Season 1

Historian and writer Dan Cruickshank celebrates architecture as a creative force as he explores the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments. In the first episode, Cruickshank explores how humanity has created beauty through architecture. He travels to Greenland to build an igloo, creating an architectural form that is under threat due to climate change. In China he scales the world's biggest Buddha and deciphers a temple in India rich with erotic images. He visits the Catherine Palace, a hot-blooded baroque masterpiece in the middle of snowy Russia. Finally, he uncovers the dark tale of Albi Cathedral, a building originally designed to suppress the local population but now an object of beauty and wonder.

Historian and writer Dan Cruickshank celebrates the creative force of architecture as he explores the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments. Dan travels to the Czech Republic, revealing the macabre tale of a chapel decorated with human bones. In Guatemala he encounters the Yaxha Mayan pyramids, sites of brutal human sacrifice, before finally coming face-to-face with death itself in Varanasi in India, a sacred Hindu town where people come to die.

Historian and writer Dan Cruickshank celebrates the creative force of architecture as he explores the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments. Dan looks at buildings that evoke the image of heaven across religions and cultures, travelling to Egypt's Sinai desert, China's Hanging Temple, and Turkey's Suleymaniye Mosque, a building that evokes the gates of paradise. Finally Dan loses himself in the boisterous holy town of Sri Ranganthaswamy, a place sacred to the Hindu religion.

Historian and writer Dan Cruickshank celebrates the creative force of architecture as he explores the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments. Dan explores buildings shaped and threatened by disaster. He risks his life to visit the Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan, a monument to peace and tolerance in the midst of a war zone. San Francisco is preparing for a cataclysmic earthquake - what role can architecture play in saving lives? And Dan reveals the tragic tale of Palmyra in Syria.

Historian and writer Dan Cruickshank celebrates architecture as a creative force as he explores the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments. Dan sets out to reveal how architecture enables people to live together across the world. He finds vibrant communities in extraordinary buildings - but why do some places succeed and others fail? To find out, Dan visits Brasilia, an ideal city built by communists, the Rockefeller Centre in New York and Dharavi in Mumbai, the biggest slum in India.

Historian and writer Dan Cruickshank celebrates architecture as a creative force as he explores the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments. Dan examines buildings as gigantic statements of power. The fantasies of dictators, kings, sultans, warriors and the ruling classes are all exposed as Dan explores the world's palaces of power in Romania, the Middle East, the American South, Turkey and Kazakhstan.

Historian and writer Dan Cruickshank celebrates architecture as a creative force as he explores the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments. Since building began, architects have tried to build the future, create fantasy worlds, and even change humanity through new inventions. Dan travels to Yemen to reveal an ancient city of skyscrapers made of mud and explores the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, where society dreamt of reforming criminals into decent men.

Historian and writer Dan Cruickshank celebrates architecture as a creative force as he explores the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments. Dan explores how architecture gives us pleasure, visiting the luxurious Taj hotel in India, a fantasy castle in Germany, and the hedonist surrounds of an ancient Pompeii brothel. Finally, Dan explores the Villa Barbaro, one of the world's most beautiful country houses where pleasure was deemed to be created by perfect architecture.