Film and fiction have played a significant role in framing visions of the future. As the world tries to tackle climate change and population growth, where does the future lie and what will it look like?

Writer Austin Williams talks to George Ferguson CBE, architect and cultural entrepreneur, and Jon Turney, author of the ‘Rough Guide to the Future’, about how we have shifted from Metropolis to cataclysmic dystopian nightmares and ask and what has happened to utopian vision?

George Ferguson CBE, for services to architecture, is founder of the Acanthus network of architects, designer/architect of At-Bristol, champion of urban regeneration, President of the Royal Institue of British Architects 2003 - 2005 and Bristol City Council's first liberal councillor in the seventies.

Jon Turney is a science writer and journalist, editor and teacher. He has worked as Science Editor of the Times Higher Education supplement, Director of Science at Penguin Publishing, senior lecturer in Science Communication at University College London. His latest book The Rough Guide to the Future will be available in November 2010.

Austin Williams is Director of The Future Cities Project, a writer and a programme maker for the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Presented by Festival of Ideas and Watershed in association with the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Related Links:
Royal Institute of British Architects
Future Cities
Festival of Ideas

A Festival of Ideas event in partnership with Watershed.

Posted on Sun 19 Sept 2010.

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