10 That Changed America

Last updated

10 That Changed America is a series of television documentary films about the history of architecture and urban planning produced by US public service broadcaster PBS member station WTTW from 2013 to 2018. The series is presented by Geoffrey Baer and produced by Dan Protess. [1]

Contents

The series comprises seven separate films, each approximately 55 minutes in length. The initial episode on 10 Buildings That Changed America was broadcast in 2013. A three part season 1 comprising episodes on 10 Homes, 10 Towns and 10 Parks followed in 2016.

Season 2 with three further episodes covering 10 Streets, 10 Monuments and 10 Modern Marvels aired in July 2018. [1]

10 Buildings That Changed America

Buildings in presentation order with credited architect, location and year
BuildingCredited ArchitectLocationYear
1 Virginia State Capitol Thomas Jefferson Richmond, Virginia 1788
2 Trinity Church Henry Richardson Boston, Massachusetts 1877
3 Wainwright Building Louis Sullivan St. Louis, Missouri 1891
4 Robie House Frank Lloyd Wright Chicago, Illinois 1910
5 Highland Park Ford Plant Albert Kahn Highland Park, Michigan 1910
6 Southdale Center Victor Gruen Edina, Minnesota 1956
7 Seagram Building Mies van der Rohe New York, New York 1958
8 Dulles International Airport Eero Saarinen Chantilly, Virginia 1962
9 Vanna Venturi House Robert Venturi Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1964
10 Disney Concert Hall Frank Gehry Los Angeles, California 2003

10 Homes That Changed America

Homes in presentation order with credited architect, location and year
HomeCredited ArchitectsLocationYear
1 Taos Pueblo Taos, New Mexico 1400s
2 Monticello Thomas Jefferson Charlottesville, Virginia 1809
3 Lyndhurst A J Davis Tarrytown, New York 1842
4 The Tenement New York, New York mid 1800s
5 The Gamble House Charles and Henry Greene Pasadena, California 1908
6 Langston Terrace Dwellings Hilyard Robinson Washington, DC 1938
7 Fallingwater Frank Lloyd Wright Mill Run, Pennsylvania 1937
8 Eames House Charles and Ray Eames Pacific Palisades, California 1949
9 Marina City Bertrand Goldberg Chicago, Illinois 1962
10 Glidehouse Michelle Kaufmann Novato, California 2004

10 Towns That Changed America

Towns in presentation order with credited planners and year
TownCredited PlannersYear
1 St. Augustine, Florida Laws of the Indies 1565
2 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania William Penn 1682
3 Salt Lake City, Utah Joseph Smith 1847
4 Riverside, Illinois Frederick Law Olmsted 1868
5 Pullman, Illinois George Pullman and Solon S Beman 1880
6 Greenbelt, Maryland Clarence S Stein 1935
7 Levittown, New York Levitt and Sons 1947
8 Southwest Washington, DC Louis Justement and Chloethiel Smith 1952
9 Seaside, Florida Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co 1981
10 Pearl District, Portland, Oregon Portland Planning Commission and Jane Jacobs 1997

10 Parks That Changed America

Parks in presentation order with location, credited planner and year
ParkLocationCredited PlannerYear
1 Squares of Savannah Savannah, Georgia 1733
2 Fairmount Park Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1812
3 Mount Auburn Cemetery Cambridge, Massachusetts Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn 1831
4 Central Park New York, New York Frederick Law Olmsted, Calvert Vaux 1857
5 Chicago's Neighborhood Parks Chicago, Illinois 1869
6 San Antonio River Walk San Antonio, Texas Robert Hugman 1929
7 Overton Park Memphis, Tennessee George Kessler 1906
8 Freeway Park Seattle, Washington Angela Danadjieva 1976
9 Gas Works Park Seattle, Washington Richard Haag 1975
10 The High Line New York, New York James Corner 2009

10 Streets That Changed America

The chosen streets, in rough chronological order of establishment, were New York City's Broadway, the Boston Post Road linking Boston, MA to New York, NY, St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, LA, the National Road linking Cumberland, MD to Vandalia, IL, Brooklyn's Eastern Parkway in New York City, Woodward Avenue in Detroit, MI, the Lincoln Highway from New York, NY to San Francisco, CA, Greenwood Avenue in Tulsa, OK, Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA, and the Kalamazoo Mall outdoor pedestrian shopping mall at Kalamazoo, MI. [2]

10 Monuments That Changed America

The chosen monuments were the Bunker Hill Monument at Boston, MA (1843), the Statue of Liberty (1886), Standing Soldiers monuments to Civil War dead (post 1865), the Robert Gould Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial at Boston, MA (1897), the Lincoln Memorial at Washington, DC (1922), Mount Rushmore (1941), the Gateway Arch at St. Louis, MO (1965), the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Washington, DC (1982), the AIDS Memorial Quilt (1987), and the Oklahoma City National Memorial at Oklahoma City, OK (2000). [3]

10 Modern Marvels That Changed America

The civil engineering feats were the Erie Canal (1825), the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge across the Ohio River at Cincinnati, OH (1866), the Transcontinental Railroad (1869), the Eads Bridge across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, MO (1874), the Reversal of the Chicago River (1900), the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River connecting New York, NY to Jersey City, NJ (1927), the Hoover Dam (1936), the Colorado River Aqueduct (1935), the Interstate Highway System (1956), and New Orleans' Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System (2005)

Critical response

The initial episode on 10 Buildings That Changed America received mixed reviews from architecture critics. It was recognised as achieving the goal to "explain complex battles over architectural ideas, in clear language, to a broad audience". [4] However, it was also criticised as lacking substance and failing to address "the historical, social and economic impact of these 10 buildings". [5] The Minneapolis Star Tribune highlighted the series 1 episode covering 10 Homes That Changed America for informativeness on "influential homes that transformed residential living". [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Chester French</span> American sculptor (1850–1931)

Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is best known for his 1874 sculpture The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

WTTW is a PBS member television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by not-for-profit broadcaster Window to the World Communications, Inc., it is sister to commercial classical music radio station WFMT. The two stations share studios in the Renée Crown Public Media Center, located at 5400 North Saint Louis Avenue in the city's North Park neighborhood; its transmitter facility is atop the Willis Tower on South Wacker Drive in the Chicago Loop. WTTW also owns and operates The Chicago Production Center, a video production and editing facility that is operated alongside the two stations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Manship</span> American sculptor (1885–1966)

Paul Howard Manship was an American sculptor. He consistently created mythological pieces in a classical style, and was a major force in the Art Deco movement. He is well known for his large public commissions, including the iconic Prometheus in Rockefeller Center and the Celestial Sphere Woodrow Wilson Memorial in Geneva, Switzerland. He is also credited for designing the modern rendition of New York City's official seal.

<i>The McLaughlin Group</i> Public affairs television program

The McLaughlin Group was a syndicated half-hour weekly public affairs television program in the United States, hosted by John McLaughlin from 1982 until his death in 2016. Prompted by the host, the group of four pundits discussed current political issues in a round table format. A revival reuniting the regular panelists aired intermittently between 2018 and 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Hobson Richardson</span> American architect (1838–1886)

Henry Hobson Richardson, FAIA was an American architect, best known for his work in a style that became known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Richardson is one of "the recognized trinity of American architecture".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor Gruen</span> Austrian architect

Victor David Gruen, born Viktor David Grünbaum, was an Austrian-American architect best known as a pioneer in the design of shopping malls in the United States. He is also noted for his urban revitalization proposals, described in his writings and applied in master plans such as for Fort Worth, Texas (1955), Kalamazoo, Michigan (1958) and Fresno, California (1965). An advocate of prioritizing pedestrians over cars in urban cores, he was also the designer of the first outdoor pedestrian mall in the United States, the Kalamazoo Mall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jules Guérin (artist)</span> American painter

Jules Guérin was an American muralist, architectural delineator, and illustrator. A painter and widely published magazine illustrator, he gained prominence for his architectural work such as in the 1906, Plan for Chicago, and for the large murals he painted in many well-known public structures such as the Lincoln Memorial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Macaulay</span> British-born American illustrator and writer (born 1946)

David Macaulay is a British-born American illustrator and writer. His works include Cathedral (1973), The Way Things Work (1988), and its updated revisions The New Way Things Work (1998) and The Way Things Work Now (2016). His illustrations have been featured in nonfiction books combining text and illustrations explaining architecture, design, and engineering, and he has written a number of children's fiction books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caspar Buberl</span> American sculptor (1834–1899)

Caspar Buberl was an American sculptor. He is best known for his Civil War monuments, for the terra cotta relief panels on the Garfield Memorial in Cleveland, Ohio, and for the 1,200-foot (370 m)-long frieze on the Pension Building in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Attilio Piccirilli</span> American sculptor (1866–1945)

Attilio Piccirilli was an American sculptor. Born in Massa, Italy, he was educated at the Accademia di San Luca of Rome.

<i>Sneak Previews</i> American film review television series

Sneak Previews is an American film review show that ran for over two decades on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). It was created by WTTW, a PBS member station in Chicago, Illinois. It premiered on November 26, 1975 as a monthly local-only show called Opening Soon...at a Theater Near You and was renamed in 1977 to Sneak Previews and it became a biweekly show in 1978 airing nationally on PBS. It grew to prominence with a review-conversation-banter format between opinionated film critics, notably for a time, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. By 1980, it was a weekly series airing on over 180 stations, and it was the highest rated weekly entertainment series in the history of public broadcasting. The show's final broadcast was on October 4, 1996.

<i>Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman</i> American animated television series

Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman is an American live-action/animated television series that aired on PBS Kids Go! and is largely targeted toward children ages 6–10. It is a reality-game show hosted by Ruff Ruffman, an animated anthropomorphic dog who dispenses challenges to the show's real-life contestants. The series ran from May 29, 2006, to November 4, 2010 on PBS across five seasons and 100 episodes, and featured 30 contestants. Although a sixth season was planned, with auditions taking place in January 2010, WGBH announced on June 14, 2010 that the series would end due to lack of funding. In June 2008, the series received its first Emmy for Best Original Song for its theme.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Massey Rhind</span> Scottish-American sculptor

John Massey Rhind was a Scottish-American sculptor. Among Rhind's better known works is the marble statue of Dr. Crawford W. Long located in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington D.C. (1926).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cram and Ferguson Architects</span>

Cram and Ferguson Architects is an architecture firm based in Concord, Massachusetts. The company was founded as a partnership in 1889 by the "preeminent American Ecclesiastical Gothicist" Ralph Adams Cram and Charles Francis Wentworth. In 1890 they were joined by Bertram Goodhue, who was made a partner in 1895.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Van Brunt</span> American architect (1832–1904)

Henry Van Brunt FAIA was an American architect and architectural writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Army Plaza (Manhattan)</span> Plaza in Manhattan, New York

Grand Army Plaza is a public square at the southeast corner of Central Park in Manhattan, New York City, near the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Central Park South. It consists of two rectangular plots on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 58th and 60th streets. The current design of Grand Army Plaza dates to a 1916 reconstruction by the architectural firm of Carrère and Hastings. The plaza is designated as a New York City scenic landmark.

<i>Market Warriors</i> American TV series or program

Market Warriors is an American reality television series that follows four professional antiquers as they buy assigned items at flea markets and antique shows on a budget. The items are then sold at auction, where the antiquers compete for the highest profit, which is most often determined by the lowest loss.

Ermelindo Eduardo Ardolino, known as Edward Ardolino was an Italian-born American stone carver and architectural sculptor of the early twentieth century. He was the most prominent member of the Ardolino family of stone carvers. He worked with leading architects and sculptors, including architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and sculptor Lee Lawrie. Ardolino participated in at least nine Goodhue-Lawrie collaborations including the Los Angeles Public Library and the Nebraska State Capitol. His carvings adorn a significant number of important public and private buildings and monuments, including four buildings in the Federal Triangle of Washington, D.C.

<i>The 90s</i> (TV series) American TV series or program

The 90's was an American independent documentary series created by Tom Weinberg and Joel Cohen that ran for four years on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). It premiered on June 25, 1989. The show generated an audience of 25 million and PBS aired it on 160 stations at its national, prime-time peak. Throughout its run, it received praise from outlets across the nation and Billboard described it as "All the things Television was born to do but never does." The show included politics, talk segments, and interviews. Each hour-long episode featured the work of dozens of different independent video producers who mailed tapes for submission, as well as the work of about a dozen "camcorder correspondents" working under contract for the show. It came to an end in 1992.

References

  1. 1 2 Rockett, Darcel (10 July 2018). "Marvels, monuments and streets: '10 That Changed America' is back for another season". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  2. Crawley, Melissa (3 July 2018). "Stay Tuned: TV Review: '10 That Changed America'". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  3. Waldek, Stefanie (4 July 2018). "10 Monuments and Memorials That Changed America Forever". Architectural Digest. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  4. Hawthorne, Christopher. "'10 Buildings That Changed America' is a rewarding tour", Los Angeles Times , 13 May 2013. Retrieved on 1 July 2018.
  5. Kennicott, Philip. "Little of substance in PBS’s ‘10 Buildings That Changed America’", The Washington Post , Washington, 9 May 2013. Retrieved on 1 July 2018.
  6. Palmer, Kim. "Worth watching", Star Tribune , Minneapolis, 2 Apr 2016. Retrieved on 2 July 2018.