.
It has a cubist, machine-like beauty.
It's reaching for the future.
A family of 13 buildings frame the main tower,
occupying 22 acres of the city.
The tower contains offices,
but this is no mundane place of work.
Good afternoon, Mr Cruickshank.
Oh, excellent! You've been expecting me.
-Welcome to Rockefeller Center. -Thank you very much.
What a fantastic place in which to work.
Isn't it? It sure is.
The tower started in 1931.
And the lobby is a sensational example of Art Deco.
The materials and details are of the highest quality.
Very tactile.
This really is a spectacular and magnificent space.
It's not just the entrance to a private set of offices,
it's also a public thoroughfare full of shops.
It's part of the city.
And it's full of inspiring art.
Over there is a mural showing American progress.
The marriage of brawn and brain.
And in the centre, a rendering of the Rockefeller Tower itself.
It's all very idealistic.
And that's a clue to the story of this building
which is all to do with vision and courage.
This building was the dream of John D Rockefeller, Jr,
the heir of a great commercial dynasty.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s,
he staked his reputation, and much of his wealth,
on a hugely ambitious building project.
The Rockefeller Center was an enormous gamble.
But it paid off.
More than 30,000 people work in Rockefeller Center.
In everything, from a broadcasting company
to airlines and an auction house.
-Hello. -Hello, Mr Cruickshank.
I will call Mr Gerard for you now.
-Thank you very much. -Thank you.
I'm curious to see how the tower works as an office.
Is its strange narrow shape a problem?
To find out, I've come to meet a partner in a corporate law firm
who's worked here for 20 years.
-...one of our partners who... -Partner.
-...I'm going to interrupt here. Dan. -Oh, dear...
-This is Laura Friedrich. -Hello.
FRIEDRICH: Hi. How are you? GERARD: Dan Cruickshank.
Very well. Nice to meet you. Sorry to take you away from your work.
Oh, no, no, please.
Lovely, lovely light... Office.
Yes, they always notice the light in this office
because the building is so narrow that you have light on both sides
and it's... It very pleasant, I presume.
-Marian Baldwin, Dan Cruickshank. -How do you do?
-Hi, nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.
GERARD: This is not an efficient use of space,
but everyone has an exterior office.
There's really no core to the building, except for the elevators,
and I guess the only thing without windows are the washrooms.
Now, these are two of our associates,
one of whom is on the telephone. Richard Tourgood.
-How are you? -How do you do?
-Nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.
-So, two in room, eh? I see. -That's right.
Who gets... How do you sort out who gets the window here?
Who was here first?
Uh, this is where... My wife would say this is where I live.
And, uh... But you'll understand that. In any event, this is my office.
A nice home you've got. It's a corner office. How lovely.
Yes, well, it is a corner office and everybody likes to have a corner office,
that makes you feel important.
Because in the setbacks here at Rockefeller Center,
there are eight corners on every floor.
So I have a very nice corner office. There's another corner just up there.
-Mmm-hmm. -And so with eight per floor
and nine floors, you have 72 happy partners.
Interesting. A benefit of the setbacks.
-Can I see the view you've got? -Yes, of course.
CRUICKSHANK: It looks terrific. GERARD: The, uh, curtains here.
CRUICKSHANK: I already see it.
Although I don't get a lot of time to stand here and look,
that is St Patrick's Cathedral on your left,
just on the other side of Fifth Avenue.
CRUICKSHANK: Yes.
It isn't just the design that makes the Rockefeller so loved.
This is a building that's always invited people in.
It's part of the city.
And now nearly 100 million people pass through the Center each year.
It's hard now to imagine it, but 100 or so years ago,
all of this was a European style low-rise city.
And when the first skyscrapers started to appear,
they were viewed with a deep suspicion.
The success of the Rockefeller
showed that skyscrapers didn't have to be objects of fear,
but could enrich people's lives.
The Rockefeller Center occupies several city blocks,
and within its domain, strives to create a more perfect vision of the city.
And look, there are these incredible details.
Here is this grille around the tree. A wonderful Art Deco piece of work.
It brings this amazing quality to the area, a civic quality.
And marks it all out as being Rockefeller territory,
confirms this place really is a city within the city.
Here, art abounds that's intended to lift the spirits
and proclaim the wonder of the modern age.
And below ground, there are restaurants and shops,
a pioneering idea back in the '30s.
It was once said you could do anything here
except sleep, pray, and not pay rent.
Golly, I've never had such a good buffing.
I mean, what a shine! It's a work of art.
Visitors flock to the Rockefeller in their millions.
But what do New Yorkers themselves think?
It's kind of the glue that holds midtown together.
Just look around. It's absolutely stunning.
The greatest place on Earth.
It's tall and shiny.
It's splendid. It's like something you want to chew.
-Do you like this building? -Yes.
It's a landmark! What the hell do you mean,
do I like Rockefeller Center?
(WIND HOWLING)
Unlike most office blocks, the Rockefeller is still full of life
long after the workers have gone home.
Keep your... Keep your arms out.
Oh, no!
Come on.
-Come on, man, you can do this. -(STUTTERING) Yes.
If I fall on my back, I know one thing,
I'll get a splendid view
of the tower.
(PIANO PLAYING)
(PEOPLE CHATTERING)
At the top sits Rockefeller's Rainbow Room and Grill
where people come from all over the world
to drink in the atmosphere of New York.
High-rise buildings have been much criticised,
but the Rockefeller Center is the model of how it ought to be done.
It combines private profits with public benefits,
utility with beauty.
It's a solution to modern city living, not one of the problems.
For me, this is the most perfect skyscraper in the world!
This is Dharavi in Mumbai,
home to 600,000 people
and notorious as the largest slum in Asia.
I find this place absolutely riveting.
Here, in its organic forms,
you see the origin of cities.
You see how people living and working in extreme conditions
create their own architecture.
Here in Dharavi, you can sense how most major cities were born.
Little has been planned. This is organic growth.
Architecture without architects.
The people have created the buildings they need to survive.
Dharavi was built in the 20th century, but it tells a much older story.
This speaks of the way people create communities,
how we learn to live together.
It's incredible. It's like being in a medieval European city.
Narrow alleys, and down there I'm looking into different homes.
People getting dressed, ready to go to work.
And here there are overhangs in the first floor
like Tudor jetties.
CRUICKSHANK: Hello. Hello.
Hello.
Dharavi was originally a malarial swamp
that, since the 1930s, has been gradually reclaimed.
Now it covers almost one square mile.
It was only during the 1970s that the state government
built a handful of latrine blocks and communal taps in parts of Dharavi.
It's lack of basic sanitation has meant that diseases like cholera
are rife during the monsoon season.
There are more than 500 people using each latrine every day.
And less than 30% of Dharavi has sewers.
The people have had to build their own homes from tarpaulin,
scrap timber and bits of corrugated metal,
adding bricks as they can afford it.
For decades,
these homes could be pulled down at any time by the government
because Dharavi was regarded as just another illegal slum.
But the desperate nature of living in Dharavi
has stimulated the people to flights of creative exuberance.
I love this brilliant do-it-yourself, ad hoc architecture,
using cheap and available materials.
Look, that shutter's a fridge door!
Ah, hello!
(CHUCKLING)
The family that lives here
has very kindly said I could have a look around inside.
Hello.
This is the main room of the house.
I'm told six people live and sleep in here.
And here's the bedding.
And everywhere, beautiful, bright colours.
And here is a shrine to Shiva
with family portraits all around it.
And here is the kitchen.
Everything is very orderly, very arranged, very clean. Wonderful.
The story of Dharavi began over 70 years ago
when the Great Depression gripped India
and rural workers migrated from the countryside to the cities.
Over the decades, Dharavi grew.
And each group that arrived formed its own distinctive settlement.
This is where the Valmiki community lives.
They're originally from North India, and they're sweepers by trade.
This community has grown on this site from the early 1950s.
Some families came here,
invited their friends and relatives to join them,
and their community's got bigger and bigger.
I think many of the people would rather still be in the countryside,
but they can't because there's no work there.
This is the main temple, for the Hindus. I'm going to go inside.
(MAN SPEAKING IN HINDI)
Thank you. Thank you.
Communities come here to work,
to try and build a better life for themselves,
so there's very little unemployment in Dharavi.
The irony is that these people provide much of Mumbai's labour and industry.
But the city, which couldn't function without Dharavi,
does little to sustain life here.
There are some pretty nasty and hazardous industries located in Dharavi.
And most of these seem to be to do with recycling.
All manner of things are being recycled here.
Mostly, I think, plastic.
All of this is unregulated by the city,
but then, of course, Mumbai does like Dharavi
to do the city's dirty work for it.
And all this industry has allowed some of the older generation
to build up reserves of money to invest in their communities.
I was in for a few surprises.
Here's a school for the Tamil community.
And here are the children having a lesson.
Very boisterous. Very smart.
-BOY: Yes. -Hello.
-ALL: Hi! -Hi!
(EXCITED CHATTERING)
(LAUGHING) Brilliant!
And next door is a Hindu temple.
So school and temple unified in one building.
Clearly, this community's doing very well. There's money here.
And, um, these brilliant scholars I'm sure will go a long way.
Bye.
-ALL: Bye! -Thank you.
There's a feeling of pride and identity in the streets of Dharavi,
with some buildings that create a real sense of community.
Golly, a health club.
"Bharat Mata", mother India.
Um, let's have a look inside.
Hello, chaps.
Well, well, well.
I really didn't expect to see a gym in Dharavi.
Here are all these fellows, fine fellows they are, too, working out.
A very muscled chap over there.
Very well-organised and good equipment.
A guy here's doing some sort of lift-up. Very good.
Admirable.
But everything the people of Dharavi have built
could be threatened.
The land value of the area is now enormous.
And the city's proposing a radical redevelopment
that's causing much concern here among the people.
There's now an organisation that fights for the rights
of the residents of Dharavi, headed by a former slum dweller.
This is the main backbone of the city.
All this is the product of people.
They're not taken loan from the bank. The bank has not given money.
Government has not given a grant.
Not a single one-inch structure has been built by the government.
(STUTTERING) That's a central point. I mean, walking around Dharavi, looking.
I mean, "slum" is not the right word. It's not a slum.
It's, um, very organised, different communities,
people are poor, but they maintain their streets, their houses,
everything's cleaned and so on. And there's lots of industry going on.
People have created this for themselves,
their own enterprise, their own energy, their own money.
I just wonder what contribution the government's made, really.
Exactly, that's what we are questioning.
Government has done nothing.
But that's shocking since the people who live here
make such an obvious contribution to the city,
the city should make a contribution to them.
But city's... City is sucking the blood from here.
The economy is rolling. The economy is booming.
The whole land value has gone sky-high.
But what do you think, realistically, the future will be?
The government would like to bulldoze it.
-Bulldoze, yeah, yeah. -Bulldoze it.
So it is not easy. 600,000 people, and it's going to be a war.
If at all even the bulldozer comes near, it will be a war.
To visit Dharavi is like stepping back in time
to witness the origin of cities,
or the way people first learned to live together.
But if Dharavi is to evolve creatively in the modern world,
then its residents must be listened to.
Dharavi has surprised and delighted me.
This is a place of warmth and welcome.
Here, a multitude of diverse peoples have,
through their energy and enterprise,
and against all the odds, created a viable and vibrant community.
A community that does much to serve the great city of Mumbai,
but which, shamefully, Mumbai does very little to help.
This may be a place of economic poverty,
but there's no poverty of the spirit here.
No poverty of the soul.