Ancient Superstructures S03E06 Castle Of Chambord 1080p NOW WEB-DL AAC2 0 H 264-RAWR track3 [eng] subtitles – 100+ languages (SRT)

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Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Of all the chateaux on France's River Loire,

Chambord is the largest, most visited and most iconic.

- This was a major undertaking.

NARRATOR: A jewel of French architecture

and a World Heritage Site.

An extraordinary building,

embodying the remarkable skills of its Renaissance builders.

TRANSLATOR: Chambord is a real work of art.

Everything is by design, from floor to ceiling.

TRANSLATOR: Just because you can't see it doesn't mean

it shouldn't be perfect: everything is absolutely perfect.

NARRATOR: The chateau is full of new ideas,

beginning with a remarkable staircase,

crowned by a magnificent tower.

TRANSLATOR: It's like a distillation

of the best of Renaissance craftsmanship.

TRANSLATOR: The technological genius is right in front of our eyes.

NARRATOR: Five hundred years ago, to build this grandiose palace

and impress his sworn enemy, King Francois I organised

the biggest construction project of his reign.

TRANSLATOR: There were clearly several phases

in the design of Chambord, but of course, that's hard for us to see.

NARRATOR: Many questions remain:

how such marshy ground was transformed

to support this 200,000-ton colossus;

how such a complex staircase kept its equilibrium...

and which mind conceived this swirling masterpiece.

TRANSLATOR: You can see work's been done over a huge area

to clear tons and tons of earth.

- It's got to be strong enough to take, well, one, two, three...

large storeys, plus the roof structure.

- (speaking French)

TRANSLATOR: The shadow of Leonardo da Vinci hangs over this castle.

NARRATOR: Thanks to the latest laser scanning technology

used by archaeologists and materials specialists,

we can X-ray this robe of stone...

..to uncover the construction secrets within...

..and search for the architectural geniuses

behind this jewel of the Loire.

In the distance, a fairy-tale silhouette slowly emerges.

Then, above the trees, a tiara of stone.

Slender white towers abound, perched on black slate roofs...

..finally appearing to visitors in all its magnificence.

In a necklace of green,

the Chateau de Chambord is a jewel of world heritage.

In this royal palace of excess,

every dimension is breathtaking.

In the heart of France's Loire Valley,

Chambord is set in a 5,400-hectare forest estate,

as large as Paris, surrounded by a 32km wall.

This superstructure comprises a rectangular enclosure,

whose north facade stretches 156m,

and a 44-metre-square central building,

rising to 56 metres.

Inside, 381 rooms are spread over

nearly 21,000 square metres of floor space,

chiefly in the four towers of the main building,

each nine storeys high.

- ..by today's... where everything's got to be accounted for,

it's got to be rational, it's got to be profitable,

and Chambord is the absolute antithesis of that way of thinking.

- (Bommelaer speaks French)

TRANSLATOR: It's this vastness, with the forest, park,

and chateau working together...

that makes Chambord an outstanding piece of architecture.

TRANSLATOR: It's a kind of metaphor

for the best of the French architectural tradition.

TRANSLATOR: At first sight, it looks completely bizarre,

and you wonder what it's doing there.

Like finding a UFO in a swamp in the middle of the forest.

For 500 years, this superbly preserved and restored chateau

has intrigued the experts.

- The original archives, very, very few of them

have been preserved: they've been lost throughout the ages.

TRANSLATOR: Chambord is a mystery: we don't have the plans for it.

We don't know who the architect was.

These is no record of any names, of course.

We know that Francois I commissioned it,

but we don't know who actually built it.

NARRATOR: The castle is adorned with strange emblems:

hundreds of sculpted salamanders.

This fabled fire lizard -

emblem of Francois I -

was his signature on the testament of stone

he wanted to leave the world.

But he's not the only monarch to have left his mark.

TRANSLATOR: The various monarchs made additions

and contributions in an orderly way, and that's what strikes you today:

that the monument is actually quite coherent.

But we couldn't have imagined that over 500 years

there wouldn't be changes.

- Chambord has never really been finished,

no-one project that has been started and completed.

You get a build up of layers, as it were,

of different projects, different works.

NARRATOR: For a long time, without precise records,

the work commissioned by Francois I remained an enigma.

How did this chateau, intended in 1519 as a hunting lodge,

turn 30 years later into such a unique piece of architecture?

Historians are gradually unlocking its secrets.

TRANSLATOR: You have to understand the castle by really looking at it

and following the progress of the restoration work.

The more you take the castle apart, the more you uncover its mystery.

NARRATOR: Eric Johannot knows Chambord inside out.

For more than 30 years, this architectural historian

has recorded every detail, every anomaly,

every clue left by the builders.

TRANSLATOR: Take this window, for example.

It really is a sign of the King changing his mind,

since behind this wall, he decided to build the grand staircase

serving the royal wing.

As it wasn't in the original plans,

this fifth window in the gallery was blocked up.

NARRATOR: The unplanned addition behind this blocked-up window

is a finely carved grand staircase,

decided by Francois I on a whim.

TRANSLATOR: You can really read in the stone,

and the architecture itself, about the various modifications

that happened when the King changed his mind, or extended a wing.

- We are starting to piece together, little by little, of course,

the mystery of what was the original project. How was it designed?

NARRATOR: Tracing the history of Chambord's construction

is no easy task,

but new technology now allows its design to be mapped

with remarkable accuracy.

Civil engineering expert Xavier Brunetaud

has a number of these new tools to capture every facet of the building.

Today, he's using a laser scanner.

TRANSLATOR: Thanks to this laser scanner,

we can establish the exact geometry of the chateau as it is now,

and from that, recreate all the architectural documentation we need,

like perfectly accurate plans and elevations.

NARRATOR: In a matter of seconds,

the castle facades are recorded in 3-D

and to an accuracy of just a few millimetres.

TRANSLATOR: There's a whole host of measurements

that you can't make in the real world - the thickness of floors,

of walls - all very easy to do with a digital clone.

NARRATOR: Analysing these intricate plans,

Xavier Brunetaud was immediately struck by the attention to detail

shown by the builders of Chambord.

TRANSLATOR: Basically, there were no limits

to their architectural ambitions or how rigorously they applied them.

In other words, all the shapes you might imagine -

straight, circular, cylindrical, conical -

all these shapes could be perfectly realised.

NARRATOR: With modelling, the castle can be taken apart,

separating the upper sections rising serenely above the terraces...

from the massive lower section:

a square keep, flanked by four corner towers,

placed in the centre of an enclosure like a medieval fortress.

The walls of the keep, between 1m and 3m thick,

are made from a mixture of coarse rubble and mortar.

They then get a final stone dressing.

TRANSLATOR: All the load-bearing walls are very, very thick,

showing the influence of fortress castles on this project.

It's a structure that combines the massive appearance

of a fortification with the delicate appearance of the roofs.

NARRATOR: This massive fortress is a typical Renaissance castle,

perhaps one of its most beautiful examples.

TRANSLATOR: Francois I wanted to preserve in stone

a distillation of all the innovations of the age -

the great architectural ideas from Italy, the decorative ones too -

but all the while, remaining profoundly French.

TRANSLATOR: What we really have here is a hybrid of the late Middle Ages

and truly Italian modernity.

NARRATOR: High above the chateau,

the many decorations are a legacy of the artistic and cultural revolution

that began in Italy and would later be called the Renaissance.

TRANSLATOR: In a way, the Chateau de Chambord embodies the Renaissance,

how it evolves towards the arts and architecture.

And it was Francois I who created part of

what we know as the Renaissance today.

NARRATOR: After military victory at the Battle of Marignano in 1515,

Francois I wanted to leave an artistic mark on his reign.

He returned from Italy with the best artists of the Renaissance

to help the king of builders realise his dream.

TRANSLATOR: He planned to create a unique property, away from everyone,

in which he would invest all his grand ideas and architectural folly.

It's the dream of a king, because that's how it was conceived.

- (speaks French)

NARRATOR: For Alain Salamagne,

King Francois' dream palace stems from the skills

of the craftsmen cutting this fine, luminous stone.

TRANSLATOR: It's a typical Loire Valley stone that's easy to cut.

You can clearly see the marks left by the hammers

of the sculptors and stonemasons.

- (speaks French)

TRANSLATOR: It certainly is the stone of kings,

because it enabled the Renaissance to develop the ornamentation

that people came to appreciate.

It was this Renaissance Italian decor which showed the modernity

of the construction of these chateaux.

NARRATOR: To find the limestone for the castle walls,

the builders used quarries along the Cher river,

50km south of Chambord...

..a labyrinth of galleries, 120km long,

that cut through the hillside at Bourre.

TRANSLATOR: It's amazing - this architecture is cyclopean,

with a quarry forming its ceilings and walls.

NARRATOR: Every centimetre of these walls

represents 1,000 years of sedimentation.

A quarry like this has tens of millions of years of limestone.

TRANSLATOR: Once it's dry,

this stone builds up a thin protective crust

against the elements, and will become perfectly white,

as well as very hard.

TRANSLATOR: It's a stone with many qualities:

not too heavy, with a density of around 1,500kg per cubic metre,

so it's easy to cut.

It can be cut into medium-sized blocks

that master masons will find easier to assemble.

NARRATOR: To remove a block of stone with a pickaxe,

Renaissance quarrymen would dig grooves in the wall 40cm deep.

Oak pegs driven into one of the grooves

put pressure on the block and split it off.

It's then cut into smaller stones,

which dry out, before being transported to the site by river.

At the time, it was a real logistical challenge.

The boats travel from the quarries at Bourre down the Cher,

then up the Loire for 80km against the current

to the port of Saint-Dye.

The stones are then unloaded and transported to the site by cart.

Over 200,000 tonnes of stone

were quarried to build the walls of Chambord.

- It remains some very dense forest marshland...

that poses its own problems for accessibility:

the ever-presence of water, rivers, marshes.

It's a very unusual place to build such a huge construction.

TRANSLATOR: This needs a large workforce.

For Chambord, there's talk of 1,800 workers.

It's estimated that in 1520, at the very start,

many hundreds of workers would have been recruited.

TRANSLATOR: Francois I was,

for architects of his time, the prince.

He built several chateaux,

but it's this one that he considered a complete work of art.

TRANSLATOR: Chambord is a very special case.

It's an extremely ambitious project,

perhaps the most ambitious of Francois I.

NARRATOR: To achieve this monumental aim,

Francois I surrounded himself with the leading specialists of the day.

TRANSLATOR: He would have called on the best master masons

and carpenters to build this truly remarkable edifice.

- (speaks French)

TRANSLATOR: This highly skilled, highly qualified workforce

left the sites of the cathedrals because they'd been completed,

and were now ready to meet the demands

of the kings of France for castles.

NARRATOR: Thanks to their ancestral know-how,

the French master masons created an architectural masterpiece...

inspired by the innovations of Italian engineers.

TRANSLATOR: The subtlety of Chambord isn't immediately obvious

because the first impression is of a big keep.

But in fact this big keep has a centred layout,

which is all very Italian.

NARRATOR: Around the central staircase,

the floors of the keep are divided into four identical areas

linked by four arms of equal length.

Further divided into a grid of 25 squares,

each geometric element is perfectly symmetrical.

The 9m size of each area is the diameter of the staircase,

around which the whole design is based.

TRANSLATOR: What we have here is a centred plan,

which imitates those of the churches of the Italian Quattrocento -

the Italian Renaissance - a church plan in a French chateau,

that's the idea, with the wonder of wonders at its centre.

NARRATOR: This world-famous marvel is the staircase,

designed to confound and perplex, but also to dazzle.

It is the greatest feat of Chambord's master masons.

TRANSLATOR: It's a work of art in its own right

that you won't find anywhere else.

You get the impression the castle was built around the staircase,

which makes it even more extraordinary.

NARRATOR: This is no ordinary staircase...

but a double-helix structure,

made up of two rows of steps, one above the other.

TRANSLATOR: The Chambord staircase has two entrances,

one to the north and the other to the south.

The person using the north or south staircase

will never come across someone using the other staircase -

they're above each other.

NARRATOR: When Xavier Brunetaud scanned the chateau,

he paid particular attention to the staircase.

TRANSLATOR: This is from a model of the chateau,

so it's the actual staircase on a reduced scale.

As you can see, the two identical flights of stairs are interlocked,

like two strands of DNA.

The model of the staircase allowed us to see

the absolute regularity of the banister:

it's a perfect design from start to finish.

Of course, building a staircase like this is a real technical challenge.

First you have to assemble the steps,

which weigh between 500kg and 600kg. That's heavy.

NARRATOR: The two spindles of the staircase are built in parallel.

To one side, the steps are laid on the walls of a hollow central core,

and to the other, on curved balusters,

supported by eight lateral pillars as they rise.

These buttressing pillars form an octagon,

in which the two rows of steps are set

over the three levels of the structure.

TRANSLATOR: There've been other double-spiral staircases,

but not on this scale, because here, the diameter of the staircase is 9m,

which is extraordinary.

NARRATOR: The staircase is carved out of the stone,

creating a lace-like structure...

similar to elements of Gothic cathedrals.

TRANSLATOR: It's in a single piece in the centre,

which means you can walk all the way round it and see it from all sides.

It seems to hold together in the middle miraculously.

NARRATOR: Only four of the eight pillars around the staircase

are attached by buttresses to the walls of the keep,

giving structural balance despite the 600 tonnes of vertical load.

NARRATOR: Civil engineering today has the staircase

as a major structural element that stabilises the whole building.

Here, you feel that it's the building

that's trying to protect the staircase.

TRANSLATOR: This project combines all the difficulties

in creating a staircase - the art of cutting stone,

the double-spiral staircase, the structural problems -

it's a kind of compendium of the best techniques of the Renaissance.

- (speaks French)

NARRATOR: The epic architectural tour de force

of the Chambord master masons doesn't stop there.

TRANSLATOR: From a distance,

you see a building that looks like a fortified castle.

You go inside and see a 15th-century Italian church.

You climb the stairs and arrive in a sort of heavenly city.

It's one surprise after another until you reach the top.

TRANSLATOR: When you reach the roof terraces,

you're in another world you couldn't have imagined from down below.

And then you turn around and there's a breathtaking view.

These roof terraces really take you on a journey.

NARRATOR: Amid the forest of chimneys and towers

rising above the terrace,

a monumental structure extends the famous staircase.

TRANSLATOR: Arriving on the terrace,

you soon notice that the central staircase is crowned

by an enormous tower, much taller than the staircase itself.

NARRATOR: This 30m structure above the keep is the Lantern Tower.

Shaped like an imperial crown

and topped at 56m by a fleur-de-lys,

it's the tallest part of Chambord.

On the first level of this circular structure,

you feel as if you're caught between the legs of a giant stone spider.

TRANSLATOR: The whole thing is precariously balanced,

but still solid, because these large pointed arches,

supported by the pillars, keep the tower at the centre of the chateau.

What's remarkable about this tower is that,

despite its size, some 30m high, it rests on just eight pillars,

which are eight pillars of the staircase.

There's an architectural feat here,

which spans the full height of the building

from the lowest point of the chateau, the ground floor,

to the fleur-de-lis at the top.

- Modern engineering does create some absolutely amazing pieces of...

building engineering, but to create something like this,

using the materials like that,

I think we'd find it difficult to do.

TRANSLATOR: Today, we couldn't do it any better.

Even with all our resources, we couldn't make it any better.

TRANSLATOR: This staircase is the royal image of Francois I.

He himself is represented here.

This staircase is only here for that reason.

If you ask yourself what this staircase is for and where it leads,

well, it leads nowhere, except to the top, to heaven.

NARRATOR: Francois I commissioned this majestic tower

to crown an architectural masterpiece.

But it was the master masons of the Loire Valley,

with their precise stonecutting skills, who built it.

TRANSLATOR: Chambord is a complete work of art,

because everything has been thought through:

the cross-shaped floor plan, the double-spiral staircase,

the distribution of the floors,

and then this extraordinary roof terrace with its unusual lantern.

NARRATOR: But which architect could have come up with

such a grandiose creation?

The answer to this enigma may lie not far from Chambord,

at the Clos-Luce d'Amboise:

residence from 1516 of a certain Leonardo da Vinci.

- (speaks French)

TRANSLATOR: He's a marvellous figure.

He knew how to do everything. He was a painter, of course.

He was an engineer, also a military engineer, an anatomist,

a botanist, a geologist.

He could do anything.

And Francois I gave Leonardo da Vinci

the title of Painter, Engineer and Royal Architect.

NARRATOR: For Pascal Briorist,

one of the world's leading da Vinci specialists,

the shadow of the Italian master looms over Chambord.

The spiral staircase was Leonardo's idea from the 1490s in Milan.

Leonardo was obsessed with centred plans.

He loved hypersymmetry,

where the different elements respond to each other

either in relation to an axis or a central point.

You can clearly see that in Chambord.

NARRATOR: But the Italian genius would take no part in the work.

He died at Clos-Luce in May 1519,

just a few months before the project was launched.

TRANSLATOR: Leonardo was very close

to an Architect called Domenico da Cortona.

The only Architect we know for sure was involved in Chambord is...

Domenico da Cortona.

We can deduce from this...

that Francois I, Domenico da Cortona and Leonardo crossed paths,

and no doubt discussed great ideas for their palace

to the glory of the Valois.

NARRATOR: Leonardo da Vinci wasn't the architect of Chambord,

though his ideas permeate this superstructure.

It's a building packed with ingenious features

to accommodate the entire court of Francois I.

TRANSLATOR: The court was really enormous in terms of numbers.

It had several thousand people and could be close to 8,000 or 10,000.

NARRATOR: Francois I, who started the construction...

renovation of 11 chateaux...

moved with his court from one palace to another.

Chambord, his biggest project,

was initially a residence for hunting parties and banquets.

Housing hundreds of courtiers required every nook and cranny

to be used as living space.

TRANSLATOR: Whoever designed Chambord had a problem:

creating two different types of apartment,

one fitting into a square, the other into a tower.

NARRATOR: Inside the keep,

each quadrant is divided into two apartments,

one in the tower and the other in a rectangular space.

Each has a separate entrance,

three small rooms, and a large bedchamber,

measuring 80 square metres or 120 square metres.

This layout is the same on each level.

TRANSLATOR: So the space is optimised

to accommodate as many people as possible

when the court comes to stay.

NARRATOR: The courtiers aimed to sleep as closely as possible

to the sovereign, so they slept several to a room.

But in a chateau of 381 rooms,

with 282 chimneys used for heating,

how do you get rid of all the smoke?

On the upper levels,

around forty chimney stacks pierce the roofs of the superstructure.

Each of them is unique,

decorated with sculptures and slabs of black slate

inlaid into the white stone.

These chimney stacks hide an ingenious system

to evacuate the smoke.

On each floor of the chateau,

the fireplaces are carefully positioned one above the other,

with a slight offset.

Each flue is then superimposed on the previous one

in the thickness of the walls... until it emerges through the stack,

so a single stack can contain up to seven vertical flues.

The stone forest that covers the roofs of Chambord

is both aesthetic and functional.

TRANSLATOR: What we've got here is some pretty brilliant thinking.

In Leonardo's codices, there are thoughts

on all these circulation and fluid drainage principles,

including from the latrines, down to the castle foundations.

NARRATOR: So to understand one final detail

of the technical system of the chateau,

we need to explore its bottom.

TRANSLATOR: This place looks like a cellar, but it's not.

It's actually the first of two pits in a latrine system.

The first is a small reception pit

where the waste disposal pipe comes in from the upper floors.

NARRATOR: In the basements of each tower in the main structure,

Chambord's designers installed a sort of septic tank system.

The waste from the latrines is evacuated from the top floor

through a pipe that leads to what could be called the first decanter,

which is connected to a larger room...

where the liquids are retained.

Another pipe then ventilates the whole area.

TRANSLATOR: Leonardo da Vinci actually devised

an effective latrine system, which he described as a two-pit system,

with a duct in the first pit running up above the roofs

so that ventilation inside the pits was assured

and didn't seep into the living quarters above.

NARRATOR: So Leonardo's shadow,

just like the know-how of the French builders,

is present in Chambord's cellars...

and right up to its spires.

TRANSLATOR: It's a continual process of invention,

because the challenges the builders face need solutions

that you can't find in architectural textbooks.

TRANSLATOR: All these substances - the smoke escaping upwards,

the latrines escaping downwards, the people themselves -

form circulating fluids.

You get the impression that Chambord is like a living body,

brought to life by the people who make it up

and who circulate within it.

NARRATOR: A body made of stone...

which comes to life around its central, spiral staircase.

And yet, amid all this harmony and geometric perfection,

there are details that leave the experts perplexed.

In several places in the keep, the layout is strangely flawed.

TRANSLATOR: One of the arms of the cross

doesn't lead into either right or left quadrant.

This led people to think that the anomaly stemmed from this quadrant,

which was poorly positioned in relation to the first three.

NARRATOR: While analysing the plans,

Eric Johannot noticed that certain rooms in the north tower

weren't laid out correctly.

After exploring a number of theories,

he's come up with a likely answer for these anomalies.

TRANSLATOR: I realised that when they were laying the foundations,

they in fact changed parts of the site.

This change involved inverting the plan of the entire northern area.

Originally, there wasn't supposed to be this type of plan.

An enclosure could very well have bordered the keep,

but in this case, it would have gone all the way around the keep.

So, a square enclosure where the towers have been moved over here.

NARRATOR: For Eric Johannot,

the Chateau de Chambord as originally imagined

had a totally symmetrical layout.

All the structures were centred around the keep's staircase,

and each quadrant was laid out

to optimise the flow for its inhabitants,

with a plan in the shape of a windmill.

TRANSLATOR: The original plan was one in which each quadrant

turned a quarter turn from corner to corner,

always turning in the same direction,

as if the castle were caught in a circular movement.

You could call it a gyratory plan, or a windmill,

since the direction, rather like the sails of a mill, rotates.

NARRATOR: But in the end, the enclosure became rectangular

and had to be attached to the keep by means of lateral galleries.

In the north tower, the layout of the living quarters

blocked the passageway to the adjoining gallery.

The plan was, therefore, turned around...

in order to get a proper flow between the keep and the gallery.

TRANSLATOR: The loggia that I'm walking along now

is one that shouldn't have existed on this side in the original plan.

And it's even extended by this route

that joins the entrance in a gallery leading to the royal wing.

- (lock clicking)

NARRATOR: Chambord should have had a completely different aspect

from the one we know today,

with its square keep next to a rectangular enclosure.

But Francois I changed his mind

and created a wing entirely for his own apartments.

TRANSLATOR: Like all patrons, royalty can be a bit capricious,

and at the last minute, might want this or that plan to be modified.

And so, obviously,

he has outstanding technicians at his service,

who are able to respond to the King's whims,

to his desire to create truly regal works.

NARRATOR: Although little written evidence exists, each detail,

and each mark carved in the stone,

are clues as to how the construction work progressed over 28 years.

TRANSLATOR: It's an extraordinary project,

very difficult, laborious, full of twists and turns.

When you see this perfection,

it's hard to imagine all the difficulties,

all the suffering and toil behind it.

NARRATOR: After around three years of foundation work,

the first walls of Chambord were built in 1522.

The builders began with the south tower of the keep,

followed by the east and west towers.

At the same time, they tackled the southern part of the enclosure.

The walls of the ground floor of the keep and the enclosure

were erected around 1524, before the north tower was built.

TRANSLATOR: In 1524, work on Chambord came to a halt.

Why? Because Francois I had other things on his mind.

In particular, waging war in Italy against his sworn enemy,

Charles V, the Habsburg Prince.

And the building work came to a standstill.

Because in 1525, Francois I was taken prisoner

at the Battle of Pavia and was sent to captivity in Madrid.

TRANSLATOR: On his return from captivity,

Francois I resumed work on Chambord in 1526, this time with a vengeance.

NARRATOR: So the works began again,

to symbolise the King's return to power...

although his imprisonment had damaged him.

From 1527 onwards,

the keep was built storey by storey,

with the staircase at its centre, up to the lantern tower,

and completed around 1533.

From 1539, the wings of the enclosure were enlarged,

then linked to the keep by two galleries,

to give the castle its current shape.

It was on his return from the humiliating captivity

under Charles V that Francois I decided to modify

his initial project by enlarging the side wings.

TRANSLATOR: What was, for him, most important

was to really take revenge on Charles V.

So it was no longer a palace that Francois I wanted at the time,

a palace to live in, but rather a monument

to the glory of the dynasty of France.

NARRATOR: More than a royal residence,

Chambord became a kind of political statement,

through which Francois I wanted to prove his greatness to his rival.

TRANSLATOR: Francois I got some revenge in 1539,

when he received Charles with great pomp,

even though the chateau had barely been completed.

TRANSLATOR: And Francois I can show him that, in fact,

the imperial crown is there, above his head,

at the top of the double-spiral staircase.

NARRATOR: Chambord dazzled Emperor Charles V,

and the honour of the King of France was maintained.

Work continued on the wings, but in 1547, Francois I died,

having spent just 72 nights here.

Of all the jewel-like chateaux built by the builder-king

to spread the spirit of the Renaissance,

Chambord sparkles brightest.

And perhaps, in architectural terms,

erased the dark dungeons of his captivity

in the fortress of Alcazar.

Although work continued under the reign of his son, Henry II,

the second, the rebirth of the chateau came to a halt in 1559.

As shown in engravings from this period,

the chateau wasn't yet complete,

particularly the west wing, which now houses the chapel.

TRANSLATOR: It's a simple and pure chapel,

but it's still a royal chapel in its design,

the finesse of the joints, the mortar bonding, the sculpting.

NARRATOR: Although difficult to imagine today,

at the start of the 17th century, this chapel was in ruins.

With no vaulting or framework, it was left open to the elements.

TRANSLATOR: The chateau was left incomplete for a century and a half.

It wasn't until Louis XIV,

with his renowned Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart,

that this magnificent structure was finished.

NARRATOR: At the top, just above the vaulted ceiling,

a forest of oak covers the chapel.

An intricate assembly of several hundred large beams

that intertwine and support each other.

An engineering marvel.

From 1680, after putting in place the stone vaulting above the chapel,

the builders of Louis XIV designed a highly elaborate wooden structure

with two main elements.

The vault is covered by a first steeply sloping

triangular roof structure.

It's fitted into a second frame with a circular base,

this time conical in shape,

whose large beams rise up three storeys...

to the lantern at the top.

TRANSLATOR: It's a whole assembly of different parts.

It's quite ingenious, with a load transfer

that makes the structure extremely resistant over time.

NARRATOR: So the castle's structural work

was spread over more than 150 years,

until the Sun King, Louis XIV,

completed the chapel with this vaulted ceiling,

and the wood that protects it.

TRANSLATOR: There's a lot of wood:

all the wooden floors, joinery and framework.

A veritable forest covers the Chateau de Chambord.

NARRATOR: While the wooden framework is sheltered under the slate roofs,

the outer stone is exposed to all weathers.

TRANSLATOR: Stone gets a lot of external damage:

sun, rain, frost, cold, damp.

So, a bit like skin, it's going to suffer.

That's why it ages and deteriorates.

NARRATOR: A specialist in materials engineering,

Kevin Beck examines the walls of the enclosure

to detect any damaged stone before further problems appear.

- (speaks French)

TRANSLATOR: These blocks of stone, apart from a bit of graffiti,

the surface seems virtually intact.

You can't see any deterioration on the surface,

unlike this stone here, when you can see a lot of flaking.

I'll just do the sound test, tapping on the stone to detect cracks.

- (tapping resonates) TRANSLATOR: And here, I can tell...

it sounds hollow... though not there.

TRANSLATOR: It sounds hollow here too.

- (tapping resonates) TRANSLATOR: Unlike this part.

So I'd like to see if the thermal camera can confirm

that there is indeed a crack running through this part of the stone.

NARRATOR: Using his thermal camera,

Kevin Beck immediately sees the red areas,

which stand out from the rest in blue.

TRANSLATOR: We see hotter areas that are heating up much faster,

which is a sign of cracking.

NARRATOR: After taking a few samples,

the diagnosis continues in the lab,

to better understand this disease

that is attacking the tufa stone of Chambord.

TRANSLATOR: Tufa is a remarkable stone.

It's very light, very soft and quite strong.

But it has one big problem: it absorbs a lot of water.

It can absorb half its volume in water.

NARRATOR: It's the composition of this sedimentary rock

which explains this effect.

An electron microscope shows both the marine fossils

and the porosity of the rock.

TRANSLATOR: Nearly half the volume of the stone is made up

of gaps of various sizes.

There are millions and millions of holes, and they're very, very small:

about one-tenth the diameter of a human hair.

Which is extremely thin...

but enough to allow water to get into the stone.

Tufa will absorb an enormous amount of water.

But at the same time, it will swell, a bit like a sponge.

And this swelling in the stone will create problems for the masonry,

because, logically, a stone on a chateau like Chambord

shouldn't move.

NARRATOR: When stone at the castle is exposed to rain,

its surface absorbs water and swells,

while its core remains dry and solid.

The internal friction between these two parts then creates a deep crack.

This eventually leads to the slab falling off, like peeling skin.

Kevin Beck keeps close watch on his patient...

both in the lab and in the field.

Each altered stone is scanned, and mapped,

to establish a precise diagnosis of Chambord's state of health.

TRANSLATOR: We checked thousands of stones and, in all,

very few were changed or damaged.

TRANSLATOR: It's over 500 years old.

An old monument with some weathered stones,

but for its age, in pretty good shape.

It goes to show that it's a very well-built monument

and that it's here to stay.

NARRATOR: But how did the builders manage to protect

the stone of Chambord from water,

its mortal enemy, over such a long period?

This vaulting, one of the castle's masterpieces,

is particularly fragile.

It adorns the coffered ceilings of the keep's upper floor,

each carved with an F for Francois, or his emblem, a salamander.

TRANSLATOR: A vault like this shouldn't be exposed,

in the slightest, to adverse weather conditions.

So we have to make sure that water doesn't reach

what we call the extrados, the hidden part of the vault,

as the tufa wouldn't be able to withstand such water infiltration.

NARRATOR: But how can this vaulted ceiling be protected

when there's a flat roof directly above it?

TRANSLATOR: They always had problems with a terrace

that was never completely watertight, and after a few years,

they had problems with seepage.

NARRATOR: The solution?

Make the terrace out of large stone slabs with no mortar joints,

allowing water to pass through.

These slabs are laid on low ridges,

which follow the shape of a sloping roof,

itself covered with tiles,

so that the water runs off into the side gutters.

This ingenious system shelters the fragile coffered vault just below.

The stonework of the chateau of Francois I

is protected against rain... but also against groundwater.

Chambord is at the bottom of a small valley

with a marshy river, the Cosson.

To construct such a limestone chateau,

the builders had to battle with water right from the foundations

in the spring of 1520.

In this virtually unbuildable wetland area,

how were foundations created to support

more than 200,000 tonnes of stone?

After several digs, Archaeologist Simon Bryant...

is beginning to get a clearer picture of Chambord's depths.

To lay solid foundations beneath the superstructure,

the builders used a variety of techniques

to adapt to a surface which slopes into the marshes,

right down to the riverbed.

The hard, dry ground of the hill was dug out

to install load-bearing walls under the wing of the chapel.

For the keep, the builders had to dig through waterlogged ground

to create a 44-metre-square platform,

surrounded by stacks of wood.

First the base: rough stones mixed with mortar.

Then the foundations, built more than 5m up to ground level,

using layers of smaller stones.

Experts are less sure about the foundations of the east wing:

the structure most exposed to water,

but also the most reinforced...

thanks to a slight masonry overhang known as a faussebraye.

TRANSLATOR: In fact, the faussebraye is like a rampart,

but it's placed outside the castle to protect it

before the water gets in.

- You're having to dig down to about 5m or so

to build your foundations,

which means bringing in an awful lot of material.

You've got to manage the site, which is going to be under water

for a lot of the time, so you've got to create a dry space

where you can bring in the materials...

to be able to lay out the foundation.

TRANSLATOR: When Francois I arrived,

there was already a medieval castle.

The castle represents about a quarter of the area

of the current chateau, so half the chateau had to be built

on the foundations of the medieval castle...

and the other half in swampy ground, which was unstable.

NARRATOR: Despite the complexity of the terrain,

the various techniques employed by the builders

anchored the superstructure on a solid base.

Several 17th-century engravings show Chambord as if on an island...

but still threatened by the water.

- Once the building itself is firmly anchored or sat on the ground,

well, the water's just going to remain there,

which would cause problems later on.

NARRATOR: How did Francois I's builders manage to divert

part of the river's course and drain the marshes?

The answer lies in the heart of the forest,

a few hundred metres south of the chateau,

where the remains of a system of channels are hidden.

TRANSLATOR: We're in what's known as the 'large ditch',

which is a sort of drainage system.

It's about 10m high, 20 to 30 metres across,

and a kilometre and a half long: pretty impressive.

TRANSLATOR: There's a whole series of ditches running from the entrance

to the Chambord estate in the east,

to downstream of the chateau in the west.

NARRATOR: Despite the scale of these hydraulic works,

Chambord would still be surrounded

by the waters of the Cosson for 150 years...

until the arrival of Louis XIV.

Before embarking on the chateau de Versailles,

the Sun King was particularly fond of Chambord,

and its sumptuous parties and hunts.

He created this 2km-long canal to clean up the surrounding area -

unhealthy because of the marshes -

and the huge terrace where the gardens are today.

It took two centuries from the time Chambord's foundations were laid

until the park was completed,

to create this architectural jewel and its magnificent surroundings.

TRANSLATOR: When you think of a chateau,

the first Renaissance chateau, you think of Chambord.

It really is the starting point for French architecture.

NARRATOR: At the bottom of a remote, marshy valley,

the builders of Chambord achieved the feat

of creating an immense and majestic superstructure.

TRANSLATOR: Many master builders were involved,

master masons, perhaps Italian engineers...

like Leonardo da Vinci.

But behind it all is the will of the King of France

to design a chateau that was truly exceptional.

NARRATOR: With its swirling, overwhelming architecture,

this extraordinary chateau continues to fascinate.

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