Abandoned Engineering

Series 4

TV-PG

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.

Where to Watch Series 4

12 Episodes

The World's Strangest Ghost Town
E1
The World's Strangest Ghost TownA settlement in Argentina destroyed by floods, a town in the US that has been erased, and a Soviet dream-town that turned into a nuclear nightmare.
Palace of Death
E2
Palace of DeathA seemingly endless concrete line stretching through the French countryside, which sits as a monument to a discarded engineering advancement.
Guernsey Nazi Towers
E3
Guernsey Nazi TowersA little-known dark past explains the vast monolithic structures that dominate the small British island of Guernsey.
Bodie USA
E4
Bodie USAProjects include a maze of tunnels filled with haunting remains beneath the streets of Paris and a strange formation of domed structures hovering over the waters off Florida.
Tunnel To The Underworld
E5
Tunnel To The UnderworldA town in West Virginia that fell victim to the pace of change when steam trains became obsolete and an underground complex in Italy that had been abandoned for nearly 2,000 years.
Escobar's Ruin
E6
Escobar's RuinFeatures a ruined compound in Colombia which was once home to Pablo Escobar and alien-looking structures with no apparent purpose, isolated in an empty English marshland in Denge, near Dungeness in Kent. But how and why were they ever built at all, and why are they now left abandoned?
Villa De Vecchi Rhodes
E7
Villa De Vecchi RhodesA formerly luxurious and strategic mountain-top villa on the island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean that's been ravaged by acts of revenge by locals since 1955.
Pyramiden Norway
E8
Pyramiden NorwayA strange-looking deserted town with an almost supernatural atmosphere on a remote Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean was in fact an ambitious Soviet mining outpost with a tragic history. Also, a collection of imposing buildings on the southern tip of Australia, the remains of curious-looking basins emerging from the waves in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge and the ruins of a monumental construction project in southern Germany that was a ruthless regime's deadly prototype.
Behind The Berlin Wall
E9
Behind The Berlin WallStill standing today, a fierce-looking prison and an innocuous looking office building in Berlin were actually the headquarters of a feared and ruthless organisation - the Stasi. Also, a covert Communist base hid Cold War submarines for Tito, the former leader of Yugoslavia on the island of Vis. A seemingly innocuous sports centre hides a sinister underground bunker. And the former HQ of the Soviet Army in East Germany was a forbidden Soviet city within a city.
Bannack USA
E10
Bannack USAA sprawling Wild West ghost town sits peaceful and abandoned in Montana, USA, but is still haunted by tales of murder, corruption and buried treasure. Also, a cold, dark, underground mountain network that cost the lives of thousands... the crumbling ruins of an English industry that turned poison into profit... a peaceful village that was shattered by the terrors of war.
Buckner Building Alaska
E11
Buckner Building AlaskaA vast snowcovered monster in the icy wilderness of southern Alaska, a ruined super structure that overshadows everything around it in and a landscape of confusing and surprising structures that once represented a bold statement of Spain's plans for the future. Plus, a long, winding formation that was once supposed to help defend Hitler's Third Reich. And in Budapest, Hungary, the stripped skeleton of an industrial relic lies rusting away.
1936 Olympic Village Berlin
E12
1936 Olympic Village BerlinA pioneering complex marked by both glory and tragedy that's soon to be lost forever, and towering remains from an industrial age.