PBS: The Latest Architecture and News

With construction now well underway on One Thousand Museum in Miami, one of Zaha Hadid's largest projects to be completed posthumously, Curbed has reported that the 62-story tower will be the subject of an upcoming Discovery/PBS documentary covering the creation of complex structures from around the world. Titled “Impossible Builds,” the program will highlight the building’s unique glass fiber reinforced concrete exoskeleton.

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Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen will be the focus of the Season 30 Finale of American Masters, the PBS documentary program that highlights the preeminent cultural icons of United States’ history.

Co-produced by Saarinen’s son, Eric, the documentary will dig into the life and work of the visionary architect, covering seminal projects including St. Louis' iconic Gateway Arch, the General Motors Technical Center, New York's TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Yale University's Ingalls Rink and Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges, and Virginia's Dulles Airport.

PBS’ American Masters series and Latino Public Broadcasting’s VOCES series have teamed up for the first time to delve into the life and work of Pedro E. Guerrero, a Mexican American photographer from Mesa, Arizona, who is known for his photography of the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, among other artists.

The film, Pedro E. Guerrero: A Photographer’s Journey, explores Guerrero’s photography, showing his collaboration with Frank Lloyd Wright to “produce insightful portraits of important modernist architecture,” which launched him to become “one of the most sought-after photographers of the ‘Mad Men’ era.” While Guerrero was extremely popular at the time, his story today is still largely unknown.

A new hour long documentary for PBS' series, Building the Great Cathedrals, explores the mystery of how, in the 15th century, Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi constructed one of the largest domes the world had ever seen. Winning what could be considered one of the earliest architectural competitions, Brunelleschi developed a unique system that allowed construction on the dome to occur while services were being conducted in the cathedral 100 metres below. The team in this episode model this freestanding structure in an attempt to understand just how Brunelleschi achieved such a feat of Renaissance engineering.

You can find out more about the film here. Please note that the film is only viewable through PBS within the USA. For those of you outside the USA, you can watch the 30 second preview above; for those in the USA, see the full video after the break...

In an hour long documentary for PBS, Geoffrey Baer tours the USA in search of the ten buildings that "changed America." From a state capitol designed by Thomas Jefferson to resemble a Roman temple to Henry Ford's factory that first saw the Model T enter production, the film explores the "shocking, funny, and even sad stories of how these buildings were created." Investigating places of worship, shopping malls, concert halls and skyscrapers this film is tipped as "a journey inside the imaginations of the daring architects who set out to change the way we live, work, and play."

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In an age where almost every conceivable subject has spawned its own reality series - be it Dancing On Ice or Hillbilly-Hand-Fishing - PBS's new show, Cool Spaces!, aims to stimulate the public's curiosity by engaging us in the story behind some of North America's most interesting public buildings. The AIA sponsored show, which is hosted by Boston-based architect Stephen Chung, departs from usual architecture-related television shows, which tend to focus on makeovers of private homes. Not only will this show look at public buildings, but it will also examine the people who's lives it has affected, the places that have shaped it, and the mind of the architect who brought all of these things together to design it.

Read more about the series and see a sneak preview after the break...