Architecture at the Crossroads

First transmitted in 1986, a look at how some young architects are reacting against modernist sterility with an exuberant return to traditional forms.

We are living in an age of experiment. The 80s have seen a rich crop of radical and controversial ideas about the form and content of buildings. This second of ten programmes looks...

The newly-acquired oil wealth has brought an unprecedented boom to the Middle East and, as a consequence, a massive programme of new buildings. At first the Arabs looked to the Wes...

Modern architecture has revived the concept of the open 'galleria' and the 'atrium'. All over the world the traditional town square is giving way to the pedestrian precinct and the...

Next year the once devastated inner-city of Berlin sees the most exciting and historic event in present-day city planning. It has taken eight years to create the mammoth Internatio...

In Japan architects and designers enjoy a public fame and prestige far greater than any painter or sculptor. Three quarters of the 90 million people are packed into a narrow corrid...

Stop the Bulldozer asks if conservation at all costs is inhibiting contemporary architecture. Conservationists have become a potent force in contemporary architecture, lamenting, a...

Houses Fit for People looks at housing and where the modern movement went wrong with their high-rises and modern concrete estates. The fame and fortune of top contemporary architec...

'Texas is a marvellous place to build, it's the last American state, a great country, a separate country. They have the money and the desire to decorate their state and they're doi...

This has been a series about change - in the attitudes of contemporary architects, in public awareness, in the ways they are shaping our future environment. There has been some opt...