Climbing Great Buildings

A new series shown every week on BBC Two shows some unique new ways of looking at some of the most famous tall buildings in the country.

Climbing Great Buildings involves Dr Jonathan Foyle scaling some of the largest and tallest structures in the country and looking at them from a view rarely taken by architectural critics.

For example, Lincoln Cathedrals nave and vaults are usually viewed from the ground but by using rope-climbing techniques the programme-makers get as close to the historic sights of the church as the craftsmen who originally built them.

Hanging between the columns, the cathedral can be viewed in full view stretching all the way from the nave to the back of the church creating a huge gothic tunnel effect whilst the stained glass can really be appreciated up close revealing windows to be huge collections of intricate paintings that lose so much detail from a distance.

Indeed, throughout the programmes a recurring theme is that the buildings featured although monumental in scale have exquisite small details. These are lost, drowned in the sheer size of the building, and so it's only from hanging 50 metres up that one can really see the craftsmanship that went into small sculptures on the side of a tower.

Future episodes include Lloyds of London, St Pancras Station, the Royal Liver Building, the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, and St Paul's Cathedral whilst previous episodes that are already viewable on iPlayer. These including the HD versions if you have a fast enough computer, cover the likes of Lincoln Cathedral, Durham Cathedral and Caernafon Castle.

Climbing Great Buildings is shown every weekday night on BBC 2 at 6.30 p.m.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tr6g1/Climbing_Great_Buildings_Durham_Cathedral/

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