An immersive journey into San Francisco's 80-Year affordable housing experiment

San Francisco is now known as the most expensive housing market in the United States. It’s the opposite of affordable housing. But lurking amidst gleaming towers and $5000/month 1-bedrooms is a hidden city of affordable housing that has a dramatic past and a well-funded future. Walking Cinema:  Museum of the Hidden City opens this city of affordability up to audiences and explores how affordable housing here is simultaneously a giant failure and an evolving process just coming into its own.

The Museum of the Hidden City is a museum without walls. Its exhibits are out in the world: in stores, churches, office buildings, and on the streets. The Museum is experienced with an audio and augmented reality app you download to your smartphone. It will guide you through the museum and open up a hidden world of housing history all around you.

Use the links below to get the free app then grab some headphones, check the recommended hours, and head on out.

DOWNLOAD The App HERE:  

Note: The iPhone version works best on iPhone 8 and newer. For earlier model iPhones download the “Lite” version, which doesn’t have Augmented Reality but is still a great immersive trip. Also, the Google Play version is currently without Augmented Reality.

Update: The experience is fully open and operational during COVID. Museum of the Hidden City adheres to San Francisco coronavirus policies as it is outdoors and socially-distanced. Please bring your own mask, headphones and a fully-charged phone. Recommended hours of visitation:

TU-FR:  Start between 10am-11am or 12:45-4pm

SA:  10:45am-5pm

SU:  CLOSED

MON:  10-4:30PM (but one stop is closed)

The first chapter in this four-part Museum, focuses on the Fillmore neighborhood in the 1960’s and 70’s. It was here that the Redevelopment Agency started its largest slum clearance project ever. The daughter of a local minister and a progressive architect both lived through this saga in a drastically different, but surprisingly connected ways. Hear their stories as told by two young poets from our partners at Youth Speaks.    

WATCH THE TRAILER

THE EXPERIENCE: IMMERSIVE AUDIO + AR

Walking Cinema is an award-winning studio that specializes in stories that combine digital and real world elements. For THE MUSEUM OF THE HIDDEN CITY we are looking at ways to get inside San Francisco’s multi-decade housing crisis. What we came up with is a museum-like experience that is guided by a compelling, character-driven story. Kind of like the Alcatraz audio tour, but placed out in the neighborhoods where big events in housing history happened.