3.1.
Athelstan Spilhaus ‘Our New Age’ comics published in 1966.
“Spilhaus was a man who saw science as the solution to the problems of the world, and became a public figure presenting his ideas of utopia in everyday life through his comic strip "Our New Age." During the mid-1960s, he conceived an ambitious plan to condense his ideas into a prototype for future cities that would be both noiseless and fumeless, accommodating America's growing population and their by-products.”7
Figure 10. Minnesota Experimental City: the 1960s town based on a comic strip
Spilhaus envisaged a 21st century city to be built in Minnesota that was technologically advanced, sustainable and could solve the ever-increasing problem of population and decay of cities due to pollution and exhaustion of resources, in the 1960s. His ideas dealt with providing more civic spaces on the ground and all air pollution removal and waste management utilities happen underground. It was also adorned with the classic Buckminster Fullers geodesic dome8 that promised climate control and a balanced energy system.
7
https://www.archdaily.com/883414/the-experimental-city-of-the-future-that-never-got-built A geodesic dome is a hemispherical thin-shell structure (lattice-shell) based on a geodesic polyhedron. The triangular elements of the dome are structurally rigid and distribute the structural stress throughout the structure, making geodesic domes able to withstand very heavy loads for their size. 8
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