China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey: the Forbidden City, Zen and Buddhist monasteries, stupas, mosques, caravanserais and Roman Perge.
30 programs
Mountain fortresses, city walls, stone pyramids and burial chambers covered in murals: the archaeological legacy of the Koguryo kingdom in north-east China, inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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Fengguo Monastery preserves a great wooden hall whose row of colossal Buddha figures has been receiving worshippers for centuries. The film examines the carpentry, the sculpture and the painted surfaces.
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At Shenyang, the Fuling Mausoleum holds the tomb of Nurhaci, founder of the Qing house. Spirit way, stairways, gates and burial mound compose a funerary landscape inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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Before the Forbidden City, there was Shenyang. The Mukden Palace preserves the ceremonial architecture of the early Qing rulers, a blend of Manchu, Han and Mongol traditions listed as World Heritage.
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Moat, gates, marble terraces and the great ceremonial halls: the first part follows the Forbidden City along its imperial axis, from the outer defences to the throne of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
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The second part moves past the ceremonial halls into the inner court, the residential palaces, the gardens and the collections, where the daily life of the imperial household comes into focus.
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A Sikh gurdwara in the Punjab, Amb Sahib is associated in Sikh tradition with the visit of a Guru. Its white domes, its continuous recitation and its free community kitchen structure the life of the surrounding town.
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In the old quarter of Kashan, the Agha Bozorg complex combines a mosque and a madrasa on two levels, arranged around a courtyard sunk below street level. Built in the late eighteenth century, it is one of the most rigorously composed buildings in central Iran.
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Standing alone in the plains of Khorasan, Robat-e Sharaf is a fortified caravanserai of the Seljuk period. Behind blank outer walls, two successive courtyards reveal some of the most refined brickwork and stucco in medieval Iranian architecture.
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One of the largest historic houses of Kashan, the Ameri residence unfolds through a succession of courtyards, reception halls and service wings. Built for a leading family of the city and enlarged over generations, it has been restored and returned to use.
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In the old town of Kashan, the Sultan Amir Ahmad bathhouse preserves its columned changing hall, its heated chambers and its celebrated tilework. Above, the roof forms a field of low domes pierced by convex glass skylights.
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Founded in Kamakura under the patronage of the Hojo regents and led by a Chinese Chan master, Kencho-ji was conceived as a full monastic training centre. First of the city's Five Mountains, it remains an active Rinzai monastery.
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Among the largest mosques in Central Asia, Bishkek's central mosque was built in recent years in an Ottoman-inspired idiom, its great dome and slender minarets giving the Kyrgyz capital a new architectural landmark.
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In Kyrgyzstan, a mosque gathers its neighbourhood five times a day. The film observes its architecture, its courtyard and its congregation, offering an unhurried look at Muslim practice in a Central Asian country.
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One of the main markets of Bishkek, Osh Bazaar is a dense, noisy world of stalls where food, textiles and household goods change hands from dawn. The film follows a day inside a Central Asian market and the trades that keep it running.
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Gandantegchinlen is the principal monastery of Mongolian Buddhism and the spiritual centre of Ulaanbaatar. Its great hall shelters a colossal gilded statue of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, rebuilt after the destruction of the socialist era.
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South of Ulaanbaatar, in a forested valley of the Bogd Khan mountain, Manzushir Monastery was destroyed during the political purges of the socialist era. Foundations and rock inscriptions remain, with a single restored temple.
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In Ulaanbaatar, the winter residence of the last Bogd Khan, both spiritual leader and head of state, is now a museum. Its temple gates and palace preserve ceremonial robes, religious art and the gifts of foreign envoys.
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One of the largest stupas in the world, Boudhanath is the centre of Tibetan Buddhist life in Kathmandu. Pilgrims circle its white dome day and night beneath the painted eyes of the tower, in a World Heritage valley.
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Crowning a hill west of Kathmandu, Swayambhunath is among the oldest and most venerated sanctuaries in Nepal. Reached by a long stairway, its stupa is a place of Buddhist and Hindu worship alike, within a World Heritage valley.
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Rising from the sands of the Cholistan desert in southern Punjab, Derawar Fort presents an immense square enclosure ringed by dozens of towering bastions in patterned brick, with a royal mosque and necropolis alongside.
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In the Walled City of Lahore, this haveli is among the best-preserved mansions of the Sikh period. Behind its carved timber facade lie frescoed rooms, mirrored ceilings and a courtyard now filled with the noise of a school.
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Rebuilt by Akbar and enlarged by three of his successors, Lahore Fort gathers audience halls, marble pavilions and mirrored chambers behind monumental walls. Four centuries of Mughal ambition, craftsmanship and conquest remain legible across a single citadel.
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Built at Suwon in the late eighteenth century by King Jeongjo, Hwaseong combines Korean and imported military engineering. Documented in exhaustive detail at the time, it could be restored precisely after wartime damage.
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Jongmyo is the Confucian royal ancestral shrine of the Joseon dynasty. Its austere main hall, extended over generations into an immense colonnade, still hosts the ancestral rite with its music and dance.
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In the crowded Pettah district of Colombo stands one of the city's principal Hindu temples, dedicated to Shiva. Its sculpted gopuram and daily rituals bring South Indian temple tradition into a Sri Lankan port city.
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Antalya holds the Mediterranean coast of Turkey where the Taurus Mountains meet the sea. Its old quarter, Kaleiçi, wraps around a Roman harbour and preserves in a few hundred metres the marks of Rome, Byzantium, the Seljuks and the Ottomans.
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Izmir's Karatas quarter is home to Beth Israel, one of the largest active synagogues of a city whose Jewish community traces its roots to the Sephardim who settled in the Ottoman Empire after the expulsion from Spain.
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A short drive from Antalya, Perge preserves one of the most complete urban plans of Roman Anatolia: a colonnaded avenue with its water channel, a theatre, one of the best preserved stadiums in the region and a Hellenistic gate with round towers.
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On Ayasuluk Hill above Selcuk, the emperor Justinian raised a vast cruciform basilica over the site traditionally venerated as the tomb of John the Evangelist. Its marble columns, nave and tomb chamber still command the plain of Ephesus.
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