The Experimental City is a documentary about the Minnesota Experimental City project, a futuristic attempt to solve urban problems by creating a full-size city from scratch in the isolated woods of northern Minnesota.
At the heart of the story is renowned scientist, inventor and comic-strip author Athelstan Spilhaus, who dreams of a new kind of planned city – a truly experimental city that continuously changes to find workable urban solutions.
This new city would employ the newest technologies in communications, transport, pollution control, energy supply – even large-scale domed enclosure – in an attempt to create more livable cities for the 21st Century.
It was a compelling vision, with powerful backers, hundreds of experts, and its own state agency.
But not everyone fell in line with this newfangled vision for the future.
“A fantasia of mid-20th century
techo-utopian fervor”
–The Atlantic's CityLab
“Even more relevant today
than it was in the 1960’s”
–NextCity
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