How Did They Build That? Episode Rating Graph

A Manhattan skyscraper designed to appear as if gust of wind could topple it over. A Paris museum described as an engineer's "jigsaw puzzle from hell," with 3,500 individually designed glass panels. And a cliffside elevator in Zhangjiajie so remotely located, it had to be built entirely by hand. Join us as we travel the globe to witness astonishing structures that pushed architecture and the laws of physics to the edge. Then meet the brilliant minds who designed and built these wonders and discover the stories behind their construction.

A bent Manhattan building that actually caused panic in the streets. A cultural center in Athens that features a massive floating roof in an earthquake zone. A university complex in stifling Singapore that was built without air conditioning. In this episode, we examine the American Copper Building, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, and "The Hive" at Nanyang Technical University, meeting the brilliant minds who designed and built them, and revealing their engineering secrets.

The American Museum of Natural History gets a cave-like extension; Boston University gains a tower.

Travel to Antarctica, Scotland, and the Canary Islands and witness wonders of engineering and design.

Travel to a French valley, a Shanghai quarry, and the middle of Milan and witness architectural and engineering wonders.

A new performance center with a tent-like glass-and-steel lobby tests engineers in Kansas City; two twisting apartment towers make heads spin in Ontario.

Witness a garden in the sky, a pier in the clouds, and a railway station that laughs in the face of natural disasters.

From a logistical railway nightmare to an indoor tropical dreamscape, watch engineers and builders complete the impossible.

A dazzling new 1400 foot tapering skyscraper is built right next to New York's Grand Central. A curving wine museum requires ingenious engineering in Bordeaux, France. And possibly the world's most glamorous parking garage.

A new Olympic and Paralympic museum tests engineers with its trailblazing accessible design. A dazzling curved glass skyscraper battles gravity in Milan. And a student center built under a noisy railroad.

A 1.2 million square foot office building balances precariously on a 39 foot wide base in Chicago. A building named Pterodactyl lands on top of a Los Angeles parking garage. And the world's longest suspension footbridge is constructed in Czechia.

Architects and engineers build an eco-friendly convention center on Vancouver's waterfront, a lift bridge in Bordeaux and a cocoon-shaped skyscraper in Tokyo each with unique challenges like marine habitats and massive spans.

A sculptural high-rise with rippling balconies breaks the mold in Chicago. Mammoth machines bore 26 miles of tunnels for an underground railroad beneath London's city streets.

A sculptural new transportation hub for New York's World Trade Center is beset by challenges. Then, Amsterdam gains a striking building inspired by a mountain valley, and a new launchpad for space travel prepares for liftoff.

A gravity defying university building in Sydney, Australia, is clad in 320,000 bricks. Engineers grapple with making an angular arts center tornado proof in Oklahoma. And a plant-filled office building.

Engineers grapple with an apartment building, ripped apart by a man-made canyon. The iconic Gateway Arch takes shape in St Louis, Missouri. And an unpromising plot in Copenhagen is transformed by a gleaming new triangular office building.