Architecture at the Crossroads

First transmitted in 1986, a look at how some young architects are reacting against modernist sterility with an exuberant return to traditional forms.

We are living in an age of experiment. The 80s have seen a rich crop of radical and controversial ideas about the form and content of buildings. This second of ten programmes looks at four high-profile movements in modern architecture.

The newly-acquired oil wealth has brought an unprecedented boom to the Middle East and, as a consequence, a massive programme of new buildings. At first the Arabs looked to the West, at a time when architecture there had reached its worst phase in history.

Modern architecture has revived the concept of the open 'galleria' and the 'atrium'. All over the world the traditional town square is giving way to the pedestrian precinct and the shopping mall.

Next year the once devastated inner-city of Berlin sees the most exciting and historic event in present-day city planning. It has taken eight years to create the mammoth International Building Exhibition, with a cast list of contributors that reads like a Who's Who of contemporary architecture.

In Japan architects and designers enjoy a public fame and prestige far greater than any painter or sculptor. Three quarters of the 90 million people are packed into a narrow corridor, the strip of land between Tokyo and Hiroshima.