Whether serving as Christian church, Islamic mosque, orsecular museum, Hagia Sophia and its saring dome have inspiredreverence and awe. For 800 years, it was the largest enclosedbuilding in the world-the Statue of Liberty can fit beneath itsdome with room to spare. How has it survived its location onone of the world's most active seismic faults, which hasinflicted a dozen devastating earthquakes since it was built in537? As Istanbul braces for the next big quake, a team ofarchitects and engineers is urgently investigating HagiaSophia's seismic secrets. Follow engineers as they build amassive 8-ton model of the building's core structure, place iton a motorized shake table, and hit it with a series ofsimulated quakes, pushing it collapse-a fate that the team isdetermined to avoid with the real building.
