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The grotesquely beautiful ceramic and brass wind chimes of Arcosanti
are the joint creation of Paolo Soleri and his wife, Colly. Sold
in malls and over the Internet, the bells of Arcosanti have gradually
become familiar fixtures in homes and schools around the world.
Yet, the bells are more than a dash of fashion with which to
accent our surroundings. They are a call to arms against the compound
problems of an exploding world population, worsening pollution,
shrinking resources, and poor public policy. The alarm over our
global environmental situation has only recently been raised,
but Soleri has been sounding his warning bells for nearly fifty
years.
Originating from Turin, Italy, Soleri received a doctorate in
architecture, graduating with highest honors from Torino Polytechnico
University in 1946. In 1947 he studied under the master architect
Frank Lloyd Wright and soon gained world recognition as a seminal
designer of bridges and commercial buildings. Then one day he
paused to think about what he was contributing to the world.
What he saw was an "unwieldy sprawl for miles." Commenting
in his book Earth's Answer (1977), he realized that cities are
gradually transforming the Earth, "turning farms into parking
lots while wasting enormous amounts of time and energy transporting
people, goods, and services over their vast expanses." A
typical city, he noted, devotes up to sixty percent of its land
for roads and parking lots - and there never seems to be enough
of either.
Soleri's observations crystallized into a revolutionary notion:
miniaturize the city to a human scale that enables conservation
of land, energy, and other resources; in short, a wholesale reconstruction
of the Earth's cities into ecologically sustainable urban systems.
He framed his nonconformist concepts into a new discipline called
'arcology': the fusion of architecture, urban design, and ecology.
Paradoxically, arcology promotes the city as a means to save
the environment and humankind. As our populations grow and the
demand for food and energy increases, we must concentrate more
of our living space into smaller, easily manageable habitats.
Doing so, he claims, will not only achieve ecological preservation,
but human preservation as well.
He spent 10 years building up a promising architectural career
in Italy and went to Scottsdale, Arizona to begin a crusade to
save the urban human from its worst enemy - itself. In 1956, he
and his wife began searching the arid, open spaces for a place
that would help seed their movement. After a few months of searching,
they found a little plot of land about 60 miles from Phoenix near
a place called Cordes Junction.
Work on the prototype began almost immediately; a city they named
Arcosanti. Envisioned for a population of 7,000 people, the project
began modestly with an experimental 'Earth House'. Since then,
Soleri, his students, and hundreds of volunteers from around the
world have expanded Arcosanti to include various studios, classrooms,
housing, and common use areas. According to the official Website,
arcosanti.org, the habitat is an 'urban laboratory' - an experiment
that will ultimately see a compact, complex urban structure with
large-scale solar greenhouses occupying 10 acres of a 4,000 acre
preserve.
Some critics are not kind to Arcosanti. They point to forty-four
years of work with a lackluster 10 percent of the master plan
completed as evidence of its failure. After earning the dubious
title as an official Arizona tourist site in the late 1970s, Arcosanti
looks more like an amusement park, playing host to numerous festivals,
conferences, and performances. In the meantime, true arcology
- as defined by its creator - remains as elusive as ever.
Despite these and other problems, Soleri's supporters maintain
that the Arcosanti experiment is immensely successful as a teaching
laboratory. They also point to the fact that the project has captivated
the imaginations of a new breed of architects and urban planners
who are willing to challenge established standards and trends.
Since achieving world status with the 1971 landmark book, Arcology:
The City in the Image of Man, Acrosanti has become the Mecca
for students of architecture, urban planning, and design. The
city also entertains a wide range of professional disciplines
and is the center of attention for Earth-minded engineering such
as recycled resources and renewable energy. Experimental 'green
cities' are springing up like mushrooms as more and more Arcosanti-inspired
urbanists probe ways of codifying arcological theory for practical
use.
Inspired by Soleri's 'contained living space' concepts, the William
McDonough's Coffee Creek Center in Indiana uses photovoltaic-paneled
houses and wind farms as a primary source of power. Homes near
Boulder, Colorado have been using Soleri's greenhouse designs
for decades. Soleri himself has been commissioned to draft urban
redevelopment plans for major cities in the United States and
Europe, and he has designed various designs for space colonization
habitats.
A few years ago, in an apparent capitulation in the debate over
long-term use of fossil fuels, major automakers began planning
new nonpolluting fuel-cell transportation, and homeowners can
now go to their local home improvement retailer and purchase photovoltaic
panels for their homes.
Despite these successes, still the work on Arcosanti goes slowly;
it takes money to build a city and at times money has been a scarce
commodity. That's where the bells came in. According to Soleri,
the idea grew gradually, coming in phases rather than all at one
time.
After his tenure with Wright and upon his return to Italy in
1948, Soleri's first major architectural work was a major ceramics
factory. The project was enormously successful and Soleri ended
up with enough experience in the ceramics business to start his
own factory; an asset that Colly deftly used to launch Cosanti
Originals after construction on Arcosanti began.
The famous bells became a fixture in the Arcosanti realm soon
after both operations were in full stride. Since then sales of
windchimes and other Cosanti artifacts have been a major source
of funds for construction, maintenance, and other expenses. Soleri
remarks that if somebody told him that Arcosanti would be funded
through the sale of bells, "I would have called them crazy."
Neither arcology nor Arcosanti may provide all the answers we
need to solve our problems, but the gentle gong of the bells remind
us that decisive action is anxiously waiting. Unlike his critics
and the cynically minded, Soleri is hopeful that some future generation
will take up the cause. "It is much too late for our present
generation, bound to the spell of arrogance and license. It may
even be quite late for the just born, but there is hope for the
children of our children. The when is now, for lack of any reachable
yesterday." -HP
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