World's Tallest Tower

Rising 610 meters tall, the Canton Tower is the tallest television tower in the world. With its unusual twist and narrow 'supermodel' waist it has become an icon for the city of Guangzhou. But this steel and concrete wonder is not just built on foundations of concrete. It's built from knowledge accumulated over centuries of building tall towers. In this film we explore a series of landmark towers. Each one contains an engineering breakthrough that has helped modern engineers build the record-breaking Canton Tower. Using stunning CGI animation, this film reveals the incredible stories behind these towers and the innovations that have enabled them to grow in size. Four ingenious leaps forward that enabled towers to evolve …from BIG to BIGGER into the world's BIGGEST."

In the first leap of technology — Foundations — we investigate the construction of the Washington Monument. Planned in the 1830s to be the tallest building in the world, the foundations were laid, in a rush, on a soft layer of clay. When only a third built, the monument started sinking and leaning. We see how military engineer Thomas Lincoln Casey solved the problem, and straightened the tower. Today, in China, the builders of the Canton Tower know they have to get the foundations right first time.

In our second leap, we investigate tower Construction. On the Eiffel tower, Gustave Eiffel revolutionized tower building with his use of iron. We see how Eiffel fought off a rival design for a stone tower by declaring it couldn't be built. For the first time we put Eiffel's claim to the test using modern computer modeling. To build his own tower quickly Eiffel prefabricated parts on the ground, and used jack-up cranes to create a vertical production line. We reveal how this technique is still used today build the Canton Tower.

In the third leap of technology we reveal how tower engineers cope with the power of the Wind. Faced with Canada's wintry gusts, the builders of Toronto's CN tower reinforced its concrete column with tensioned steel cables. Today, the Canton tower cleverly uses its two water tanks at the top of the building to reduce the swaying of the tower.

Finally we see how engineers protect a tower against Fire. The Canton Tower is fitted with advanced fire-fighting equipment including an amazing robotic water-canon that can detect a fire and aim a jet of water directly at it. We put it to the test.

Featuring interviews with the tower's architects, Mark Hemel and Barbara Kuit, we take the viewer on a whirlwind journey through history to the top of one of the twenty first century's most breathtaking buildings.

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