Our series on the future of Toronto returns with this fascinating film about one of the world's earliest—and most ambitious—attempts to build a "smart city". The Minnesota Experimental City was a futuristic effort to solve urban problems by creating a full-size city from scratch in the isolated woods of northern Minnesota. Conceived by renowned inventor Athelstan Spilhaus in the 1960s, the MXC sought to employ the newest technologies—even a large-scale dome inspired by Buckminster Fuller—in an attempt to create more livable spaces for the 21st century. But not everyone fell in line with this newfangled vision for the future. At a moment when Toronto is considering numerous "smart city" projects, including the now world-famous Quayside neighborhood being designed by Google's Sidewalk Labs, The Experimental City couldn't be more timely or relevant.
Following the screening, journalist John Lorinc (Spacing, Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail) will moderate a Q&A with tech entrepreneur Saadia Muzaffar, founder of Tech Girls Canada and co-founder of Tech Reset Canada, and Ken Greenberg former Director of Urban Design and Architecture for the City Toronto, author of Toronto Reborn, and adviser to Sidewalk Labs Toronto.
Promotional Partners: Architectural Conservancy Ontario, Building Equality in Architecture (BEAT), Evergreen Brick Works and Innis College: Urban Studies