Habitat 67

This guide to Habitat 67 in Montreal follows architect Moshe Safdie, barely thirty, adapting his McGill thesis into 354 stacked concrete modules for Expo 67, chasing a dream of affordable housing that collapsed almost immediately when federal financing fell through. It traces the ballooning budget, the officials who wrote the complex off as a money-loser, and the moment in 1985 when the tenants living inside banded together to buy the building from Ottawa. Listen for what that gamble turned out to be worth.