America's stories told by the Smithsonian

SMITHSONIAN CHANNEL HD

The American Museum of Natural History in NYC gets a cave-like extension; an arts center inspired by migrating birds is built on a lake in China; Boston University gains a fossil-free, Jenga-like tower.

How Did They Build That?

Boxes & Birds

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.

Curved & Cables

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.

Subways & Sightlines

America has so many stories to tell. And nobody brings them to your home like Smithsonian Channel.

Smithsonian Channel HD

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.

Floating & Lifting

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.

Tricks & Trains

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.

Heights & Balance

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.

Parking & Sparkling

Witness amazing buildings, bridges, lifts, and other structures that pushed structural concrete engineering to the edge.

Canyons & Curves

Jungles & Bricks

Challenges beset a sculptural new transportation hub for New York's World Trade Center; Amsterdam gains a building inspired by a mountain valley; a new launchpad for space travel prepares for liftoff in the New Mexico desert.

Fantastic & Futuristic

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An exploration of how some of the world's biggest man-made structures were built.

S3 E5 | Heights & Balance