Historian Dan Cruickshank explores how humanity has created beauty through architecture. Dan visits buildings created for pleasure, including the Taj hotel in India.
In the final episode, Dan explores how architecture gives us pleasure - both to its creators and to the people who enjoy the buildings today.
In India, Dan visits one of the world's greatest and most luxurious hotels, the Taj in Mumbai. Like a palace sitting at the ocean's edge, the hotel is a vision from the age of the great maharajahs and the British raj, a spectacular fusion of east and west. And in Germany, Dan goes to the Schloss Neuschwanstein, a fantasy castle created by one of history's most outrageous monarchs, King Ludwig II. Even today it is the stuff of fantasy for the many millions of visitors who reach its heights in the Bavarian mountains.
Moving to Italy, Dan celebrates the hedonism and excess of ancient Pompeii - visiting the oldest brothel in the world. He then heads for Brazil and the Amazon basin to find opera at the heart of the rainforest - the opera house at Manaus. Built on the back of the rubber trade, the pleasure it brings is a painful mix for the people of the region.
And 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 and perfect architecture was arrived at by mathematical proportion - designed by the world's greatest architect, Andrea Palladio.
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Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Presenter | Dan Cruickshank |
| Executive Producer | Basil Comely |
