The Experimental City, Studying Building Types, Architectural Article
The Experimental City – Article by Brian Carter
Architecture Design, Building Type Discussion – article by Brian Carter, Buffalo, NY, USA
Nov 19, 2018
The Experimental City
A November screening of THE EXPERIMENTAL CITY caught my eye – The Monthly Report
The film, shown in London, focuses on a plan for a new city where 250,000 people could live under a single roof over a remote spot in America. That plan, produced in the sixties and devised by the Minnesota Experimental City Authority, highlighted a brave new world and the recent showing references a continuing pre-occupation with cities and complex collections of people, cultures, commerce and things.
Chicago aerial photograph courtesy of Jan Klerks
This particular screening also seems timely after the latest news from Europe. While Venice is submerged a receding River Rhine is leaving inland ports between Koblenz and Mainz high and dry. Simultaneously as Londoners are apparently choking on ever more noxious air so Berliners continue to wait for the check-in gates at their new airport to open after a seven year delay. These European cities appear to be decidedly un-resilient, hardly sentient and distinctly scruffy rather than smart.
Meanwhile North America, albeit torn by political strife, continues to cultivate cities. History helps here. The early pegging out of egalitarian grids from coast to coast has combined with inspired plan...