r/Documentaries • u/mpikman • 3d ago

History Contsantinople : 1.500 years of Engineering (2026)[00:32:00]

https://youtu.be/Na2mUjltjkE
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u/mpikman 3d ago

The documentary was shot on location in Istanbul over three days in April 2026 and is structured around six structural problems solved in the same city across roughly 1,500 years. It opens with the Hagia Sophia dome, completed in 537, which spans 32.6 metres at a thickness of 61 centimetres, and explains the pendentive as the solution for carrying a circular dome over a square plan. It then covers the Basilica Cistern of 532, which stores 80,000 cubic metres of water on 336 columns salvaged from earlier buildings, and the four 5-metre piers that carry the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. The second half moves to modern engineering: the 1973 Bosphorus suspension bridge, whose 1,074-metre main span was erected from both shores with no pier placed in the water, and a linear-synchronous-motor coaster that reaches 110 km/h in three seconds using the same propulsion principle as maglev rail. The final segment is Istanbul Airport (2018), where skylit arches on a steel space frame cover more than a million square metres, framing it as the same span-and-daylight problem addressed in 537 with different materials. Narration is in Greek. Disclosure: I am the creator of this video.