10 That Changed America - Episode Guide

10 Buildings that Changed America presents 10 trend-setting works of architecture that have shaped and inspired our American landscape. These aren't just historic structures by famous architects. These buildings have dramatically influenced our built environment in many ways – and in one case, for over two centuries.

From the state capitol building that first declared our architectural independence from Great Britain, to an iconic Prairie-style home by Frank Lloyd Wright. From the factory that housed Henry Ford's first Model T moving assembly line, to the original indoor regional shopping mall. From H.H. Richardson's iconic Trinity Church in Boston, to Frank Gehry's game-changing Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

10 Homes that Changed America highlights 10 architecturally adventuresome dwellings, which provided Americans with more than just a "roof over their heads" – these homes elevated living to an art form. Meet the talented architects who brought these buildings to life, along with their often-eccentric clients, and the lucky individuals who live in these historic homes today. A primer in domestic architecture, 10 Homes will also offer a lesson in the history of American domestic life, as the evolving design of these homes over time reveals Americans' changing relationship with nature, technology, and each other.

10 Parks that Changed America tells the story of 10 visionaries who took open canvases of God-forsaken land, and transformed them into serene spaces that offer city dwellers a respite from the hustle and bustle of urban life. From the elegant squares of Savannah, Georgia, to a park built over a freeway in Seattle, to the more recent High Line in New York, each story introduces the heroes who brought these parks to life, and the villains who preferred to exploit the land for private enterprise. Discover the evolution of our nation's city parks, and learn the history of landscape architecture – an American-born art in which human beings try their best to mimic nature.

10 Towns that Changed America focuses on ten "experimental" towns that did not evolve organically over time, but instead were designed (or redesigned) from the ground up by visionary architects, corporations, and citizens, who sought to change the lives of residents using architecture, design, and urban planning. Some of these visionaries were driven by an ideology, others were trying to serve their own financial interests, but all had one thing in common: they believed in the power of our built environment to change the way we live.

Visit influential towns across the country from Greenbelt, Maryland, and Seaside, Florida, to Riverside, Illinois, and Levittown, New York, that had a lasting impact on the way our cities and suburbs are designed.

It's a whirlwind tour of 10 streets that change the way we get around. 10 Streets that Changed America begins and ends on Broadway in New York. We'll trace the street's 400-year evolution: from Native American road, to Dutch trading route, to the home of America's earliest public transit, to an electrically-lighted theater district known as the "Great White Way." At the end of program we'll see how Broadway has become the poster child for the "complete streets" movement, in which automobiles take a back seat to more sustainable forms of transit.

Elsewhere in this episode we'll ride from Boston to New York on a dirt "highway," which was created for the nation's first mail carriers. In New Orleans we'll take America's oldest streetcar line out to some of the nation's first suburbs, and in Detroit we'll drive a Model T along America's first mile of concrete-paved road. We'll explore a car-friendly street created by a 1920s entrepreneur who predicted that Los Angeles would be dominated by the automobile, and take a horse and carriage on a Brooklyn parkway that was built on the proposition that streets should be scenic. It's an episode about how streets have connected the nation, divided communities, and changed the way Americans live, work, and shop.

It's a whirlwind tour of 10 wholly-original American monuments, and the historical moments that inspired them. We'll visit little-known locations like the Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial, a sculptural masterpiece dedicated to one of the first African-American units to serve in the Civil War; and we'll explore the surprising stories behind American favorites like the Statue of Liberty, which was devised as a propaganda piece by French republican politicians.

It's an episode full of epic battles over how to remember our past: from Maya Lin's fight to design the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, to the ongoing controversies over confederate monuments across the South. We'll discover pivotal moments in the evolution of American monuments when daring artists found new ways to honor our history.

It's a whirlwind tour of 10 engineering feats that made our civilization possible. 10 Modern Marvels that Changed America is a show about engineers who've scoffed at the laws of nature. They've defied the naysayers — and sometimes even gravity — by undertaking amazing feats of engineering. Each story in this episode includes a fun physics lesson and a tale of human folly.

We begin at the Erie Canal, a 363-mile-long man-made waterway that was built in the 19th century by thousands of laborers using primitive hand tools. Then we'll show how professional engineers connected our growing nation by building magnificent bridges, intricate rail networks, and a continent-wide system of freeways. And we'll discover the extreme measures that engineers have taken to deliver water from distant rivers to our kitchen sinks. It's easy to take these modern marvels for granted. After all, we usually access our roads, bridges and drinking water effortlessly. But behind many of our daily conveniences there is a clever engineer, and a remarkable story.