Abandoned Engineering — Season 1
Ambitious engineering projects that have been left in ruins.
About this season
These are some of the most spectacular examples of abandoned engineering the world has ever known. The series explores how and why they were built, consider the financial and social costs of their failure and examine the environmental and ecological impacts. The series also explores how experts came up with plans to make something beautiful or useful from the ruins.
Episodes (6)
1. Silent Cities
Aired 18 February 2017 • 44 min
Empty buildings and infrastructures are full of the echoes of real people and vanished lives, leaving many questions unanswered and mysteries unsolved. We explore the worlds strangest engineering projects that created empty silent cities. We ask why a ruined cold war air base has become a no-go area and how a tiny Japanese mining island become the most over-crowded place on the planet. We find out if the street layout of the Soviet Union's model city become a matter of life or death for its population. And how did Nazi Germany create a huge mind control facility at a holiday resort?
2. Mission: Space
7.0Aired 25 February 2017 • 44 min
We aim for the stars and find out why unwanted battleship guns allow the United States to gain vital information about the borders of space. We ask how the shattered remains of a secret Nazi base became the first on the path to a new world, with the development of the ground-breaking V2 rocket. We explore a forgotten structure deep in the Arizona desert to ask if it is the true home of America's space programme. And we reveal the bizarre link between a discarded oil drum and a Cold War struggle to survive in zero gravity.
3. Lost Bridges
9.0Aired 21 March 2017 • 44 min
Soaring across some of the widest rivers and deepest valleys on the planet, bridges have always been at the cutting edge of engineering. We travel high into the mountains of the Colorado desert to find out why a hidden engineering masterpiece could disappear at any time. We ask why a stretch of overgrown concrete in a Czech reservoir is known as 'Hitler's bridge'. We find out how the highest bridge in the world collapsed in less than one minute. Finally, we uncover the story behind Cape Town's invisible bridge, which never carried a single vehicle.
4. Ghost Ships
8.0Aired 28 March 2017 • 44 min
Exploring ship graveyards, including Scapa Flow in Orkney, where German warships were scuttled after the First World War, and Mallows Bay, home to 200 wrecks colonised by wildlife.
5. Quest for Power
7.0Aired 4 April 2017 • 44 min
How Europe's most advanced power station became a film set. Plus, the structures made by scientific pioneer Nikola Tesla in his thwarted quest to prove the US with free electricity.
6. Roads to Nowhere
10.0Aired 6 April 2017 • 44 min
Hear how a crumbling hill in the Peak District and dunes in California caused the closure of two roads. Learn why a route used by the French Resistance shut in 2003.