Tall, True Tales About Skyscrapers

The kind of documentary that makes you realize the sheer amount of technological wonders most of us just take for granted, “Skyscrapers: Going Up” is a fast paced, entertaining look at the story behind those monstrously tall buildings that symbolize the first world’s need to flex its architectural muscle.

Those huge towers that test the limits of what is structurally feasible seem to be driven by their creators’ egos, the show implies. But skyscrapers also have the power to engage people’s imagination, says Cesar Pelli, the architect behind the 1,476-foot-tall Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

During the show’s first and most impressive segment, Pelli explains how he found inspiration in Islamic patterns when designing the towers. We then meet the building’s structural engineer, the man in charge of dealing with the acceleration problem. Tall buildings like the Petronas inevitably sway back and forth, making its occupants seasick. Part of the engineer’s job is to minimize this motion.

In a noble effort never to become boring, the show then takes us to a steel factory for a brief lecture on how skyscrapers are actually built, spicing it up with some delightful vintage footage, before spending an entire segment examining the Empire State Building, interviewing an architect with offices on its 80th floor, and even introducing its maintenance people for tidbits on the building’s cleaning and trash disposal.

After the elegance of the Malaysia and New York samples, flying to Las Vegas for a behind-the-scenes look at the construction of the extravagant Mandalay Bay resort, a 43-story building “as tall as the city allows,” is a bit of an aesthetic letdown. But writer-director Kurt Sayenga’s use of time-lapse photography guarantees a gripping finale, even though it takes place in one of the gaudiest cities of the world. “Skyscrapers” will be followed by two other documentaries dealing with the construction of bridges and tunnels.

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“Skyscrapers: Going Up” can be seen tonight at 9 on Discovery.