When I was about 15 I toured Soleri's Cosanti Foundation with my parents and was
much impressed with the earth cast architecture and bells.  The thing I liked
best was a sort of half dome over a swimming pool with a line of elegant Chinese
characters raised along the edge.  My father asked our tour guide what the
inscription meant and was told that it was something to the effect of "drink a
lot of beer and have a really good time", which I thought was an imminently
sensible and useful injunction.  We also toured Taliesin West on that trip, and
I was struck by the idea that nobody there was having anywhere near as much fun
as the folks at Cosanti.  After that trip I spent a lot of time digging holes
and making earth cast bells, and read Soleri's book "The Bridge Between Matter
and Spirit is Matter Becoming Spirit.  I also tried to emulate his drawing style
on all those fabulous rendering of the different types of arcologies (fine point
black Bic pen).  Soleri came and did a lecture my freshman year of architecture
school ('71).  I got to meet Soleri at the reception afterward and he told me
that if I came to Arcosanti he would teach me how to run a bull dozer.  Soleri
may well have been one of the most intense and charismatic people I have ever
met, and the prospect of running a bull dozer was close to irresistible.  My
mother was somewhat less than enthusiastic about the idea of her 19 year
daughter running off to the Arizona desert with a bunch of "hippies", although
she did rather admire Soleri's ideas.  Anyway, the following summer I got a job
in preservation and decided that old reconstructing old ranch buildings was a
lot more interesting than Utopian mega urban collectives.

I did get a chance to tour Arcosanti about 4 years ago.  The bell foundry was
great, and I especially liked the cats (felines) that were hanging out among the
tables of unfinished castings.  Soleri was puttering around the site looking
old, but extremely spry and vigorous in the most amazingly ragged shorts and tee
shirt I've ever seen.  The structures manage to be both wonderful and somewhat
depressing at the same time.  The site was pretty deserted (it was Sunday) and
there wasn't a lot of evidence of new construction.   It was a little bit like
wandering around a long abandoned industrial site.  The buildings look great
from a distance, but up close the concrete is blotchy and full of voids, lots of
exfoliating rebar . . . talk about a preservation nightmare.  The gift
shop/gallery was full of Soleri's books and videos detailing the vision of the
arcology as the urban future, but it seemed like something out of time warp in a
present where Disney's Celebration seems to reflect the more dominant paradigm
for Utopian planning. . .  batch-mixed concrete vs EIFS(?!)

Lisa

-----Original Message-----
From:   David west <[log in to unmask]>
Sent:   Thursday, August 26, 1999 9:37 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Soleri and Arcosanti

 << File: TXT1.TXT >> >>> Lawrence Kestenbaum <[log in to unmask]> 26/08/99
23:44:25 >>>wrote

"I spent most of the summer of 1975 working on Paolo Soleri's project,
Arcosanti, in central Arizona."

On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, Cuyler Page wrote:

"a serious and mindblowing apprenticeship with an architectural visionary, Paolo
Soleri in Arizona ('61 to '63)"

Any other Soleri pilgrims out there?  I spent some time reading about his work
when I was in architecture school.  Being enthused about mud brick construction
at that time (which was dominated by non-architects trying to be architects), I
was captivated by the total concept of Arcosanti.  Now I can't barely remember
the details.

Any news on current status?  Won't that be a 'fun' preservation challenge -
because it is more than simply the structures that need preservation ... how do
you maintain the entire rationale for the community?

david