The Experimental City

In the 1960s, Athelstan Spilhaus – a visionary scientist and futurist comic strip writer – assembled a team of experts to develop a bold experiment: the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC). Frustrated by the growing problem of urban pollution, Spilhaus designed this new city to employ the latest technologies in communications, transport, pollution control and energy supply: all under a large domed enclosure.
But when a site in northern Minnesota was selected, politicians and sceptical scientists united to challenge the project. With access to amazing recordings of committee meetings and taped interviews with Spilhaus himself, the director, Chad Freidrichs, paints a most involving portrait of the man, the changing ‘60s and an idea that almost revolutionised the planet.

Introduction by Teele Pehk and Ignar Fjuk