Paolo Soleri studied with Frank Lloyd Wright and began to experiment with the idea of sustainable neighborhood since the 50~60s. In 1970, he finally was able to begin to realize his dream with the Arcosanti project located an hour north of Scottsdale.
There is also a smaller project, the Cosanti project, which is located in Scottsdale where Paolo still lives at. It is opened to the public so my friend and I were able to visit both sites.
So I will let you guys wiki both Corsanti and Arcosanti projects for their history. I will just provide the experience and photos.
Walking into the Corsanti site, first thing I noticed is, this is not about one building. This is a network of infrastructure. There is not a prominent tall standing structure that represents it as an icon. Every building is low below the tree line, therefore it looked more like dewellings among the desert forest. It is very hard to describe the architecture. It is extremely organic. It seems that there is not a particular plan and is still growing. It seems like this is like a plant’s root, growing as needed and available. There are a lot of dome-like strictures, however, with what seems like very primitative technique of concrete using crude molding.
The site also houses foundary to produce wind bells for sale. In fact, the entire site is decorated with wind bells with price tags on them, with designs that speaks the same language as the architecture where they are produced.
Visiting the Corsanti site created a lot more questions than answers. So we headed to the Arcosanti site next.
Arcosanti is located an hour north of Scottsdale close to the I-15 highway. It is 3 miles from the freeway in the middle of the desert canyon. Arcosanti itself is like the magnified version of Corsanti. Instead of a small private residence size building, it is set to be a town community.
Paolo Soleri’s main idea is that he believes that a community designed to be self sufficient, where people don’t need to travel far, will promote sustainable living. Arcosanti is the experiment. In 1970, Paolo was granted the use of land. People flocked to Arcosanti to help with the project. Many of them came as apprentence, learning and building the site at a non-commercial rate. By non-commercial, it has no schedule, no fixed planning or penalties for late projects. Arcosanti does have a main design, but everything takes place in whatever “natural” ways it takes. So far, only a small portion of the entire design is finished, but many of Paolo’s ideas have been put to the test.
The site also holds many performance events making it a somewhat hip place to be for performers. Guests can also pay to stay there. It’s really a weird place. It’s like Cranbrook except you go there to build, participate in different workshops, volunteer to teach and make bells. It’s like a get away, a detour in life to become a monk for 3 months or something like that. It is also like Cranbrook in the sense that the entire place is an experiment and you are there to determine the outcome. I really admire Paolo’s ambitions and his followers’ faith. Faith in their own efforts to make things happen, faith that is grounded with their own sweat.
Talking about bells, that’s where Paolo gets his funding from.
Very few people dare to have a dream. Even fewer take the step to work towards it, and rarely do they find ways to make it happen. Paolo not only has built the foundation for his dream, but created a platform for many to build theirs upon.
I just hope that these folks find their dreams using this as the jumping board. It is just too easy to tag along and call it a day.
For more photos, please click HERE~!
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