Well, I'm not sure where even to begin in talking about Arcosanti. Take the dirt road 2 miles from I-17 exit 262, Cordes Junction. It is the brainchild of visionary Italian architect Paolo Soleri. It is a perpetual work in progress, an experiment and lab for exploring his idea of Arcology (coined from the words architecture and ecology,) in which an entire city would be condensed into one organic multi-layered structure. Although I am by nature skeptical of projects centered around the singular notions of ego-star supposed geniuses, after 2 days of poking around, talking, and reading here, I am quite prepared to acknowledge that Soleri is a true genius and that his ideas and philosophy (and he really is a bona fide philosopher) are very important contributions to the vital problem of living sustainably in the world.
He was born in 1919, worked for a time under Frank Lloyd Wright, settled permanently in Arizona in the 1950's. His early work was similar to other modernist monumentalists of the time, designs for enormous futuristic cities with the uses segregated, everything crisp and rational. Then an insight came to him, and around the same time (1955) he discovered and was influenced by the writings of evolutionary philosopher Pierre Tielhard de Chardin, (who among other things invented the concept of the noosphere.) Soleri's insight was that rather than spreading like a blight across the wide landscape, a city could be miniaturized into one integral, complex but vital 3 dimensional unit, in which for example, several thousand people could live on several acres, completely free of automobiles, with large semi-interior spaces, numerous openings to nature, and a fraction of the total resource usage and waste of a typical American city. Soleri thus departed radically from the usual ways of thinking in terms of individual buildings. He saw far earlier than most people that the logical conclusion of pursuing the American dream of a house in a neighborhood and a car to get everywhere would be a virtual doomsday of sprawl and blight. Whether or not his designs are to your taste, they function as the philosophical antithesis of sprawl and car-addiction. They are more than buildings, rather the entire city compacted and 3-dimensionalized into an arcology. So since 1970 he's been trying, despite almost total indifference (until the last couple of years) from the mainstream of architecture and planning, to build an agrology on several acres of 860 he purchased here. The only funding he has ever gotten is from sales of his Soleri bronze cast wind-bells and tuition for the 5 week workshops in which students essentially pay to help build the place.
The people here freely acknowledge that Arcosanti will never be finished, any more than any city is ever finished, but it is if nothing else a very interesting laboratory for trying a compelling idea that, if adopted and invested in elsewhere, could go a long way toward saving us from ourselves. It might all seem airy and idealistic, and Arcosanti itself like something from science fiction (all curving lines of cast concrete, stairs and walkways snaking up and down, hidden niches and dwelling spaces, a performance bowl with an airy canopy roof and shallow water pool around the stage) but it has the power of an idea. You can't underestimate that. The way we currently live (car addicted 1-story sprawl) was not inevitable and is obviously reaching the end of its usefulness. New ideas based on ancient tried and true principles (compactness, proximity to services, closeness to nature) will resonate with people sick to death of being stuck in traffic.
I've also spent the last day reading a really excellent book on this general topic, and I have to rigorously recommend it: "Ecocities: Building Cities in Balance With Nature" by Richard Register. He invented the term "ecocity" and this book is an exciting collection of ideas and solutions. I don't usually like to recommend particular books to a wide audience, but I have to display my geekdom for this topic and do so here. The author's basic premise is that the fundamental environmental issue is land use and urban/architectural design, and that all the other issues (resource use/abuse, pollution, loss of countryside and species, etc.) flow from that. He believes that "when built and functioning well, the city can be a tool for bringing culture into harmony with nature," not just a collection of buildings but "a living system in which we reside,": constructed by us but, like any organism, integral with the world. And with not just a neutral impact but a new and higher harmony and diversity. Sounds idealistic I know, but it is refreshing to think in optimistic solution-oriented terms. I know for sure I'd much rather live in a fully realized ecocity than any suburb in existence. People will more and more realize the prevalence of that hunger, and the city as we know it will be radically rebuilt.
Next stop after here is Sedona, where I expect lots of idealism, but of a much more individualistic, trophy-home-esque variety, however much couched in New Age platitudes. But I guess I shouldn't pre-judge.
Posted by danreedmiller at May 20, 2003 04:12 PM