All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S08E12.Before.The.Crown.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Tom ward (narrates): The
wreckage of a vast facility in Chile,

once a beacon of development.

The workers were
put up on a pedestal.

They became heroes
in the community.

Clearly at some stage
something happened here

that changed that dramatically.

A Maltese ruin,

the one-time refuge
for a modern icon.

You'd never guess
who once lived here,

she's probably the most
famous woman in the world.

A sweeping complex
on the outskirts of Havana

that carried a
revolutionary vision.

Message that he was
trying to communicate

is that Cuba had
moved on from its history

and was forging a new future.

And scattered remains in Germany

which stood at the
heart of an evil empire.

What we see here is...

A deliberate attempt
to be grandiose.

This is designed to inspire awe.

This is pompous architecture,

this is power madness
expressed in stone.

Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting
to be revealed.

(Theme music)

On the back streets of
Malta's capital Valletta

lies a portal to
a majestic world.

The buildings here
all look pretty similar.

They're the same colour
and they blend into each other

in these tightly packed streets.

But behind that door

is something quite spectacular
and rather unexpected.

It's like a palace lost
in the streets of the city.

When you step inside you can
see this used to be a beautiful home.

It's bright, and
open, and breezy.

It has an air of decadence
and indulgence about it.

Further investigation
reveals a hidden garden.

The gardens are overgrown

and the pillars are
starting to crumble.

There's a balcony outside
that stretches out to open vistas.

There are these
beautiful carved reliefs

and these detailed sculptures

just decorating every
feature of the place.

Every aspect of this space has
been carefully thought through.

Who left behind these
traces of decadence?

The way this place looks now,

you'd never guess
who once lived here.

This was once home

to a powerful and influential couple
who are famous the world over.

This is villa guardamangia,
largely built in 1900.

Heritage expert
Kenneth gambin knows

how grand this
dilapidated place was...

During its hey-day in
the mid-20th century.

It was stunning.

A very high standard
with expensive furniture,

mostly of European origin.

Renowned paintings,
rich curtains,

the interior was
quite luxurious.

One would definitely have had
to be a very important person

to live here.

And the layout of the rooms
reveals more about the people

who once called this place home.

This used to a very
busy part of the property.

This was the servants' quarters.

So, you can imagine
the hustle and bustle

of every day work going on here.

This was a place
that was designed

for entertaining and for status.

The strategic location of Malta

is the first clue to this
buildings importance.

Malta is one of the most
strategic chess pieces in history.

It's got a maritime history that
stretches back thousands of years

that's full of dynamic change.

The British, on the
invitation of the Maltese,

took over the island.

And subsequently in 1814 it
was officially a British colony.

Malta was the premier overseas
naval base for the British empire.

It was from here

that they had a point of
entry to the middle east,

to India, and beyond.

It had long been
the headquarters

of the British Navy's
mediterranean fleet.

And by the world war ii,

Malta had become a key
base for the allied powers.

Submarines were
launched from here,

aircraft, ships, this
was the allies' key base

in the middle of an
access controlled sea.

The importance of the island
didn't stop at the end of the war.

That naval foothold
remained key.

And it's the British naval base

that bought the villa guardamangia's
world famous residents

to the island's shores.

When you know how lived here,

it really lets you imagine

what an opportunity
this place was for them.

It allowed them something

that they would only
ever get a glimpse

of during their entire lifetime.

And that was privacy.

The royal naval
base drew none other

than the newly wedded
royal couple themselves,

Elizabeth and Philip.

The royal highnesses are staying

with vice admiral lord
mountbatten and lady mountbatten

at their residence,
the villa guardamangia,

and most attractive it looks.

When they arrived here in 1949

little did the royal couple know

that duty would soon
call Princess Elizabeth

back to serve her country.

For the time being though

they could embrace life
in this secluded home.

Elizabeth found a freedom here,

she and Philip could enjoy
an independence in Malta.

And villa guardamangia
allowed them to step away

from the media spotlight.

Monarchy in the 20th century
was becoming more public.

The extremities of war
drew the royal family out

so that they were in touch

with the ordinary
people like never before.

Elizabeth and Philip married
just after the war in 1947

when the country
was still a wreck.

People wanted a lift.

Young Elizabeth was warm
hearted, she was hard working,

understated, and
extremely dignified.

Philip was personable,
relatable, handsome,

had a great sense of humour
and he made her happy.

The couple had been
bombarded by press photographers

throughout their
recent honeymoon.

And they were determined that
this trip abroad would be different.

There are very few photographs

of Princess Elizabeth
living in this property,

and one of them
was taken right there.

The rooms of this
dilapidated ruin

were unlike those of the
grand palaces back home.

We are actually in what used
to be the Princess' bedroom.

And this would
have been the view

she would have enjoyed
during her stay here.

The most striking feature
of this site is the walkway.

It's not safe anymore but you
can imagine back in the time

how you would have walked
out of the first floor on to it

and just been greeted
by this extraordinary view.

The great and the good
passed through this place.

So, the couple would
have entertained

their guests in this room.

This was the largest and
the most important room

in the whole building.

It's where they
threw private parties.

And you can just
imagine how liberating

this must have
been for Elizabeth.

She'd grown up in the
formal, protocol-heavy,

stultifying atmosphere of
the British royal palaces.

And now she was free,
free to have her own home,

throw her own parties,
have her own life.

The future queen could
even go outside in private,

in the now overgrown garden
concealed behind high walls.

The garden was a sanctuary,

away from others where
Elizabeth's love for gardening

could really take root and grow.

But Elizabeth couldn't hide
forever and eventually duty called.

It was a sad turn of events
that bought it all to a swift end.

In September 1951,

king George had surgery
at Buckingham Palace

to remove his left lung.

Someone had to take on the
role that he could no longer fulfil.

So, Elizabeth increasingly
assumed royal duties

and that meant that there was
no more time for her in Malta.

Queen Elizabeth has been
in the public eye ever since,

steering her nation
over its choppy course.

Following her father's death,

Elizabeth's coronation in 1953

was the first to be broadcast
live around the world.

Queen Elizabeth has basically
broken every record there is.

She's the longest lived

and longest reigning
British monarch,

plus she's probably the most
famous woman in the world.

Malta achieved
independence in 1964

and the villa guardamangia

would never be home to
queen Elizabeth ii again.

If you look at her
life as a whole,

her time here was
something really very special,

it stands out.

It was the one time

when she and her husband

were actually allowed
to be themselves.

In the years following
the villa was left to rot

under the ownership
of a reclusive old lady

who couldn't
afford to maintain it.

And although the queen
returned to Malta a number of times

in her later visits,

it's alleged that the owner denied
her access to this hideaway villa.

This abandoned home is the
only place outside of the UK

that a British
monarch has resided.

And since the government of
Malta took ownership in 2019

it's been keen to preserve it.

The government obviously
wants to restore the building.

And we want the
visitors to experience

how life was like for the
Princess way back then in 1950.

Looking at the conditions
this is fallen into...

It's hard to believe
that this was once

a royal residence

but hopefully someday soon

it might return to
it's former glory.

On the outskirts of the
Cuban capital of Havana

lies the shattered dream
of two freedom fighters.

These buildings
are so fantastical.

Something really ignited
someone's imagination

and let it run free in these
shapes and these designs.

There's hardly a right
angle in the entire place.

Few clues as to the
sites original purpose

appear to have survived
the ravages of time.

Clearly nature's been allowed
to sort of takeover in a small way,

but then there are some areas
that they look like foundations

and have never been completed.

There's a sense of
whatever stopped

that process
happening very abruptly.

So, what happened to
crush this romantic vision?

(Music)

These swirling structures were
born out of political upheaval.

In the 1950s

Cuba had been under the
dictatorship of fulgencio Batista.

It was an incredibly
corrupt country

and a small group
of revolutionaries

started a war against
the government.

Led by fidel Castro

and his loyal
lieutenant Che Guevara,

their victory in 1961

may have divided opinion

but it broke the strangle hold
of Batista's corrupt government.

And gave them control of
places like Havana's golf club.

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara,

they decide to go and play
golf one day in the elite club,

a place that they'd previously
never been allowed anywhere near.

They start to talk to each other

and say what a shame it
is that this has been shut off

from most of the Cuban people.

They hatch a very ambitious
plan to change this golf course

in to something else entirely.

The result was this.

Cuba's national school of art.

Built in the 1960s this
series of ambitious structures

was designed to nurture
excellence in ballet,

modern dance, visual
arts, music and drama.

Local, Jose villa cabrera
came to this other worldly place

to study sculpture.

You walk along the corridors,

you lose sense of
where you're coming from

and where you're going,
and that was intentional.

The message is that
Cuba had moved on

from its history and
was forging a new future.

But the idealistic campus,

it's vaulted structures reflecting
the optimism of the time

soon began to look outdated.

As Soviet influence in Cuba
grew, a storm was brewing.

It culminated in the
Cuban missile crisis,

a nuclear stand-off between
the Soviet union and the usa.

After the Cuban missile crisis,

the country was forced
to start prioritising defence

over other considerations,

and suddenly this grand
project faced a cash flow problem.

Construction was soon stopped

and the school closed
down before it was completed.

The builders were pulled off
site, the architects are let go,

and the schools are just
left as they stand on that day.

Today the school is
experiencing a renaissance

as international architects
once again celebrate

its unique and
optimistic design.

The future does look
optimistic for these buildings,

they were so beautifully
built in the first place.

And although never finished,

it looks finally funding
might be available

from Europe to complete the job.

On the outskirts
of Santiago, Chile,

epic warehouse style structures
dominate the San bernado area.

The centrepiece of
this neighbourhood,

what you can't miss is
this huge concrete building

about 500 feet long.

If you think that's big, it
used to be a lot bigger.

This site was once so large

that the original entrance
was 1,000 feet away.

Right on the other side
of the neighbourhood.

An inscription above
these main gates

gives some indication of
this sites original function.

Over the entrance is
carved the words maestranza,

which in Latin America it usually
means machine shop or repair shop.

If this was a machine shop

it was designed to handle
something enormous.

Dappled light illuminates
curious design features

inside the complex.

Along the floor are
these gigantic pits,

big enough for a
man to stand up in.

So, these uniformly
spaced pits in the floor

would seem to be a
place for workers to go

to work on the underside

of whatever it is
they are assembling

or repairing above them.

Once impressively engineered

this place has long
been stripped bare.

The fate of this compound is
intimately connected to one man,

an ambitious dictator
and his chilling legacy.

The ongoing mystery of
Chile's so-called disappeared.

Derek hyland is passionate
about the machines

that once rolled through here.

And a circular structure outside

provides the first
clue to what they were.

A turntable is like a bridge
which is pivoted at its centre

and would allow an engine to come
in and be turned in any direction.

In this case it would be turned

so it could be placed
in to the main workshop.

The design of this complex
revolved around one thing, trains.

This place in particular...

Is the maker of the
railways of this country.

And this transformed
the life of this town,

this is basically was
the heart of this town.

This is maestranza
de San Bernardo,

once the second
largest train workshop

in South America.

This is the roundhouse,

it has 11 stalls where
they stored locomotives

once they were repaired.

The engine would come in here,

would have steps before so
you could actually get under,

under the engine
basically very similar

to inspection pit for a car.

The need for a
facility of this kind

came with the rapid development
of the country's rail network

in the late 19th century.

Chile's a long narrow
thinly populated country.

So, harnessing railroads

was key to connecting
it's far flung regions.

You've got the atacama
desert in the far north

and you've got
patagonia in the far south,

Santiago right in the middle,

and so the rails are a perfect way
to connect up this big land mass.

Construction began in 1916.

Eight pavilions sprawled
across 111 acres

with additional buildings
and manoeuvring yards.

The country's industrialisation
went hand in hand

with its railway development.

And the maestranza would
become it's beating heart.

You can't overstate the
importance of the maestranza

to the town of San Bernardo.

Without the maestranza there
would be no San Bernardo.

The town was built around it

and almost every household
had at least one person

working in the maestranza.

The scale was extraordinary.

The locomotives
would come in by rail,

they would be lifted up by
vast cranes fixed to the ceiling

and then put down
in to the relevant area

of the workshop

where they could be
investigated, dismantled, repaired,

and then sent out
again on the rails.

The shop was set up
initially for repairing trains,

but over time they
began to design

and build their own
steam locomotives.

Instead of importing railway
wagons and locomotives,

Chile would build them itself

and so it would develop
engineering capability,

manufacturing capability.

Maestranza was
designed to service

approximately
500 engines a year.

That's nearly 10 engines a week.

In it's heyday, it is about
1,200 people working here.

In the 1930s, 1940s

this place would have
been bustling with activity

with new engines
probably in some stalls,

with repaired engines in
other coming in and out.

And it was skilled work,

you needed a workforce
that really knew

how to handle this machinery.

These were not only
blue-collar workers

but these were local heroes.

These were men who
were earning good wages,

learning skilled positions,
expanding the Chilean economy.

This was really a kind of engine
of Chilean growth at the time.

The maestranza workers
were proud to form a union.

But later in the century
that would be their undoing.

Seismic change
was coming to Chile

and the maestranza would
find itself in the firing line.

In 1973

the Chilean people
elect Salvador allende,

a socialist to be
president of Chile.

And there's great resistance

inside the highly conservative
Chilean armed forces

commanded by general
Augusto pinochet.

General pinochet instigates
a violent coup against allende.

And despite planning to overthrow
a democratically elected government,

pinochet had outside
help from the United States.

The Nixon administration
and national security advisor

Henry kissinger

look at the rise of
allende as dangerous

as the rise of Castro in Cuba.

And so they give the green light
to pinochet to move against allende,

and they oust allende.

Pinochet attacked
the presidential palace

and Salvador allende killed
himself to escape capture.

Coming from the political right,

pinochet was
ideologically opposed

to socialism and it's ideas
of large state run enterprises.

And you couldn't get a
government run scheme

much bigger or more expensive
than the national rail network.

In the days after the coup
there was confusion and fear,

nobody really knew what to
expect of this new dictatorship.

But workers still had to earn
money and make a living,

so they continued to go
to work at the maestranza.

Thousands of people,
especially union members,

were accused of
communist leanings

and began disappearing
from work places

up and down the country.

And pinochet soon turned
his attention on the maestranza.

You had all of
these skilled workers,

all of them unionised,

all of them left
leaning in their politics.

So, he sees the
maestranza in the city

that's grown up around
it, the company town,

as being a hotbed of
communist and socialist activity.

On the September 28th of
1973, pinochet's men arrive.

Twelve members of the maestranza

were taken away by
the military and shot.

The community was in shock
when they heard about these news.

The six men in reality

weren't in any way
a threat to pinochet.

They had communist leanings,
but they weren't terrorists,

they were simply idealists

who were used to being
able to debate and discuss

in a Democratic country,

but under pinochet
that was over.

Across Chile,

more than 1,000
others were disappeared

during pinochet's
reign of terror.

The maestranza itself
continued to operate

but it finally closed in 1984.

When pinochet was
able to point to the fact

that it was making a loss

that was enough for him
to pull all of the funding.

And that sparked the beginning
of the end of the maestranza.

The dictator's reign of
terror lasted until 1990,

but he was never punished
for human rights violations

against more than 30,000 people.

Thanks to
enthusiasts like Derek,

this complex survives
as a lasting memorial

to Chile's once
booming rail industry,

and those who lost their
lives at the hands of pinochet.

On the 6th of
October every year,

the railway's workers
day is commemorated

in remembrance of these 12
workers that were killed here.

I feel deeply motivated and
proud of what we achieved.

Yet many people in Chile
are still seeking closure

from this terrible time.

To this day, around 1,000 souls

are still officially
listed as missing.

In Philadelphia, usa

is a sprawling complex that once
housed america's most wanted.

Surrounded by high stonewalls,

this foreboding place
is undoubtedly a prison.

From above, it's
design looks innovative

but the interior
is anything but.

Yet the cell of one
disreputable inmate

is almost luxurious.

At least one of the cells
we know of was in a place

called park Avenue,

so that gives you the idea

that he had more of a
celebrity treatment here.

So, which infamous villain
nicknamed scarface ended up here?

Sarah Jane elk is president
of this once imposing building.

Eastern state penitentiary
opened in 1829

and it was an
experiment in reform.

At the time, eastern
state penitentiary

was the most famous and
expensive prison in the world.

Hundreds of jails copied its
pioneering wagon wheel design.

It meant that a
small group of guards

could keep an eye
on the whole prison

from that one location.

The idea was we're not
just gonna punish prisoners,

we're gonna allow them
time to reflect and repent,

the word penitentiary
comes from repent.

So, they isolated each
prisoner by himself in a cell,

they didn't get to
talk to each other,

they were supposed
to spend their days

in quiet contemplation
of their crimes.

But as inmate numbers grew,

cells meant for one
soon housed two or three,

and even the advanced
design features failed to work

as originally intended.

There were furnaces at
the end of the cell blocks

and they were to heat the
tunnels underneath the cells

and then the air was to flow in,

but the people
closest to the furnaces

were getting carbon
monoxide sickness

and people on the other
ends were getting frostbite.

By the end of the century,

the notion of reflective
solitary confinement

was replaced with overcrowding
and harsh unsanitary conditions.

Although in 1929

an exception was made

for one of the most
notorious criminals of all-time.

When al Capone came here,
he was already a famous man.

He was bought here
from the county prison

for his protection.

Capone lived the life of luxury
compared to the other inmates,

and described his time inside

this elaborately
furnished cell as easy.

In march 1930

he walked out of the
penitentiary's gates as a free man,

only to be jailed
again a year later.

And this once revolutionary prison
closed due to over-crowding in 1971.

Today, the eastern
state penitentiary

is a national historic landmark,

a museum which includes
a tour of al Capone's cell.

In the German city of
nuremberg is a vast overgrown site

that appears to have been
built by different empires.

There's this enormous
white marble structure

that when you look at it
has the lines and proportions

of an alter from ancient Greece.

And you're like, "why is
the pergamon altar here

"in a German provincial town?"

Another seemingly ancient
relic is even more confounding.

It looks like a great amphitheatre,
almost like the Roman colosseum.

These relics all seem to
come from very different eras,

so it's really not clear
what links them all together.

Elsewhere around the town

scattered ruins start to
paint an ominous picture.

A single stone block beside
an extensive manmade lake.

A subterranean room
with a gold covered ceiling,

and a monumental road
carving a line between them all.

It's only when you
scratch beneath the surface

that you see that none of this
is what it seems, it's all a facade.

The extent of this complex hints
at a monstrous abuse of power.

The man who built this

did not think of
himself as a villain,

he thought of himself as
the builder of a mighty empire.

This is power madness
expressed in stone.

These are the remains
of the crazed vision

of a leader dubbed the
most evil man in history.

But to do all this he
needed the help of a willing

and ruthlessly
ambitious collaborator.

Local expert Alexander schmidt

studies the history
of this macabre place.

You can see here a colosseum in
Germany that was never finished.

So, there is no roof on it.

It should be as double as
high as we can see it now.

This enormous amphitheatre
is over 800 foot long

and over 120 foot high.

It's covered in granite panels

and was designed to
look like something straight

out of the Roman empire.

But this is not the only
epic sized structure here.

Covering an area bigger
than 12 football pitches,

this overgrown space is
known as the zeppelin field.

In 1909 the German
graf zeppelin,

who invented these
big dirigible airships

actually landed a zeppelin here,

which gives you a sense of
just how big the field had to be.

The zeppelin field now
looks a little bit ruined,

but you can see
white stone here.

And you have here,
like in a football stadium,

some tribunes for the visitors.

So, what were these tribunes
or grandstands built for?

Nuremberg itself is the
first clue to figuring out

what this strange collection
of ruins is all about.

Nuremberg was one of
the great imperial cities

and it was the centre of
an ancient germanic empire.

In the medieval era,

this early germanic empire
was a political powerhouse

which dominated
Europe for centuries,

until it's decline
in the early 1800s.

By the 1930s, its greatness
was a distant memory,

but a new ambitious
political movement

sought to resurrect it's power
in the form of Hitler's Nazi party.

Bavaria, where nuremberg is,

was the most nazified
place in Germany.

So, it was natural that Hitler
would gravitate to this region

to anchor the symbols
of the Nazi regime.

Hitler seeks to build

his ritual centre
here in nuremberg.

And all of these
structures are designed

for thousands of people to
listen to one man speaking.

But Hitler did not
design all of this alone.

It was the work of his accomplice,
the ambitious Nazi architect,

Albert speer.

Albert speer, you know,
sniffed out early on...

Hitler's narcissism
and megalomania,

and he kind of
tailored his architecture

to suit Hitler's
grandiose taste.

He is gonna create
a Nazi architecture

that subordinates the
will of the individual

to the collective will
of the German race,

expressed through,
der fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.

Together they mapped out this
collection of structures known

as the Nazi party rally grounds

and the zeppelin
field lay at its heart.

This would be full of people,

of visitors who can
see the big parades,

the celebrations on the fields.

On the fields are 100,000
or 200,000 uniformed men.

The rally grounds
were designed to house

some of the most chilling
demonstrations of power in history.

The grotesque crowning
glory of the zeppelin field

was this auto light tribune.

This is the main tribune
of the zeppelin field.

It's made of natural stone
and especially from granite.

This architecture should show
how strong the German state,

the third reich was.

Beneath the grandstand,

speer designed an
extraordinary golden room

which allowed Hitler to
indulge his sinister delusions.

It's a hall over 20 feet high

with the most spectacular
golden designs on the ceiling.

And the idea was
for Hitler to rise up

on to his rostrum
as if out of thin air.

But speer had only just started.

He wanted his designs
to provide a chilling setting

for Nazi propaganda films

and he would stop at
nothing to get it built.

Albert speer as an architect

is a man with no professional
integrity whatsoever,

Albert speer knows
what Hitler wants

and he's gonna deliver
it in every respect.

How can speer get the
material, the granite?

And he has an idea, he
made a cooperation with the ss,

with Heinrich himmler.

And they are founding
concentration camps

near by quarries,
granite quarries.

And it was the idea
of Albert speer himself.

Albert speer uses
concentration camp inmates,

he works them to death.

But regardless of the
terrible human cost,

Hitler and speer
would not be stopped.

At the perimeter
of the rally grounds

is a foundation stone sitting
on the edge of a man-made lake.

The only trace

of what was going to be
the sites Jewel in the crown.

This is the place where
the German stadium,

the biggest stadium in the
world should be built, but it wasn't.

You can see that it's only the
hole for the foundation now,

filled with water.

Speer's design was
gonna hold 400,000 people.

It was gonna be built
of red and pink granite

and over 400 feet high.

Had it been finished it
would have been the capstone

to the nuremberg rally grounds.

The nuremberg rally grounds

would have radiated out
from this monstrous stadium.

Covering four square miles it
included the vast zeppelin field.

Its menacing grandstand,

all linked together
by the great road

which led to the colosseum
style congress hall.

But while the architecture
here was monumental,

the materials used to
build it were anything but.

Behind the solid stone facades
was just brick and concrete.

The original construction
was quick and shoddy.

It was little more
than a stage set,

but designed to have
the most dramatic effect.

Between 1933 and 1938

Hitler supporters
flocked to this site

for a series of mass
Nazi party rallies.

But with the outbreak
of the world war ii,

construction ceased

and speer's chilling
facade crumbled.

Hitler's empire was
supposed to last 1,000 years,

but the hasty methods
used to create the illusion

of mighty stadiums
and gigantic pillars,

they were an illusion
just like Hitler's reich.

At the nuremberg war crimes
trials that followed the war,

Hitler's sidekick Albert speer
presented himself as a good Nazi.

After the war he said,

"I'm only an
architect, I'm an artist.

"I don't know anything
about Auschwitz."

Speer gets off pretty lightly.

He only gets 20 years in jail
because of this image or reputation

he had as the good Nazi

who sort of reluctantly
fell in with Hitler.

Today, the ruins of Albert
speer's ambition litter nuremberg.

This is not a monument

to Hitler's greatness
or Nazi greatness,

because when you
look at this you can see

what a pile of rubbish
Nazi Germany really was.

(Music)

Captioned by
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