Building Big with David Macaulay: Dams on AllMovie

David Macaulay, the renowned author/ illustrator of The Way Things Work, has a knack for demystifying mechanical structures by explaining the engineering, physics, and human ingenuity that have gone into their design -- although in sum, his explanations usually make the man-made world seem ever more curious and phenomenal. In WGBH Boston's Building Big series, Macaulay visits the world's great architectural structures to tell their stories and the stories of the men who built them; here he discusses Frank "Hurry Up" Crowe -- the merciless chief engineer of the Hoover Dam, the effect of the Aswan Dam on Nubian society, and the cause of the Johnstown Flood of 1889 -- a disaster that produced 2200 casualties. The video also includes a mini dam-making activity.