All language subtitles for The.Art.of.Architecture.S01E04.Episode.4.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-TEPES

Narrator: In New York,
one of the biggest developments

in America's history
has chosen British designer

Thomas Heatherwick
to create its centrepiece.

Inspired by the stepwells
of India,

the Vessel has been built
in Italy,

shipped across the Atlantic,

and erected
on Manhattan's West Side.

It's cost $150 million,

it's been a hit
with the selfie generation,

and it goes nowhere -
just as its designer intended.

In a sense, we tried to be
very idealistic and think,

"What's the best thing

"that we really think
should happen here?"

In the development team's mind
originally

was that there would be
a sculpture.

Of course, identity is done
with a sculpture.

And in the studio, we've been
interested in trying

to break down the idea
that there's a functional world

and then there's culture

and that they're
two separate things

and that aesthetics and function
are two separate things.

To us, how a place
makes you feel is its function.

[rhythmic piano theme]

Narrator: Built over
the unlovely train tracks

on Manhattan's West Side,

Hudson Yards
is a $25 billion development,

the brainchild of Stephen Ross.

It's a mixture of offices,
shops and apartments

set in a new piece
of New York's public realm.

And at its heart is a structure
that is hard to classify.

The Vessel comes from the studio
of Thomas Heatherwick,

designer, model-maker,
problem-solver,

the man who created
the new London Routemaster bus,

and the cauldron for
the Olympic flame in 2012.

But what is it?

Is it art? Is it sculpture?

Is it engineering?

It is, says Heatherwick,
all these things and more.

The development team's mind
originally

was that there would be
a sculpture.

Of course, identity is done
with a sculpture.

And in the studio,

we've been interested in trying
to break down the idea

that there's a functional world
and then there's culture

and that they're
two separate things

and that aesthetics and function
are two separate things.

To us, how a place makes you
feel is its function as well.

In sense, we tried to be
very idealistic and think,

"What's the best thing

"that we really think
should happen here?"

And a wealthy
development company

creating a new district,

putting a sort of
inexplicable object in a plaza

that everyone looks at
and wonders

what they were thinking
when they created it -

it felt, could we instead
bring people together?

And that led us to looking at
the way

amphitheatres have been designed

and that led us to looking
at the way that, in India,

there have been these stepwells
that were very...

I mean, if you see images
of them, it's very captivating.

And there's togetherness
in quite an extreme way.

Narrator: As well as
being inspired

by India's ancient stepwells,

Thomas Heatherwick wanted
to respond to developments

in the modern age,

including what some have called
an "epidemic of loneliness" -

the idea that
through mobile phones,

social media, the internet,

society is turning in on itself.

In a virtual world,
there's a danger,

says Thomas Heatherwick,

or forgetting the pleasure
of exploring real spaces.

- In Italy,
when I was a teenager,

I used to go and stay
with a friend there

and there was the promenading
in the evenings,

it's called a 'passeggiata'.

And people walk and people love
to see and be seen,

and that is a powerful human
instinct that I think goes back

and is deep in us in the way
we respond to each other.

And so, we tried
to design something

that would bring people together
and...

..invent something,
if we possibly could,

that hadn't existed before.

[rhythmic string music]

Narrator: In Manhattan,
developer Stephen Ross

is walking in the footsteps
of those

who pioneered
the city's public realm,

from the board of commissioners
who commissioned Central Park

in the middle of
the 19th century,

to the neighbourhood parks built
by Robert Moses in the 20th.

But this is a city
where every inch has a value

and every inch counts.

And it takes nerve
to allocate space

to something other than offices
and apartments.

- It's a big deal to create land

where there hasn't been land
before.

So, there was a very good reason
why this area of New York

had never existed before -
because it was just railyards.

So, I think there's 30 lines

that come out from Penn Station
going east-west.

And so, land in New York's
very, very valuable,

but there were large railyards
that needed to stay working.

So, the decision to build
a table,

and to engineer
a gigantic table,

which has cooling pipes
to cool the plants

that are being planted above,

that has air handling
so that the trains below

still get the fresh
air coming through,

and then to build
millions of square foot

of homes and workspaces
and places people can eat

and drink and be
and space for people -

it's a really complicated
engineering challenge.

I think that there's a bravery,

maybe fuelled by the strength
of the economy

in that city, to believe that
that could be possible.

And there's a dynamism.

I think that there are quite
a lot of development companies

in the United States who are led
by single individuals

who really hold things together.

I think sometimes in the UK,

there are development companies
that are...

very broad boards

and it's maybe harder
to drive forwards...

..strong, confident
development projects.

Narrator: It was this commercial
pressure on space in New York,

where the only way is up,

that gave Thomas Heatherwick
and his team an idea.

That and the development
of the High Line nearby -

a disused railway
turned into a park.

I think that we realised
there was an opportunity

to build on the heritage
that the High Line has there.

You know, this elevated park

that was reappropriating
an old piece of infrastructure,

but it made 1.5 miles
of new public space.

And so, we realised that even in
just a relatively small site

relative to
that chunk of Manhattan

that the High Line sat within,

we could make a mile of space.

We could wind a space up

and have the humour
and chemistry of looking up,

looking down, seeing each other.

Also, 2,500 steps, in one sense,
as a major workout,

if you were to walk
all of those steps.

16 levels.

When did you last walk up
16 floors?

During the launch,

there were all sorts of
interesting conversations.

I remember someone saying,
"But it has no purpose,"

and then sort of looked
back at them and said...

"What's the purpose
of Central Park?

"What's the purpose
of the High Line?"

These aren't routes,
they don't generate power,

but the purpose
is the human need

for something other than direct,
obvious purpose and function.

That is the function

and that feeds us and nourishes
us in its ambiguity

and your freedom to do
or be what you want.

Narrator: Thomas Heatherwick
was born in London in 1970.

He grew up feeling that

all was not quite right
with the world around him.

That the UK was becoming a hard,
commercial culture,

where developers and architects
were failing people

by neglecting the public realm.

- I grew up at a time
when it felt that

the built environment had become

very politically driven
and very cerebrally driven,

but that the physicality
was quite cold and sterile.

And...that's carried through.

In the post-war construction...

..there have been some amazing
brutalist buildings built.

There's been, I think,

the biggest quantity of rubbish
been built as well.

And so...

..it felt that there was also

an absence of the same qualities
that we might expect in,

for example, this cup of tea
that's over here.

You know, for example,
this mug that's here.

Part of it's beauty
is the imperfection in the glaze

and the way that it dribbles

and the graininess,

and that's because
there's love in the making.

And I think in the construction
industries around the world,

there's been so much pressure,
because it's a very...

There's so many things
that the designer

of the built environment
has to pull together.

Financially, from a permissions
point of view,

and politically,

and the budgets
that are being juggled,

and the context of it all.

We're all excited also about
how you can make things

that improve the world
and use less energy.

Obviously, in this context
that we sit in now,

there's so many things,

and often what suffers

is a sort of essential
soulfulness of projects.

And that was an instinct
that I had

when I was a teenager,
and I was lucky to be -

or unlucky! - that all
the first projects we did,

we had to build them ourselves.

And so, making was essential.

It seemed that you could tell
projects designed by people

who don't understand, really,
lovemaking

and projects by people who do.

And so, the studio
is surrounded by...

I mean, in this studio,

I've tried to surround us

with objects of every scale,

materials of every type,

processes of every type.

We've done quite a lot
of concrete pouring

and trying different mixes,

because often the thing
that could be special

about a building
might be a detail.

It might just be the quality
of the surface

and not necessarily the shape.

Because if everything is made
out of aluminium panelling,

silicon sealant and shiny glass,

it all feels the same, even if
the shapes are different.

Narrator: 'Making'
is Thomas Heatherwick's word

and in this studio of 200 souls,

you can feel the passion that
goes into trying things out,

creating models and leaving them
on shelves to inspire

where other practices
might put them in store.

This is the art of architecture
on display.

[uplifting string music]

Few design practices are as
diverse as Thomas Heatherwick's.

Over the past 25 years,

it's completed
a range of projects,

all of which started on paper.

A rolling bridge
for London's Paddington Basin

which, unlike most bridges,

that break apart to
let boats through,

rolls up to become
a piece of installation art.

Heatherwick won the competition
to design

the UK pavilion for
the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

The theme was that
the future of cities

and he had the idea
of creating a building

that referenced
the Millennium Seed Bank

in Kew Gardens.

60,000 acrylic rods
containing 250,000 seeds.

The new London bus came along
in 2012,

paying homage to
the original 1956 Routemaster

with its hop-on,
hop-off platform.

Two years later, a new
gin distillery in Hampshire.

Then a finance centre
in Shanghai,

working with
Foster and Partners -

a building inspired
by Chinese weaving.

Followed by the conversion
of a disused grain silo

in Cape Town
into a gallery of modern art.

[string music rises]

And in London, the restoration

of a Victorian coal yard
at King's Cross.

I was interested in...

..invention and engineering
and design and was...

The only thing I wasn't
terrible at was art and drawing

and thinking about ideas
when I was little.

So, in a sense,
this is an evolved...

..development of my bedroom
when I was six years old

in North London and it's...

..it's...

..grown and...

..there was a sort of
official moment,

which was when I graduated after
seven years of studying

and finished at
the Royal College of Art

and had managed to find a place

where I might be able
to live and work.

I was by myself

and then the last 25 years,

we've been meeting collaborators

and it's growing into a team.

In a way, moving
from 'I' to 'we',

and that's been
the most exciting thing

and so much more effective
and enjoyable

and interesting
than working by yourself.

[string music climaxes]

Narrator: Drawing something
as unusual as the Vessel,

using 3D printers
to produce the maquettes,

calculating
the engineering details,

may be everyday life
for Thomas Heatherwick's team...

..but this is New York

and all the models
would have meant nothing

if he couldn't convince
the developer, Stephen Ross,

to pay for something
that goes...nowhere.

- Nobody anywhere
spends money on something

unless they can justify it.

Maybe at a small scale
you might indulge something,

but at the large-scale,

everything has to argue
for its value.

No-one has a spare millions
of dollars to spend on things.

And so, a lot of the time,
you're...

..you're sharing your process.

It's not a mysterious place

where you sort of
pop things out. It's...

You are having conversations
about value

and it's a two-way, really
collaborative conversation

because Related, who built
the Hudson Yards development

and led all of that,
are very, very experienced.

They started working also
and got going

by building huge amount
of social housing

in the United States,

and so have an understanding
of place-making

that we found quite interesting.

So in a sense,
you're learning from that

but trying to push
and build on that,

so the conversations
were quite interesting.

The really good
property developers

want to be challenged
and they challenge you.

You also work with the city.

There's so many people involved

when something is going to be
publicly accessible.

We are all familiar with plazas,
piazzas, corporate spaces

and the open space
in between buildings,

but it was always our intention

to three-dimensionalise
and bring a new paradigm

to something that
we're all very familiar with.

Often, public space is merely

the leftover
in between buildings.

And so...

..turning that on its head,
three-dimensionalising it

and lifting people up

and bringing
an intense socialisation

felt to us like a step change

and something that was no longer
a passive experience

of merely looking at a fountain
or a sculpture or an artwork,

but something where people
and movement

were actually the key
to the whole experience.

Thomas: The challenge,
if you brought people together,

was that they might exclude
the world beyond,

so it felt if we were to make
an amphitheatre in some sense,

it should be porous.

So, we led from designing
from the inside outwards,

not from the outside in.

It was funny in the development
of the project

that people were seeing
an outside and starting -

as we all do - you start judging

and thinking
it's about an outside.

And I think the nice surprise
has been for people to see

that it was actually all about
the inside.

[playful piano music]

- We're a making studio.

We draw, we use computers,
we certainly make.

We have
a very substantial workshop

where we can build
all sorts of things -

not just scale models
but functional prototypes.

So, we did use contemporary
technologies such as 3D printing

to build what would be
a very difficult thing

to build by hand, certainly very
difficult to build accurately.

But once we were moving into
design development

and thinking about things
like handrails

or steps or the widths
of critical spaces,

we were able to build things
at full-scale

and build them of timber or foam
and representative materials,

but very, very critical
prototypes were made

to help us decide on
and make important decisions.

[playful piano continues]

Being open-minded
along the journey

of design development
is critical,

because what you think
at the beginning

is invariably not exactly
what you'll get at the end.

Part of our...

..spirit as a studio
is learning.

And so, along the way there were
many, many adjustments

that were driven by physics,
structure, weight, cost,

geometry, the size and step
of a human being,

and through working fluidly
with them in 3D digital formats,

we were able to track and adjust
the design

and really just integrate all of
the things that had to happen.

Narrator: Having got
the go-ahead,

the design team had to find
someone to build it.

Not in America, but on
the other side of the Atlantic

in northern Italy.

In the small town of Monfalcone,

a firm that specialises
in fabricating

complex steel structures

for everything from bridges
to football stadiums

agreed to make the Vessel
in 75 sections.

They're familiar with New York.
They're involved with

Santiago Calatrava's
Transportation Hub,

its characteristic curves
rising above Ground Zero.

And with Liz Diller's theatre -

another part of the Hudson Yards
development,

a performance space that can
be extended on giant wheels.

It's being called 'The Shed'.

The idea was to keep
the construction of the Vessel

as secret as possible,

and the people at Monfalcone
are doing their best

but in the design world,

there is always interest
in what Thomas Heatherwick

is doing next,
so secrecy was a challenge.

The design team has chosen
a noncorrosive steel

to coat each level
of the structure.

They hope copper
will mirror the action

above and below each level,
especially when the sun is out,

a contrast to the grey
of New York's skyscrapers.

But will it survive the weather

on an exposed part
of the Hudson River?

- One of the most enjoyable
aspects

of what we do for a living
is getting to work with experts

and people of
very high craftsmanship.

So, the company that built
Vessel taught us a lot.

And their background is in
shipbuilding,

complex steelwork building -

basically anything that's odd,
difficult

or very, very large to build.

And this, for them,
was wonderful playtime,

to be thrown this
as a challenge.

You could see the joy
in their eyes

and they just relished
the opportunity.

And so, the entire project
was fuelled

by this optimism of everyone
feeling that

they were building something
really quite extraordinary.

Very difficult, with lots of
points of technical challenge,

but fundamentally exciting
to them, as much as to us.

Narrator: This is a wonder
to behold.

Thomas Heatherwick
has travelled to Italy

to see progress for himself.

[uplifting string music]

With him is Stephen Ross,
the man who's paying for it.

Strange to see
this 21st-century folly

being assembled not where
it will land in Manhattan,

but in an Italian
construction yard.

For Heatherwick,
a man who loves models,

seeing one built at life size
must be a thrill.

[music rises]

150 feet tall,
50 feet wide at its base,

154 concrete and steel
staircases with 2,500 steps,

80 landings, capable
of taking over 1,000 visitors,

the Vessel is unlike anything
the Italians have made before.

And now they have to get it
across the Atlantic.

It goes in bits.

10 sections
in the first shipment,

which find their way to a port
in New Jersey

and then by barge to Manhattan -
a 15-day journey.

And in the dead of night,
in the city that never sleeps,

this most unusual of loads
makes its way to the West Side.

Now we are in the hands
of the Americans.

This, of course, is a nation
used to working on a big scale.

It's not just the prefabricated
sections of the Vessel

that are giant-sized -

so is everything that goes with
this huge Meccano set,

from spanners to nuts and bolts.

It's the coolest gig in town

and New Yorkers
watching from the High Line

are wondering what a Brit
from 'over there'

has given them over here.

And here, the scale of
the Hudson Yards development,

a decade in the making,
becomes clear.

16 skyscrapers, a shopping mall,
luxury apartments,

a theatre - The Shed -

and 20 acres of public space.

And at the centre of it all,

Thomas Heatherwick's
mystery object.

The Vessel is open.

New Yorkers are not quite sure
what to make of it.

But that doesn't stop them
flocking to this curiosity

on the city's West Side.

Within a few months,

it's become the most
Instagrammed background,

the favourite setting
for selfies

posted by users of Tinder,
the mobile dating app.

And a must-see for visitors
to the Big Apple.

And others, who don't know
about 'swiping right',

to simply enjoy
climbing all 2,500 steps.

[rhythmic piano]

Of course, Thomas Heatherwick
is pleased with the response

and he likes the fact
that his idea

of getting away
from the traditional approach

to squares and plazas
has paid off.

- The sort of functional
essence, the design ethos -

that you made big open plazas

and you put your sculpture
sitting there

that was a bit inexplicable

and everyone looked at
this sort of piece of modern art

that was sitting there -

it felt that that was a format
we were familiar with

and didn't do justice

to our time, somehow.

There hadn't been a battle
on this site.

There hadn't been
some major thing to commemorate.

This has been a railyards
for a very long time

and was now going to be a space
bigger than Trafalgar Square.

And so, it felt...

What was there that was
a real reason in that space?

And it felt to us the people
in that space were the reason.

[rhythmic piano]

- The Vessel was never,

would never have been complete
without people.

It was designed for people,
for the human form.

And so, seeing it full of people

smiling, running, some slightly
walking with intrepidation,

taking many, many photographs,

seeing it really captured
by the public consciousness

has been an absolute joy.

And it's the first project

that certainly
I've ever worked on

where the social media component
is enormous.

The Instagram effect,
the Twitter effect,

of people being artistic

in their interaction
with the project,

taking photographs of themselves
or moving through it.

It's wonderful to see the public
take ownership of it.

And really, for us,
with all of our projects,

that's the ambition,

is that it becomes the property,
in a way, of the public.

I remember looking
with a friend of mine

at playgrounds years ago
and looking at climbing frames.

I wondered, why are they all
so ugly?

Why do children get
these sort of...things?

And why is play, the idea
that play is only for children?

And then suddenly it's serious
and you go to gyms for adults.

And so, there seemed to be
a possibility,

rather than designing
what people might think of

as a sculpture,
to design something

that was
pushing forward something

that New York's done
historically.

I think that
really successful cities...

..are dense,

mean that people don't have
to travel huge distances

to get to work.

But also have the antidote
to that intensity,

which is space that doesn't tell
you what you're supposed to do.

[rhythmic strings]

Narrator: The reaction among
Manhattan's movers and shakers

is mixed.

The 'New York Times'
is critical,

but New Yorkers vote with
their feet - literally.

In its first few months,

the Vessel is overwhelmed
by visitors,

patiently queueing
for their timed tickets

and coming back for more.

The copper does indeed reflect
all those who climb it,

and almost everyone
wants to use

the thoughtfully-provided
circle in the middle

for group selfies

with the superstructure
rising above them.

It doesn't go anywhere,

but just as
the Heatherwick team hoped,

it's bringing people together.

Some are calling it
'the honeycomb',

others 'the wastepaper basket'.

Stephen Ross thinks it could
become New York's Eiffel Tower.

Only time will tell.

[string music continues]

How to explain what ties

Thomas Heatherwick's
diverse projects together?

From a rolling bridge,

to a new headquarters for Google
in California.

From the Olympic cauldron

to a pavilion
made of optic fibres.

From a gin distillery
to the Vessel.

The answer lies in his gift
to Londoners, the Routemaster,

that passes the front door
of his creative studio

hundreds of times a day.

The Routemaster embodies what
he calls the 'culture of life'.

- The way people have thought
about transportation in the past

was about transportation
of numbers of people

from A to B

and the dignity of the passenger
wasn't the focus too,

given that many people
will spend...

..40 minutes on a bus
in the morning,

40 minutes on a bus
in the afternoon.

So, they're spending
1 hour and 20 minutes

of their life,
possibly for 20, 30 years -

it's part of the culture
of their life.

The culture doesn't begin
when they get in the art gallery

and end when they walk
back out of it.

The culture of our life
is all of these things.

And so, I think that's what
we are very interested in,

is thinking about
the emotional impact

that the places around us
have on us

and what they say to us
about society.

That's what we've got
increasingly interested in,

more and more and more
over the years

that the studio's been going,

and it's felt like the gap.

And my passion, really,
is the gaps.

What are people not doing?

I don't feel that our job
is to 'express ourself'.

I feel our job is to try

and see what's not happening

and try to do everything we can

to make those things

that might be better,

that might make a difference.

[sweeping orchestral
theme music]

Narrator: Next time,
Ptolemy Dean believes in

the power of art
in architecture.

Architect, sketcher, painter,
restorer of buildings,

co-presenter of the television
series 'Restoration',

surveyor of the fabric
at Westminster Abbey,

he is inspired by the work
of Wren and Hawksmoor.

His latest project
was born on the train.

On the 0800 to London Bridge,
Ptolemy Dean sketched a scheme

for the first major addition to
Westminster Abbey in 250 years.

[bell tolls]

A stair tower
that allows visitors

to see a secret part of
the abbey hidden for centuries.

- I was sketching this thing,
you know -

how does it work,
how does it work?

And of course, it suddenly came.

In fact, I can remember
where it came -

it came between Tonbridge
and High Brooms.

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