DAN CRUICKSHANK: This is a journey to reveal the architecture of our dreams.
Of cities that dare to imagine a new civilisation.
Ancient structures that assert their modernity.
Dreams of hidden kingdoms
and forgotten worlds.
And dreams that turn to nightmare.
This is the Yemeni desert, on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula.
A place rooted in the past, but which dreamt of the future.
This mythic and ancient land was home to buildings
created way ahead of their time, striking, visionary architecture.
Here, they reached for the sky. These were the first skyscrapers.
This is Shibam, known as the Manhattan of the desert.
There's been a city here for 2,500 years.
Constructed on a raised plateau, Shibam sits within a fertile oasis.
Beyond, there's only desert and mountains.
The city hasn't changed much since the 16th century.
Every time one of these towering houses becomes derelict,
it's rebuilt in traditional manner.
There are around 500 of these houses within the city wall.
This is a Shibam sidah, the only gate into the city.
It's very well fortified.
The tall, central arch was for camels and, I suppose, caravans,
and the small one for donkeys and humans, pedestrians.
Shibam appears timeless, almost biblical.
And the city rises high with ancient structures
because of its peculiar location.
When more homes were needed, Shibam couldn't extpand horizontally.
Building outside the city walls and off the raised plateau
would have made the new buildings vulnerable to attack, to floods,
and also would have used up valuable fertile land.
So when all the building plots in the town had been built upon,
the only way to go was upwards.
Each tower is lived in by one family.
But unlike the modern high-rise,
these towers are not made of concrete and steel,
but are built with a more modest material.
Mud!
Bricks are made on the edge of town, just next to palm groves,
and this is a brickworks.
It's an amazing, timeless scene.
Bricks have been made like this in the Middle East for 10,000 years at least.
Here we have rich alluvial soil, dug from around the palms,
being mixed with hay and wheat chaff and with water,
to make this wonderful mud.
The only thing that's changed round here
is the fact that there's a petrol pump over there getting water from a well.
Because until recently, that would have been done using a donkey.
CRUICKSHANK: How long does it take for the bricks to dry in the sun?
-Three days. -Three days? Three days.
How many bricks can your team make in one day?
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
-Three thousand. -Three thousand? That's an awful lot.
Can I try making one? Yeah, me.
This is one of those great experiences.
I'm doing something that man has done for thousands of years.
Incredibly moving.
This is what my ancestors have done.
Well, it's quite difficult, actually, to fill it properly.
(CHUCKLING)
It's a skill. It's definitely a skill.
And, of course, incredibly satisfying.
Getting one's hands dirty, making sort of mud pies.
Oh, dear, I'm going to ruin the team's reputation.
(LAUGHING)
Not a natural-born brick-maker. Well, I knew that anyway.
(LAUGHING)
Um, how have I done?
You don't have to tell the truth. Just lie. Say they're great.
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
Okay, I'll do better next time.
Oh, well, he's leaving them. Okay.
I've done it.
They're not rejected. How amazing!
After three days in the sun, the mud bricks are dry
and ready to be used in the city.
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
And here's one of the bricks, tile-like.
Lovely thing, dried in the sun.
I shall give it to the master bricklayer here.
I've been invited to visit a typical Shibam house.
I'm intrigued to see how a modern Muslim family
lives in one of these ancient buildings.
(BOTH SPEAKING ARABIC)
Oh.
Ah!
(BOTH SPEAKING ARABIC)
Thank you.
Oh, ah!
Weapons.
Oh, what a wonderful room.
Wonderful plasterwork.
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
Hello.
Um, golly.
Now, how is this room used?
How was it used, and how is it used today?
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
What's it like to maintain a house built of mud bricks?
Is it very expensive, difficult to maintain?
Can I please see more of the house?
Okay.
Lovely.
Okay. Oh!
It's got an open-plan interior, very modern,
with the main structure, the beams and joists, carried on these columns.
It's like a sort of 20th-century frame structure.
And what's incredible is you have these windows.
Originally, these would have been open. This is all glass put in now.
But this is for ventilation.
Cool air comes in at the low level through the windows,
and pushes the hot air out through these openings.
All the houses have this very nice
sort of sensible, natural form of ventilation.
Very brilliant.
Oh, a lot of people.
Hello.
Oh, lovely. How very comfortable. It's like a terrace.
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
This is wonderful. Marvellous.
What a wonderful view of nature over there.
Ah.
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
Lovely chai.
Mmm.
Delicious, pungent, sweet. Very restorative.
Just what a chap needs in the evening.
Mmm.
Shibam's a marvellous historic city, but it's no arid museum piece.
It's full of vitality, authenticity, wonderful sense of life.
Here we are on the terrace, gathered together in the evening,
drinking tea.
And there's wonderful sort of aromas.
Frankincense, myrrh and, of course, the sheep and goats.
And terrific noises, sounds, music.
This really is a living dream.
I absolutely love it here.
Among the islands of the Caribbean lies the Dominican Republic.
It may look like a sleepy tropical paradise,
but 500 years ago, this small island would become
one of the most influential places on Earth.
I'm on my way to see the first European-founded city in the New World,
to see how dreams of empire transformed an entire continent.
It's a city in which imperial dreams, imperial aspirations,
are etched into the very fabric.
It's a city that changed the world.
The story begins with Christopher Columbus' voyage
to the Americas in 1492.
He set off in search of a new route to the East,
but he and his crew landed instead on this island.
It was no easy task putting down roots in an alien and dangerous land.
In fact, in the early years, the colonists suffered terribly.
The first settlement, just down the coast from here,
was destroyed, probably by the islanders.
No one's quite sure, but when Columbus returned,
the people he'd left behind had gone, disappeared.
They were never heard of again.
A second wave of colonists clung on in a temporary settlement,
ravished by malaria and yellow fever.
But they nursed greater ambitions.
Columbus' men hadn't found a route to the East,
but they had found a new land and they were determined to make it theirs.
So they wanted to make their mark on the landscape,
to build a great city to make it clear that they were here to stay,
their presence was permanent.
What they created was Santo Domingo.
Founded in 1501, the city's now a bustling metropolis
of over two million people.
But extraordinary traces of the original city remain.
This is sensational. Really is.
It's a forgotten hidden gem.
This house must date from the 1540s.
What a fantastic door surround. Stone. And look at this.
It has these tremendous, gnarled, weathered medallions,
I suppose, of Roman emperors.
And at the very heart of the city sits Santo Domingo's most important building,
the first cathedral of the Americas.
This is the main entrance to the cathedral, the west front,
designed in a rather mannered classical style, known as Plateresque,
because its detail's inspired by the design of silver plate.
Now, the horizontal carved frieze up there is very intriguing.
It shows the trials and tribulations faced by the Spaniards
as they sailed here.
There are frightful sea monsters there,
and in that corner, what I am told are wanton nymphs.
And inside, the building's Gothic,
with its ribbed vaults and pointed arches.
And look at the scale of it.
Just imagine how impressive this would have been,
when new, this religious architecture of the Old World,
suddenly arriving here in the New World, in this strange and alien land.
And being stone-vaulted, it would have been a tremendous sort of sacred vessel,
a sounding board for the Mass, as chanted by the priests.
But the real significance of Santo Domingo
lies not in its individual buildings.
It lies in the very layout of the city.
The layout is like a coded diagram of the beliefs and ideals
of the men that created it.
Spreading out from the cathedral square is a right-angular grid,
dividing the city into neat blocks.
Its inspiration lay in ancient Roman and Greek town planning,
as rediscovered in the Renaissance.
And its rational geometry was intended to express order and control.
The virtues of the grid plan spread across the Americas
through a set of rules called the Laws of the Indies.
It would become the most important planning document in human history.
The conquest of the Americas was launched from here,
spreading Spanish influence and the grid plan.
It may seem extraordinary,
but Santo Domingo provided the blueprint for a new civilisation.
But the colonists' dream of order and prosperity
was a nightmare for others.
This is the Alcázar de Colón, the viceroy's fortified palace.
This is the great chamber.
Incredible to think that from this room, for some years,
the Spanish empire of the New World was ruled.
This was the epicentre of Spanish power.
This is a beautiful piece of architecture,
but it's also the monument to the power of one people over another.
And that relationship was present even during construction.
The designers were Spanish master masons,
but the workforce was over a thousand local islanders.
And to realise this design, they were virtually enslaved.
And when the islanders started dying in droves,
labour was shipped in from Africa.
The trans-Atlantic slave trade began here.
Tobacco was another native resource exploited by the Spanish.
Now cigars are one of the country's most famous exports.
Hi. Hello. Franklin, hi. How are you?
Okay. So, can I have a go?
Yeah. Sit down.
-Right, put it all in here? Yeah? -Okay. Yes.
CRUICKSHANK: That's kind of not too bad so far.
Push it down.
Now you pull that over.
Then hold it like that.
Not... Ah, to there?
Oh, I hold that there?
-Finish. -Right to the end?
-Yes, okay. -And now back.
Okay, oh.
That's looking kind of... It's almost there, isn't it?
(LAUGHING)
And then I stick it in the guillotine and cut my finger off.
A little bit odd, this cigar. Rather eccentric.
A novel cigar, but damn it, it's mine.
So, what do people here now think of Columbus?
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
So what are we to make of Columbus' troubled legacy?
The Spaniards were like the horsemen of the apocalypse.
They brought death and disease.
And as with all imperial powers,
hell did follow after them.
But it's very curious, isn't it?
Because if he hadn't come, if Spain hadn't been here,
none of this would exist.
This is now a fusion of cultures, a mix of people,
and it seems to be a very healthy, very lively, very tolerant one.
(MERENGUE MUSIC PLAYING)
This is merengue,
a mixture of Spanish and African musical influences,
born here in the Dominican Republic.
And tonight, I'm going to experience a little cultural fusion firsthand.
Santo Domingo is a realisation of a ruthless dream.
But it's also a model of civilisation,
a city that continues to be an inspiration to the world.
This is Philadelphia, on the east coast of America,
a city that once dreamed of constructing society anew.
The American Declaration of Independence was adopted here in 1776.
In the years that followed,
these streets were awash with revolutionary fervour.
But of all the buildings to emerge from this time of heady idealism,
the biggest, the boldest and the most impressive
was a prison!
Eastern State Penitentiary, opened in 1829.
This wasn't just a building, but an expression of a mission,
a mission to solve society's ills.
The castle-like exterior may look intimidating, severe and daunting,
but surprisingly, for those who created the prison,
it was to be a place of hope, an expression of a belief
that goodness lurks in even the darkest of souls.
The century before, prisons had been brutal and violent places.
They were overcrowded, corrupting and disease-ridden.
Beatings and physical punishment were the norm.
Abuse was rife.
New prisoners would be robbed by existing prisoners,
and if the new prisoners didn't have any money,
they'd be relieved of their clothes and end up virtually naked.
With Eastern State, all that was about to change.
The prison's now an amazingly evocative ruin.
A stabilised ruin, I'm told,
but quite how one stabilises decay like this,
I'm not sure.
Time and rot are taking their toll.
I've never seen anything like this, really.
It's incredibly picturesque, incredibly romantic.
It really is one of the most powerful places I've ever been to.
This cellblock has a cathedral-like quality.
It's like being in a nave.
I guess religion's the key to understanding this prison.
Its creators had strong Quaker beliefs,
and they thought that, through architecture,
they could achieve a moral reform.
They thought prisoners here, isolated, would become introspective,
turn to God and see the error of their ways.
These reformers believed in the essential goodness of mankind.
Their dream was to create a machine for saving souls.
They didn't see this as a place of punishment,
but somewhere where prisoners would achieve redemption
through solitude and reflection.
The first prisoners arrived in the autumn of 1829.
Amongst them, Charles Williams, an 18-year-old farmer
found guilty of stealing a gold watch.
Beginning his solitary confinement, he was led to his cell in a hood
to keep him free from the contamination of other inmates.
And here he spent the next two years.
This cell's a modern reconstruction, and it makes a very powerful impression.
Williams would have been alone for month after month after month.
He wasn't allowed to see other prisoners.
He was forbidden visitors. Not even his family could see him.
There was no reading matter apart from the Bible,
a book he would have got to know very well indeed.
He was allowed a certain amount of honest labour,
making chairs, carpentry, mending shoes.
And there was virtually no daylight.
The light coming through this grille wouldn't have been there in his time.
There would have been an oaken door beyond.
All he had was a little porthole in the vault.
Through that, he would have measured time.
The prisoners called that porthole "the eye of God".
Behind each cell, and connected via the metal grille door,
was a high-walled, pen-like exercise yard.
And into this space a prisoner would be released twice a day,
each period of exercise lasting a mere half an hour.
He would, from here, get a view of the sky,
but each cell has its own individual exercise yard,
so even here the prisoner would have been alone.
Surveillance was of prime importance.
From this central observation tower radiate a series of cellblocks,
and guards down below here could monitor movement in each block
by looking down the corridors that run through the centre of each one.
So this represents a new rational theory
about the housing and treatment of prisoners,
and that made Eastern State Penitentiary of intent interest at the time.
It was greatly admired and became the most influential prison in the world.
But what was intended to make men good often simply made them mad.
In 1842, Charles Dickens visited the prison.
He was horrified by the effects of solitary confinement on its inmates.
He wrote in his American Notes for General Circulation that he found
"the slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain
"to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body."
As far as he was concerned,
the penitentiary was hopeless, cruel and wrong.
Solitary confinement is now recognised as a way of breaking down human resolve,
of causing loss of identity, disorientation.
And in jails today, it's regarded as a very severe form of punishment.
One does wonder what the authorities were thinking about here originally.
Many of the inmates must have been very mentally fragile.
Even if the authorities' intentions were good,
they clearly must have caused immense psychological damage.
Gradually at Eastern State, attitudes to incarceration softened.
But one prisoner who arrived in 1958 still found it an awful place.
One day I made a mistake.
-I robbed. -Yeah.
I was the Hooded Bandit.
That's what they called me.
"The Hooded Bandit steals $7,000 payroll, with money to burn."
CRUICKSHANK: And we're in this cell because this was your first cell?
BOBBY: My first cell, yeah, 18 cell, here on 10 block.
CRUICKSHANK: What did it make you feel like,
living in a room without a proper window?
It was enclosed. You throw it right out of your mind.
You block that off, you know.
You're just confined.
Did you know everybody who lived on your block, so to speak?
I knew everybody who lived on this block, yeah.
Oh, right? So, who was in this cell, for example?
-Oh, Stumpy. -Stumpy?
Yeah. From Harrisburg.
Right. So, what was he in here for?
Homicide.
Oh, really? For life, another long one.
What was the atmosphere like in the block at night,
after the lights had been turned off?
It was very quiet.
The only thing you could hear at night sometimes
was somebody crying out for mama or praying.
"Lord, I didn't mean it." But he had done it.
So you had to do your time, you come in here.
You could hear different inmates crying at night.
You might have thought they were grown men, but they cried like babies.
Eastern State shut in 1971.
During the 19th century, it changed the form of prisons all over the globe.
But today it stands as a monument to the tyranny of ideals.
The kingdom of Bhutan, tucked away in the Himalayas,
is a secret land isolated from the modern world.
Here the king has a dream, to embrace the past.
And he's using architecture to achieve his vision.
The king's dream for Bhutan should produce
a sort of utopia that I'd like to live in,
where conserving the past is more important
than the implementation of the ruthless demands of modernisation.
But to realise such a bold dream has involved some very strict enforcement.
And I'm going to go and see how it all works.
I'm on the road to Thimpu, the capital city of Bhutan.
As I travel, the mountains and valleys all around me
are full of glorious traditional architecture.
Thimpu is one of the smallest capitals that I've visited,
and certainly the only one without any traffic lights.
With only one main street, Thimpu is certainly modest.
But on the outskirts is an architectural glory.
This is the most important building in Bhutan.
It's called the Trashi Chhoe Dzong,
which means the Fortress of Glorious Religion.
It's where the king, the government and the chief abbot are based,
which means that all matters secular and religious
are decided and controlled from this powerhouse.
And within the mighty wall is this huge courtyard.
What a glorious space.
Over there are the quarters occupied by the king and the government,
and this side is monastic.
And indeed, I can hear these horns. The monks at their morning prayer.
You can tell they're monastic buildings
because they have these deep red stripes painted on them, called Khamar.
Golly.
And all around, one has nature.
The hills, now topped with clouds.
It's wonderful.
But not all is as it seems.
The greatest secret of this building is its age.
It looks ancient.
And, in fact, there was a dzong built on this site in the late 18th century,
but virtually everything you see now dates from the 1960s.
It's incredible. It reveals so much about Bhutan.
History is so revered here that all modern buildings
must pay tribute to the past.
And not just their exteriors, but their interiors, too.
This is the assembly hall for the monks,
and is, rather obviously, under repair.
It's an incredible room, carvings everywhere
and beautiful paintings.
And in front of me, the great, giant image of the Buddha,
the main image of the Buddha in this fortress monastery.
The dzong was just a start.
In the 1980s, the king issued a set of architectural rules
that would keep ancient building traditions alive.
And dotted around Thimpu are buildings that evoke the old Bhutan
with startling accuracy.
And it didn't stop at buildings.
The king also decreed that everyone should wear national costume.
I decided I had to get myself kitted out.
How much do I have to take off in this rather public place?
MERCHANT: How much ever you like.
Seems surprisingly easy. I thought I was gonna be more...
Almost seems like it's too big.
Oh, I see, you're pulling down the sleeves...
Turn around.
This is a frightful moment to turn. Maybe my girth is giving me away.
So, what happens if, in a public place,
one doesn't wear this, but wears Western clothes?
Is one fined by the police or something like that?
MERCHANT: Only to enforce the rules among the younger people.
-Yeah. -It was fined about seven dollars.
Seven dollars for wearing jeans in public?
Uh, yeah, in public.
But now it is no more. It is not... It isn't happening.
-It was just to reinforce the rule. -Yeah.
MERCHANT: Nice legs.
It's a long time since someone said that to me.
We also want modernisation to happen, but not at the cost of...
Yes.
At the cost of this culture.
Seems to be perfect. Isn't this emblematic...
Here we are. The fabric's made here, it's your style of clothes and...
It's very comfortable. It's not old, it's not new.
It's just a functional garment, and actually amazing.
-Looks very well on you. -Oh, thank you. Does it?
Yes, she says it looks very well on you.
In the evening, downtown Thimpu is a bit tamer than your average Western city.
The most popular pastime is carrom,
a sort of complicated shove ha'penny.
But I'm in for one surprise.
In 1999, the king decided television, even satellite television,
wouldn't threaten the country's cultural identity.
So most households in Thimpu now have a television set.
Thimpu is the modern face of Bhutan.
If I wanted to see the world the king is trying to preserve, even rebuild,
I would have to travel out of town.
Next morning, I head for a remote corner of the kingdom,
a five-hour drive away from the capital.
Well, I've finally arrived at the village of Shengana,
after a rather long and bumpy ride, and there is a welcoming committee for me.
My goodness, I didn't expect this.
I join on behind the children.
These chaps, all the time, amazing, blowing their massive horns.
(SINGING IN BHUTANESE DIALECT)
(EXCLAIMING LOUDLY)
Thank you.
I suppose this is the house I've come to see.
That's why the procession led me here.
That little ceremony was to appease the local deity,
to protect the house, to protect the inhabitants and to protect me,
which is very thoughtful of them, isn't it?
The building is amazing. Very big, and certainly looks its age.
I've been told it's between 200 and 300 years old.
Obviously the house, originally, of a rather well-to-do farmer.
And I suppose somewhere here is my host and hostess,
who'll be entertaining me later on.
Wonderful building, I must say.
Beaten earth construction and timber above.
All the detail exposed because the paint has flaked off.
The traditional Bhutanese home is perfectly tailored to the needs
of the local farmers.
The ground floor is occupied by their cattle,
who retire into the house at night, safe from mountain tigers.
It's rather like clambering aboard a ship this, up this rickety staircase.
And there's the front door over there.
And, ah, well, the painted phalluses may have faded
on the outside of this building, but here above the door
is a phallus, in fact, four, in wood, forming a cross.
Of course, it's there to ward off evil spirits,
but nevertheless, I will go inside.
Hello.
(SPEAKING BHUTANESE DIALECT)
Can I have a little look at your house, please?
Is that all right if I have a wander around?
Then I'll, I believe, join you a bit later for a meal.
Oh, the stairs is over here, is it?
Golly, staircase is one way of putting it.
This is simply a plank, virtually a half a tree,
just with foot and hand holds sort of cut out of it.
Um, oh, it's not too bad, actually.
Now, what can this room be?
Ah, here we are. Of course, it's like the family chapel.
Here's a Buddhist shrine.
The people of Bhutan remain very religious,
and most houses have their own shrines.
This one is very well appointed.
Very beautiful.
I return, hello, having inspected your wonderful ancient house.
I'll sit here. Thank you.
Oh, thank you. Keep my shoes on.
Oh!
So...
These are all the local farmers, are they?
Yes, they are all farmers from the village.
They are all cousins, relatives and members of the family.
Yes, and how many people actually live in this house?
There are seven of them.
Father, mother and children. Seven of them.
Right, and they all live, sleep in this big room?
So the beds come out at night, after this,
and everyone goes to sleep. Incredible.
The main living room, also the kitchen, I see.
People are happy with this, you know, the continuity,
with the traditional ways of life can be going on and on?
LOTEY: Yes, people are happy, very happy,
with the life that they lead here,
because once in a while they do get to go out to the urban city,
and they see the chaos life there.
Yes.
And they're very happy with the life here.
It is truly a very Buddhist sentiment, to live a very basic life.
You make do with what you have, and you make do with what is enough.
-Let's begin with the rice. -This is what I really want to get...
-Red rice. -Red rice, yes.
Bhutan is a fascinating experiment,
a radical attempt to keep the past alive in a modern and often alarming world.
I know it wouldn't suit everyone, but to me it seems admirable.
Architecture can make dreams come true.