All language subtitles for The.Art.of.Architecture.S01E05.Episode.5.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-TEPES

Narrator: Ptolemy Dean
believes in the power of art

in architecture.

Architect, sketcher, painter,

restorer of buildings,

co-presenter of the television
series 'Restoration',

Surveyor of the Fabric
of Westminster Abbey,

he is inspired by the work
of Wren and Hawksmoor.

His latest project was born
on the train.

On the 08:00 to London Bridge,

Ptolemy Dean sketched a scheme

for the first major addition
to Westminster Abbey

in 250 years, a stair tower,

that allows visitors to see
a secret part of the Abbey

hidden for centuries.

- When you're sketching
this thing, you know,

how does it work,
how does it work?

And of course, it suddenly came.

In fact, I can remember
where it came.

It came between Tunbridge
High Brooms.

[piano music]

[piano music continues]

[classical music]

Narrator: It's been at the heart
of the nation

for over 1,000 years.

William the Conqueror
was crowned King of England

on this site in 1066.

But Westminster Abbey
as we know it

was built in the middle
of the 13th century,

started in the reign
of Henry III,

paused after 25 years

and completed
over 100 years later

when Richard II
was on the throne.

All the coronations of English
monarchs have been held here.

The tomb of the Unknown Warrior
lies in the nave.

It's the burial place
of prime ministers and poets.

And it's imprinted
in our collective memory

through the scenes of countless
Royal weddings.

In living memory,

the Abbey has seen
the coronations of George VI

in 1937...

..and in 1953,
his daughter, Elizabeth II.

It was the first coronation
to be televised,

Richard Dimbleby commenting
from a seat

high above the nave
in the triforium,

a gallery that runs around
the inside of the Abbey

52 feet above the floor.

And where the BBC's famous
narrator perched

was never on the Abbey tour...

..until now.

When I was appointed in 2012,

the Abbey had already decided

that they wanted to reclaim
these triforium gallery spaces

for an exhibition area.

They had worked out whether
the floor could be made level,

which it could.

They'd worked out whether
the pipes could be diverted.

There was lots of pipes here
and they could.

They'd worked out the roof
needed to be recovered

and they had done all that.

They also worked out
that there was one place

where you could create
a new lift

and staircase access tower.

which is behind us over there.

One place where there was
no window in the wall,

one place where you can make
a new entrance.

When it came to working out
how that tower would look,

there had been a pause.

So when I was appointed in 2012,
they said,

"We've got everything ready
for this triforium gallery

"but the access tower and lift
await some attention."

So they said,

"Would you like to do
that commission

"as part of your appointment

"as Surveyor of the Fabric
to Westminster?"

and I said,
"Well, of course, why not?"

Narrator: What's remarkable

about Ptolemy Dean's
major intervention

is that it's the first
for 250 years.

He's walking in the footsteps
of Sir Christopher Wren,

whose position
as Surveyor of the Fabric

at Westminster Abbey
he now holds.

Wren's wooden model
of his design

for a central crossing tower
and spire

is on display in the triforium.

It was never built.

But he did oversee major
restoration of the stonework

and roof of this great church
at the end of the 17th century.

The Abbey's two Western Towers

were built by the architect
Nicholas Hawksmoor

and completed in 1745.

After that,
apart from some rebuilding

by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott,

the man who gave us Bankside,
Battersea Power Station

and the red telephone box,
nothing.

I became Dean in December 2006

and had a series of meetings,
obviously,

with all the sort of
senior staff,

including our archaeologist,
Warwick Rodwell.

And he said, "You know,

"there's an extraordinary
space up there

"which is not being used
at the moment properly."

Well, there was a sort of
collection of stone up here,

actually, various bits
and pieces.

But there was nothing
substantial.

So I came up and looked.

And I essentially
agreed with him

that we ought to do something.

This is a most amazing,
astonishing space.

Narrator: The job of creating
the displays in the triforium

which would eventually be named

the 'Queens Diamond
Jubilee Galleries'

was given to design experts
MUMA.

But the challenge of getting
visitors to them

was given to Ptolemy Dean.

No design committee,
no focus groups,

but a simple faith

in an architect known
for his sketches

and watercolours

and his respect
for ancient buildings.

He's a brilliant architect

who has an absolutely passionate
sense of place...

..and enormous respect
for historic buildings.

So what he's produced
in the Weston Tower

is something which...

..you could say is completely
out of keeping

with the rest of the Abbey,

because it's glass
and it's wood and lead.

Actually, it fits in
so beautifully.

It's tucked in behind
a great flying buttress.

It fits very beautifully.

And it's absolutely gorgeous
in terms of its detail.

[classical music]

Narrator: Ptolemy Dean
sketches constantly,

recording the world around him

as he practices architecture

from his base
in London's East End.

He is passionate about the city,

its old buildings,
the grain of its streets.

He regularly joins campaigners

to help save buildings
under threat

and they use his watercolours

to show people
what they are about to lose.

Ptolemy narrates:
Drawing is very important.

When you go to a site
for the first time,

you need to go there
and really look at it,

look at it very hard.

And actually, also,
you need to listen to it.

And one of the nicest things to
do is if you sit down

or stand up and draw something,

you really do have to
look at it,

look at the relationships
between the buildings.

You look at the light,

the play of light

and then you sort of hear it

and you feel the atmosphere
of it.

If I don't draw a building site,

whatever the site is,
when I visit it,

I find it very difficult

to formulate any kind
of thought about it.

I think the drawing part
is a sort of essential way

of looking and understanding
and sort of feeling the place.

The drawing is the key thing.

It's the process of looking.

It's the process of really
thinking about it.

So, for instance at Westminster,

I sat against the parliamentary
concrete bollard

outside Parliament

and drew the view
of that future tower site

before we did the work.

It was then that you realised

the pointed roof
of the chapter house,

the screening effect
of the London Planetree,

the regular rhythm
of the buttresses

and pinnacles
of the Henry VII Chapel,

and of course, the rotated
square pattern

of the Henry VII Chapel,

which ultimately came to be
in the finished design.

And you realise that when you
stand there drawing it,

that you have to have
a building with a solution

that abided by those Westminster
rules of gothicness,

verticality

and a sort of general sense
of making that space.

Though the drawing that I made

standing against
the police barrier

was traced over with the first
initial sketch

of the access tower,

and that sketch drawing
has sustained the project

through all of its
preliminary stages,

because it was enough
of that sketch drawing

to show the before
and the after.

I mean, subsequently of course
there were proper CGI views,

you know, computer-generated
views

and models and stuff made.

But the original drawing
was the key thing.

[classical music]

[pizzicato strings]

Ptolemy narrates: I spent
quite a lot of my life

going to work by train.

I have a long journey
in the morning

and an hour-long journey
in the evening

and in fact, I find those
two hours on the train

the most productive time
of my day.

There are no emails.
There's seven tunnels.

No-one can ring you.

You're just sitting there.

Of course there's people
around you, all in silence.

And happily, our train
still has tables.

You know, sketching this thing,
how does that work?

How does it work?

And of course, it suddenly came.

In fact, I can remember
where it came.

It came between Tunbridge
and High Brooms.

The idea that the lift should
actually be a square core

with a rotated outer square
that would create this shape,

that would allow a staircase
to go around

with galleries at landing levels

that would give you views
across the rotated square,

would also break down
the shape of the tower

so that instead of being
a great big fat lump

rising up vertically,

you could have the great big
vertical shafts of light

that you need to break down
the mass of this thing

into something
that really worked better

with the Gothic architecture
of Westminster Abbey itself.

And then after that,

it all just completely
fell into place.

- He has an ability
which I greatly admire.

He will stand there beside me,
talking to me,

and at the same time,

his pen is going
on his sketchpad

and he is producing
a wonderful drawing

while wasting no time at all.

This, of course,
is terribly important,

to be able to produce
fine sketches

which he then watercolours

to be able to show to people
what you are proposing to do,

what it might look like,
what its surroundings look like.

He manages to enhance
the setting

and bring this out
in a very visual way

so that it can be understood,

rather than in two-dimensional
architect's drawings,

which of course
have to be made anyway

for proper planning purposes
and building construction.

But in order to tell the public

and the interested outsiders

what it's all about,

they need work like Ptolemy
does on sketching.

It's superb.

He produces the most amazing
reports for us

with lots of sketches.

He's done sketches of all kinds.

I mean, all the time, he just
goes somewhere and sketches.

It's a sort of marvellous gift
that he has.

If you're sketching,

then you look in a way
which is different

from how the rest of us
might look.

You actually really
see something

in a way that you might not
otherwise see it.

And then, therefore, you have
a sort of deep empathy

with the building itself.

And I think he has enormous
respect for this building

and love for it.

As we all do.

And therefore, everything
that's done here,

as it were, fits in.

It's all very carefully
thought through

and that's what I absolutely
love about it.

Narrator: With all this comes
another love, churches.

Churches of all shapes
and sizes

hold a fascination
for Ptolemy Dean.

So his installation
as Surveyor of the Fabric

of Westminster Abbey in 2012

was a great moment
in his career.

And the Abbey knew
they had their man.

He was certainly the right man
in the right place

at the right time. Yes.
I mean, this...

I mean, not many architects
get handed on a plate

making an addition
to Westminster Abbey.

I mean, there haven't been
any additions to the Abbey

since the West Towers
in the early 18th century.

So, you know, this is something
that happens,

not once-in-a-lifetime,

but once in some hundreds
of years.

Narrator: It was decided
that the Weston Tower,

as it would be called,

should be built on the site
of some old brick toilets.

After they had been relocated,

the archaeologists moved in,

all before work could start
on the staircase.

- They gave us the opportunity

to learn something
about this area,

which is called
Poets' Corner Yard,

which was totally unknown.

And I mean, we found fragments

of the buildings
that had been here.

I mean, William Caxton
lived here of course.

He actually lived
at No.2 Poets' Corner,

as it was called.

So this is a very historic

and important corner
of the Abbey.

- Archaeologists are looking
down in the ground.

They are digging away.

And we discover this stepped
foundation of the old Abbey.

Made out of stonework
that's been salvaged

from the Edward the Confessor
Abbey of the 1060s,

rebuilt as a great big
sort of lime concrete raft

on which all of this building
is set on.

The rebuilding of that raft
in the 1250s,

they've used Roman bones
from a Roman cemetery

to sort of help drain
around the edge.

We have all these Roman bones,

this wonderful raw foundation.

And then below that,
we have the sand,

beautiful sandy beach
of Thorney Island,

looking as if it had just
come from the Costa del Sol.

I mean, really beautiful
coloured sand.

So we've exposed the footings
and we had to do two things.

Firstly, we were determined
not to damage the footings

in any way,
the mediaeval footings.

And also, we wanted
to leave them exposed.

So our structural engineers
were brilliant

because they just simply
extended the raft

on which the tower stands,

sitting on the edge
of the existing raft.

So, we didn't touch it,
we didn't dig into it.

We just simply extended it,

which was a really nice
and right thing to do.

Narrator: After
the exterior archaeology

came the interior investigation.

And that brought more surprises.

- It was like the attic at home,

full of all the things
which for centuries,

nobody knew what to do with.

And of course,
a huge amount of rubbish

was underneath those floors.

Now, the floors,
underneath the timber,

it's like the craters
of the moon.

It goes up and down.

It's a switchback.

Because below you
are the great stone faults.

So, when you are standing
in the Abbey and you look up,

you see the great
stone vaults.

They go up and down.

Well of course, upstairs,
they go down and up.

It's those pockets
that were filled with rubbish.

And there was anything up to
a metre or in some cases,

a little more than a metre
of rubbish in those pockets.

750 years of rubbish
collected in there.

So that was hugely important.

It's a subject
that one tends to forget.

You think, "Oh, you can just
clear out all the dirt."

It was filthy and revolting,
all this stuff.

And a lot was being cleared out

and there were some bags of it
already in a skip.

And I looked at this
and I said, "Hang on.

"This is the archaeology of
the upper parts of the Abbey."

So, we duly had all the bags out

and eventually, we had nearly
4,000 bags of rubbish

brought out from those vaults.

And they produced the most
remarkable collection

of artefacts.

This included over 30,000 pieces
of ancient glass,

some beautiful 13th-century
painted and decorated glass,

14th- and 15th-century glass,

some Victorian glass,

a lovely angel, a Victorian
angel, was amongst them.

So, a mixture, plain glass,

decorated glass,
but a great deal.

And it's wonderful

because the Abbey has
very little mediaeval glass

and here we have this great
cache of material

under the floor.

But not just glass.

For example,
things that people had posted

through gaps in the floorboards.

You know how children drop toys
and things through.

Well, it included four tickets

for the coronation
of Queen Anne.

We go from having
no known tickets

of Queen Anne's coronation
to four.

You know, and of course,
individually written

and signed by the chapter clerk

and then stamped
with the Abbey seal

and you were told,

"Present this ticket at such
and such a door on the day."

It was wonderful.

You know, a coronation
that took place

at the beginning
of the 18th century

was suddenly brought to life

by having the tickets
that the people used there.

Narrator: Some of the 30,000
fragments of stained glass

were made up
into a new window

and the finds were added to
from the Abbey's own collections

to create a gallery
unlike any other.

And a staircase
rising through seven floors.

Ptolemy narrates: It's a pretty
tough challenge at first glance.

But of course, in fact,

much of the work is done
for you already

by laying simple realities
of the commission.

The staircase has to be
of a certain width

for the building regulations.

And then of course,
we have the site

which was all completely
surrounded by the Abbey,

by the chapter house etc.

So we have very little space
to play with.

There had been some
initial sketches

that had been produced
at a sort of feasibility stage

of different lifts
and staircases

next to each other.

But it seemed to me

that the process of going up
the stairs

needed to be beautiful.

i.e. we needed to find
very, very shallow stairs

so that the process of rising up
would be moving and interesting.

Also, the view as you go
up the stairs

was in many ways more beautiful
and more interesting

than sitting in the lift.

We wanted to encourage people
to actually go up the stairs.

And it's seven stories

so that's quite a big thing
to encourage them.

[gentle instrumental music]

Narrator: Westminster Abbey
survived the Blitz,

even that night on 10 May 1941

when the House of Commons
across the road

was destroyed in a fire storm.

It occupies
such an important place

in the public's consciousness

that any architect charged
with adding to it

might take fright.

But Ptolemy Dean, in creating
a new staircase tower

to reach the completed Queen's
Diamond Jubilee Galleries,

recognised that the key
to success was restraint.

No machine-made windows for him.

12,000 leaded panes
made by hand.

No bling.

His creation wouldn't challenge
the work of Wren and Hawksmoor.

It would compliment it.

It wouldn't hide

but it would respect the
existing fabric of the Abbey.

And Ptolemy Dean's love
and study of churches

has been employed here,

Cues he picked up
around the country

and in Westminster Abbey itself.

The rotated square of course

is also the shape of the windows

on the Henry VII Chapel,

where you've got the same shape.

There's 50%
of the rotated square.

We have it
on the Westminster Retable.

We have it in the windows.

We have it on the rear
in the Faith's Chapel.

We've got this rotated square
pattern everywhere.

It's a Westminster thing.

And then of course, when
it comes to the roof,

well, the rotated square
gives you the roof form

but then has to be
sufficiently steep

to fit in with that
wonderful world of pinnacles

and buttresses and buttress caps
and roof caps

that we've got here
at Westminster already.

And there's no point saying,

"You've got to have a flat roof
and a flat, slided,

"modernistic intervention
in this place."

This thing has to fit in

and play by the rules
of Westminster,

which is verticality,
verticality,

verticality and verticality.

The sort of deeper precedent
of it,

once you have
your rotated square

and you start drawing that
on the train,

by this time you've passed
Tunbridge Wells.

You know, it's a very
exciting moment,

except I have to get off
nine minutes later

so, you know, it's rather
hopeless at that point.

But you're drawing these lines

and you're beginning to see
that this thing could happen.

So, we went rushing up to Ely.

Ely was a really important
precedent for us.

We have here at Westminster
a central crossing tower

that does not have any
kind of lantern at all.

It's got a very shallow roof.

But it had been suggested
that there had been potentially

an Ely-like lantern here
at Westminster as well as Ely.

So, something like that.

So we got the Surveyor
of the Fabric at Ely Cathedral

to let us go up
and she very kindly did.

And we went up and
looked at the Ely structure.

And of course, the Ely structure
is oak clad in lead

with rain water pipes
in there,

there's sort of vertical piers,

to create that wonderful
lantern.

And that of course was a great
inspiration for us

because when it came
to making our rotated square,

we did not have the room to make
great big huge stone buttresses

that would be flying out.

We would be touching the English
Heritage-owned Chapter House

which we couldn't
obviously touch.

And we'd be smashing into
the walls of the Abbey itself.

So we devised a system

where we would make
our structure lead-clad steel,

which would give us
the precision

that the structural engineer
needed

to get the verticality to work,

cladded lead

with our downpipes coming
through those buttress piers.

And that of course gave us
the Ely precedent,

albeit using steel
rather than oak,

to make our new tower a reality.

So then, when it came
to the windows,

of course, you look around here

and we have rectangular
windowpanes.

Now, those caves,
they're not diamond-shaped.

They are rectangular.

That arises, as does
the structure in this space,

from Wren's great reconstruction
of the Abbey,

that was begun
in the late 17th century

and moved into the early
18th century.

He said, "If we do not spend
money restoring this building,

"it will fall within 30 years."

And there was then
a big public campaign,

funded by Parliament,

to repair and restore the Abbey.

And Wren set about reroofing
the Abbey

with the lead flat roofs
which we have

over these radial chapels.

They would've been initially
in the French pattern,

chevette roofs.

Lead flats, very pragmatic,
very functional.

Supported on these wonderful oak
trusses which Wren installed.

Now, we knew that when we came
to do our tower,

that if we had great
sheet glass,

it would reflect the light

in a way that was
utterly discordant

and that what we needed was
to have that same pattern

of rectangular caves

that would ripple the light
and give you that same twinkle,

that same twinkle that
incidentally you also see

in the Palace of Westminster
across the road.

Narrator: Oak was found
in an English timber yard.

At one point, it was thought
that French oak

would have to be used.

And it was cut in a way that
minimises distortion as it ages.

It should last as long as Wren's
500-year-old timbers.

Ptolemy Dean
and his structural engineers

also wanted to use
English stone, not French.

But there was a problem.

We knew that this space
is built of Reigate stone.

Reigate stone has not been
quarried for centuries.

It's a terrible, soft stone.

It was the soft stone

that Christopher Wren
had to largely replace

from the 1680s
and '90s onwards.

It's hopeless.

But we have this need
for Reigate stone.

And there was this rather
marvellous coincidence

that Lord and Lady Hilton,
who are friends of the Abbey,

have a patch of land
in that mad crossroads

of railway at the M23
and the M26 and M25

near Reigate,

which had a sort of hole
in the ground

where this Reigate stone
was thought to have accumulated.

Now of course,
we couldn't get that stone

in a commercial sense,

because we would've had to go
through a whole quarry process.

But they simply said,
"Just come along

"and we will let you just dig
a few holes on our land.

"It's not commercial.

"We will give you any stone
you happen to find."

So we had three days of people
coming down there

and they didn't find it,
didn't find it,

and on the last day,
they found it.

They found this marvellous
Reigate stone.

And we had that Reigate
stone cut

and made for the new archway

to the gallery door
on the side.

And it's a perfect match.

The whole story

and the fact that
the Westminster Abbey outside

does not look like
it used to look in the 1250s

because all the stone
is different,

became clear to us.

So, when we were then making
the lift shaft tower,

which was to be clad in stone,

a concrete shaft to be clad
in stone,

we realised that it would be
absolutely fantastic,

instead of just one dull, bland,
simple selection

of a single stone,

we would band the stone
with all the different stones

that we could think of

that had been used
in the Abbey's construction,

starting at the very base with
the sort of clunch chalky stone

used in the 10th century,

moving onto this Reigate,

which we managed to dig up
underneath the M23/M25 junction,

moving up to corn stone
from France,

of which there's quite a lot,

and then moving up
to the Victorian and modern.

I was tempted to leave
a row of breeze blocks

on the very top as a kind of
celebration of the 1950s

but we didn't do that
in the end.

But the reality is, that now
when you go up the stair,

these bands of stone change.

So, if you're interested
in stone,

you can firstly look down
and see the exposed foundation

at the base
and then as you go up,

you can trace all these
different bands of stone

coming up to the modern age
at the top.

That was all part and parcel
of this thing

about trying to make
the experience

of going up the stair
as interesting

and as pleasurable
as possible.

Narrator: It was this sort
of confidence

that was required to complete
one of the most unusual projects

in recent British
architectural history.

It was important
to assemble a team

whose members would work
well together.

For this is not your typical
build project.

And Ptolemy wanted a builder

who would treat this
as a repair job,

just as Christopher Wren did
before him.

It was that mental approach
of treating the new construction

as if it was a repair project

which meant that the craftsmen

worked with each other
rather than separately.

So, you couldn't just say,

"Right, you're building
the concrete,

"you're doing the stone,
you're doing the timber."

They had to work together.

So, we had teams of
timber people

cutting and scribing things
over the metalwork

where the metalwork didn't quite
meet the concrete.

And it was the only way
we could have built it.

I have to say,
the collaborative approach

for the construction was one
of the most wonderful things.

There was never an argument
or never a disagreement

during the construction
of this project.

It was just because everybody
just got on with it.

And one of the things
that has been so lovely

is also drawing whilst
the thing is being built.

So I have a sequence of drawings

that I've made of the project
whilst it's being built.

Including one taken
from the same place

when it was completed.

So we have this sort of before,

all the way through
the sequence, and after.

And there's something so nice
about having the record,

but it's the process of drawing
it that's been such a pleasure.

Narrator: The Queen's
Diamond Jubilee Galleries

and the Weston Tower
were finally opened

in the summer of 2018.

For the first time in centuries,

visitors to the Abbey could
come up to a once secret space

under the roof,
look down on the great nave,

come face to face
with Charles II

in his robes
of the Order of the Garter...

..with the effigies
of English kings

made in wood and placed
on top of their coffin.

But, thankfully for us,
not buried with them.

And around this display

can be found Ptolemy Dean's
attention to detail.

Part of our work was the renewal

of the floors
of these galleries,

which is oak, all on a level.

But the more difficult thing
was the hand rail

around the edge
of the triforium,

and of course, everybody said,

"Well, it's a modern
contemporary intervention.

"You must have glass
balustrades."

We said, "Absolutely not."

Balustrading around the edge
of the triforium openings

would have always shrieked,

"Oh, look, there's
a contemporary intervention,

"a Heritage intervention,

"which has been designed to look
as if it's invisible.

"But it's absolutely
not invisible."

So we went back,

and that was another
train journey, incidentally.

The breakthrough on the design
of the handrail

happened on a train to Norwich.

And we realised
that the handrail,

if it was made, firstly,
of iron, blackened iron,

in fact, it's blackened steel,

could become like all those
other bits

of detailed design ironwork
in this place.

It just falls
into the background,

because your eye just assumes
it's already there.

So people who come into
this space

and see our lovely
sank foil design in metal,

which is what the handrail
is made of,

with its oaking,

they just assume
it was already here.

Narrator:
What was the media reaction?

After all,
Ptolemy Dean's creation

was a mixture of styles
and materials,

not easy to describe.

The Engineer Magazine
called it

"an inside-out
display cabinet."

The Times said it was
"a handcrafted gem."

And The Guardian called it
"a Gothic space rocket."

It was very interesting
how the press

were unable to quite pigeonhole
the design of this thing.

It wasn't modern

but it wasn't entirely
historicist.

It was something else.

They couldn't categorise it

and nor could they
quite dismiss it.

It didn't accord to
the standard protocols

of a contemporary architectural
intervention,

which nowadays has to be
sheet glass and steel

and all the rest of it.

You know, it's traditional,

and yet it's also very clearly
of its time,

and I think that there's
a lot to learn from that.

I never looked at this
as being a major intervention

to Hawksmoor's Western towers.

Hawksmoor's Western Towers were
completing a part of the Abbey

that had been left incomplete
since the Middle Ages,

and he very interestingly,

Hawksmoor was incredibly
deferential

to what he started with.

And in his own unique way,

created a gothic architecture

largely made out
of classical details,

but a gothic piece that would
complete the work of the Abbey.

So everybody here has conformed
by the rules.

So our little access tower,

the modest, small addition
made literally this year,

last year, of course, has to
conform and play by the rules.

But we all feel,
I'm sure Hawksmoor, Wren,

Barry across the road, evilly,
they'll feel better for it.

Because the greater whole
is more important

than our individual parts.

- The whole thing has been,

how can a visitor, and anyone
coming to the Abbey,

get to understand the nature
of the Abbey?

What its history, what its place
is, in our national life.

And now, with this,

we are showing so much more
of our treasure.

So that people can grasp
the amazing story

of Westminster Abbey
from the 10th century until now.

And where it sits
within our national life.

It's rather exciting, really.

- This is a building Britain
can be justly proud of.

Ptolemy has done the Abbey

and the country
a magnificent service,

with designing this extremely
inventive, wonderful building

that sits here so naturally

in amongst the rest
of the towers

and buttresses and so on,

and looks part
of the whole ensemble,

and yet you can see
it is a modern building.

It is a truly remarkable
achievement.

[uplifting string music]

Narrator: And what sort
of experience has it been

for the Surveyor of the Fabric
of Westminster Abbey?

Looking through the windows

and seeing the chapter house
different times of day,

you get light passing
through the chapter house,

passing through two sets
of windows,

through into our tower
and casting incredible shadows.

Particularly in winter,

you get these incredible,
serendipitous shadows and lights

and coloured glass colouring in

great coloured stains
across our stair.

I mean, it's extraordinary.

It's what you didn't expect.

It's not what you could have
ever designed even on a train.

Narrator: Next time...

In Scotland, one of the nation's
best-known whisky makers

has built a new distillery.

Dropped into the hillside
above the River Spey,

it's unlike any other.

It could be a structure
from the Cold War,

or something out of James Bond.

A year after it was opened,

it's become a stop
on the tourist trail,

and not just for the whisky.

The competition to design this
most unusual of distilleries

was won by
the London-based partnership

of Richard Rogers,
Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour.

And to Graham Stirk
fell the task

of reimagining an age-old
process for the 21st century.

- The whole point
was the mystery revealed.

Suddenly, this distillery
pops up.

And the mystery revealed was why
we were very interested in...

The word we used
in the presentation was,

"This is Jules Verne."

This is something where you find

a piece of almost
Victorian engineering

buried and still functioning
below ground.

And it was the contrast
of the two

which was actually really,
really important.

Captioned by Ai-Media
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