Think Big! Build Your Evening Around The New `Skyscraper'

If your concept of what architecture is all about stems from that wonderfully awful screen classic, ``The Fountainhead,'' PBS has a series for you: ``Skyscraper,'' the first episode of which airs at 9 tonight on KCTS-TV. It's the best TV program about building anything since the film interpretation of the documentary based on David Macaulay's ``Cathedral.''

A skyscraper is one of the largest, most complicated things man can build, and this five-part series is a step-by-step look at just how complicated it can be, from the architect's first imaginings on paper to the finished structure. That may not sound particularly fascinating, but trust me, it is. As ``Skyscraper'' moves along, each scene builds toward the central theme that constructing a skyscraper the size and complexity of Worldwide Plaza in a congested, confused city like New York is nothing short of miraculous.

Worldwide Plaza is a 47-story office complex on Eighth Avenue, between 49th and 50th streets in New York City. It began in 1984 when developer William Zeckendorf Jr. bought a parking lotthere, and went to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to hire them to design a skyscraper for that spot.

The chief architect was David Childs, who with his team began designing the building in 1985, a structure that was budgeted at $550 million - and for which the interest on the loan to build it was $100,000 a day. The third important member of this triumvirate was Dominic Fonti, the construction manager from HRH Construction. But as ``Skyscraper'' makes increasingly clear, they are all at the mercy of hundreds of other forces, over most of which they have very little control.

Because of the cost and because of the insanity of trying to do anything in New York City, timing is of the essence. Thus, building Worldwide Plaza, a complex that has apartments, theaters, shops, restaurants - more rentable space than the Empire State Building - becomes a challenge of trying to get everything (men and materials) assembled precisely when needed. And as ``Skyscraper'' pursues the details of this building, we're treated to an inside look at just how complicated an exercise this is.

It's also a lesson in interrelatedness - the steel comes from Luxembourg, but it's processed in Houston, and shipped by barge to New Jersey, where it's stored (each piece precisely, carefully marked and numbered) until needed at the building site. There's an engrossing segment showing how the testing of the building's surface is conducted, in terms of weather (and found wanting).

And because the cameras were everywhere, we're treated to some testy sessions which reinforce the knowledge that building a skyscraper may be the most collaborative of any sort of building - and one in which anything can (and probably will) go wrong.

You'll also learn about the intricacies of financing - the first floors were sold to an ad agency, Zeckendorf knowing that their prestige would help sell others on locating in the building. But the agency also wanted to make architectural and structural changes - which tended to throw a lot of monkey wrenches into the building's progress.

The only thing ``Skyscraper'' doesn't particularly cover is the legal complications in terms of municipal regulations, always a major part of any building project. Nevertheless, that's a small flaw in what is otherwise a compelling look at how a skyscraper gets built. Tonight's episode goes from incubation to the time when the first steel beams are put into place - another exciting segment.

The fifth episode will look at skyscrapers in general. By then, knowing what we've soaked up from the preceding four episodes, we'll probably approach those buildings with a great deal more interest and appreciation than we now possess.

Video notes: Cable's HBO repeats the entertaining Carly Simon music special, featuring songs by Rodgers and Hart, at 7 tonight, the same time Showtime repeats the newest ``Coast to Coast'' music special, emphasizing rock, also on cable. . . . ABC's ``Who's the Boss'' has its season finale at 8 tonight on KOMO-TV. . . . CBS' ``Rescue 911'' repeats some of its most popular segments in a special at 8 tonight on KIRO-TV. . . . KTPS-TV begins the award-winning epic about the Holocaust, ``Shoah,'' with a three-hour segment tonight at 8. . . . ABC presents the second episode - a good one - of ``Brewster Place'' at 9:30 tonight on KOMO-TV, before moving the series to its regular slot of 9:30 p.m. Wednesdays, tomorrow night. . . . KCTS-TV begins a repeat of Bill Moyers' four-part, on-target exploration of public opinion, ``The Public Mind,'' with an episode titled ``Consuming Images,'' at 10

tonight.

John Voorhees' column appears daily in The Times.