Dissertation - Megalopolis & Megalomania: The Conflicting Narrative Behind Paolo Soleri's Arcology

Megalopolis & Megalomania: The Conflicting Narrative Behind Paolo Soleri’s Arcology

Caroline Wells - s1660182 Architecture (MA Honours) Architecture Dissertation

Prologue

My first encounter with Paolo Soleri’s work occurred when I stumbled upon a brief text about Arcosanti while researching collaborative architecture for an architectural theory essay. While I never wrote about Arcosanti for said essay, I was captivated by the distinctive forms present in the compact ‘city’ as well as the fact that it was mostly constructed by manpower and with resources from its local environment. Further research into Arcosanti and its figurehead, Paolo Soleri, revealed his book ‘Arcology: The City in the Image of Man’, first published by MIT Press in 1969, and reprinted in the three following years, and four more times into the mid-2000’s. After requesting it from the university library’s archive, a quick glance of its content revealed elaborate drawings of a utopian nature.

While the character of the drawings and their apparent utopianism paralleled other utopian megastructures of the 1960’s, Paolo Soleri’s vision stood out for the amount of detail that went into his drawings as well as the strong theoretical background off of which they were based. While I had been fast to classify his drawings as clearly utopian, simply because they appear to be unfeasible, his writing revealed strong ideas somewhat different to those of other megastructuralists of the 1960’s. Similarly, his insistence on building an ‘urban prototype’ brought into question whether his work in fact qualifies as utopian and whether or not the constructed Arcosanti invalidated his utopian vision .

Table of Contents Abstract

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Glossary of Terms

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01. Introduction to Paolo Soleri, Arcology and Arcosanti 02. Contemporary (Utopian) Counterparts 03. Arcology Drawings & Theory

Formalism and Utopia Otherworldly Ideas

04. Arcosanti

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In Process Realised

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05. Conclusion

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Epilogue

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Bibliography

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Image Credits

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Appendix: Excerpts from Arcology

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Abstract

This dissertation investigates Paolo Soleri’s book ‘Arcology: The City in the Image of Man’ (1969), looking specifically at the architect’s desire to disassociate his work from the label of ‘utopian’ by realising his vision. Putting the drawings in an historical context, it will begin to examine the role of visionary architecture in the mid-1960’s and how it relates to Soleri’s work, both aesthetically and theoretically. Looking deeper into his focus on aesthetics and the dense prose of his theory will begin to reveal a sense of unfeasibility which permeates the architect’s work, and for which he was begrudgingly branded utopian. Arcosanti, which began construction in 1970, and was intended to act as a testing ground for Soleri’s concept, will be treated by the dissertation as a testing ground of Soleri as a visionary architect; looking at how he fought to implement his vision through decades of slow construction work, and the autocratic leadership style with which he became associated.

Brought together, all these aspects of Soleri’s work will begin to showcase the value of utopia as an inspiring model, as well as the downfalls of utopia when considered a vision to be realised in its totality.

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Glossary of Terms Arcology : portmanteau of the words architecture and ecology, the foundation of Soleri’s architecture.

Arcological : relating to the Arcology concept Arcosanti : portmanteau of Arcology and Cosanti Complexification : the by-product of Miniaturization, as space becomes miniaturized, the system bringing it together becomes more complex Cosanti : portmanteau of Italian words Cosa and Anti, meaning ‘Anti-matter’ Ecumenopolis : theoretical concept of a planet-wide city, as presented by urban planner Doxiadis Megalopoly : the mega cities resulting from urban sprawl (also written as Megalopolis) Miniaturization : the process of putting an end to entropy, in the case of urbanity it occurs by bringing the population of a city and its urban sprawl together under one Arcology

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01. Introduction “The desert is a traditional breeding ground of visions. Simple mirages or the ecstasies of holy men, they take ethereal shape in the heart and cruelty of the sunblasted earth.” 1 - Jon Nordheimer

The desert is in fact the starting point of this architectural journey.

It is the location which first inspired the young Italian architect to develop abstract theories and sketches of a new way of city life and it is there, in a small community in the American desert, where his ideas reached their apogee.

Paolo Soleri was born in Turin, Italy in 1919 and after brief studies in France, he received his degree in Architecture from Turin Polytechnic Institute in 1946, graduating with ‘highest honours’ and a focus on so-called ‘human ecology.’ He is said to have been initially influenced by architects such as Walter Gropius, Erich Mendelsohn, Alvar Aalto and Le Corbusier. Living in post-war Italy, Soleri was introduced to the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, and after briefly exchanging correspondence with the leading American architect, he secured an apprenticeship at his Taliesin West school in Arizona, where he is said to have become enchanted with Wright’s ideas and the formalism of his later work.2 This enchantment soon turned to disenchantment when Soleri informed Wright of his plans to set up a Taliesin school in Italy.

Wright also began to feel threatened after Soleri’s bridge designs received excellent reviews when published alongside his own, leading him to dismiss the young architect.3

Soleri, however, had become fascinated with the desert and eventually settled down in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife Colly, where he established the Cosanti Foundation, a self-built home and studio. Here he began to produce drawings and sketches of idealised cities, with his heavily expressionistic drawings and plans for a vast redevelopment of Mesa City, Arizona being featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s ‘Visionary Architecture’ exhibition. This propelled Soleri’s work to the centre of architectural commentary in the late 50’s and early 60’s, leading him to develop his sketches into a series of drawings of thirty ‘prototype’ cities, drawn by his students. These plans focused on attempting to end the progression of urban

1 Jon Nordheimer, “A Desert Vision Takes on Shape As Builder Seeks New Society,” New York Times, November 20, 1975, 86.

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2 David Grierson, “Unfinished Business at the Urban Laboratory: Paolo Soleri, Arcology and Arcosanti,” Open House International 41, no. 4 (December 2016): 65.

sprawl and aimed towards a more ‘ecological’ architecture, based around the idea that densely populated urban structures would cancel the need for the car and return a large amount of the Earth’s surface to nature. The theory behind this, written in dense prose and riddled with portmanteaus and misinterpreted English words, accompanied the many drawings and sections of Soleri’s imagined megastructural cities, in ‘Arcology: The City in the Image of Man.’ This book further propelled Soleri’s work, as well as his newly developed theories into the forefront of architectural discussion of the time, along with more exhibitions of his work, most notably a travelling exhibition titled “The Architectural Vision of Paolo Soleri” which started at the Corcoran Gallery and made its way to museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. (Fig. 1) Later editions of the book were printed on larger paper, showing the drawings’ intricate details.

While architects and critics at the time deliberated on whether the drawings would be feasible as plans for a new urban life, Soleri insisted that they were in fact not utopian, and as such should be realised, with his last Arcology drawing, ‘Arcosanti’ acting as a prototype, or ‘urban laboratory’ in which his ideas would be tested. In August of 1970, a year and a half after his book was first published, Soleri broke ground at his site for Arcosanti: a remote desert region 70 miles north of Phoenix, Arizona. Since then, decade after decade, as papers and articles are published by different authors, much of the architectural discussion about Soleri has focused on the slow progress of the construction of Arcosanti. Few other pieces of writing discussed Soleri’s later theories and drawings which expanded upon the Arcology concept.

Writers such as Ada Louise Huxtable and Reyner Banham focused largely on Soleri’s image as a ‘Prophet in the Desert’4 and an ‘ascetic’ ‘guru-figure’5, pointing to his image as a leader in the 1960’s environmental counterculture as his work represented a vestige of 1960’s radical urbanism.

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Reyner Banham, Scenes in America Deserta (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1982), 82.

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Ada Louise Huxtable, “Prophet in the Desert,” New York Times, March 15, 1970, 118.

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Grierson, “Unfinished Business,” 65-66.

Fig. 1: Paolo Soleri at ‘The Architectural Vision of Paolo Soleri’ exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery, 1970

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02. Contemporary (Utopian) Counterparts

Since the appearance of the first architectural utopia, architects and planners alike have visualised dreamlike cities and architecture, often depicting structures that could not physically exist or societies with idealised qualities. In the 20th century, utopian visions largely focused around implementing emerging technology in such a way so as to ail society of its ills, often using the building forms presented to portray a more progressive world.

Comparing Soleri’s work to the visionary architecture of the postwar period is essential in understanding it and how it differed from its contemporary counterparts.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘Broadacre City’ (1932) proposal presents a key starting point to Soleri’s work: as the car emerged as a new technology, architects and planners speculated on its potential use in enhancing urban life. (Fig. 2) Soleri’s mentor envisioned a world in which cars would allow a switch from dense city living to a city in which each person would be allocated an

6 Arthur C. Nelson, “Broadacre City,” in Encyclopaedia of Urban Studies, ed. Ray Hutchison (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2019), 84.

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Grierson, “Unfinished Business,” 66.

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Grierson, “Unfinished Business,” 66.

acre of land upon which to live, facilitated by the ‘Great Arterial Way’ (Fig. 3) Wright proposed. The focus of this utopia was placed on the ills of the city, which Wright thought were dehumanizing and robbed people of individuality.6 As such, Wright’s drawings and models for Broadacre City feature a strong presence of futuristic forms, representative of the enlightened future society that would inhabit this city. Ignoring the trend of urban sprawl that had already been occurring in cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, Wright’s push for urban sprawl has been treated as a point of contention between him and Soleri,7 whose Arcology concept was strictly focused around high urban density and treating the car as ‘the great villain of the century.’8 While Wright’s vision was never realised, the futuristic forms present in the drawings stand as a testament to a time of excitement surrounding emerging technology, while his ‘Great Arterial Way’ was seen as a precursor to the megastructural utopias of Soleri and other planners.

Fig. 2 (Opposite): Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘Broadacre City’ Project, shows the flying vehicles and large scale traffic systems that would connect the sprawled out city.

Fig. 3 (Below): A model of Broadacre City’s megastructural highway interchange system.

Le Corbusier’s ‘ville radieuse’ proposal is not dissimilar to Wright’s; it too relies heavily on the car as a main form of transport and calls for ample amounts of open green space between tower blocks, a product of CIAM’s 1933 Athens Charter’s strict zoning and separation of vehicles from the urban environment. While this form of city planning and its large urban sprawl is contrary to much of Soleri’s writing, other contemporaneous projects of his reveal ideas similar to the megastructuralist movement, alongside his characteristic strict zoning and separation of functions.9 Le Corbusier’s ‘Plan Obus’ for Algiers from 1931 (Fig. 4), as well as plans for the cities of Montevideo (Fig. 5) and Sao Paolo (Fig. 6) from 1929, show how he envisioned a ‘viaduct city’ in which housing, commercial centres and other amenities were rearranged to fit underneath a motorway that cut through the pre-existing cityscapes, forming one massive linear structure devoid of any ornamentation.

While rearranging many functions into one massive structure is seen as a forerunner to megastructuralism, the rigid urban planning and the proposed destruction of existing urban life became unpopular with later planners. The

fact that Soleri’s Arcology drawings and the theory behind it followed the same strict Modern planning Le Corbusier did is indicative of an architect who was not preoccupied with urban life as other utopian architects of the 60s and 70s were, as much as he was concerned with preventing urban sprawl and implementing his sculptural megastructures, no matter the cost to existing urban life.

Fig. 5: 1929 sketch proposal for the redevelopment of Montevideo

While Wright and Le Corbusier were envisioning city-wide viaducts for cars, Buckminster Fuller was putting forth his own ideas which largely prioritised the environment.

Along with this environmental focus, Fuller’s invented words and bewildering, jargon-ridden sentences, and his popularity with the 60’s counterculture brought about many comparisons between him and Soleri.10 Fuller’s focus was on creating “efficient technologies, better allocation of resources, and a more sustainable planet”11 by manipulating the built environment; with his ideas and creations ranging from small-scale efficiently planned housing, to plans to encapsulate Manhattan within a two-mile dome. (Fig. 7) This dome would eventually become the overriding form of architecture – “world-around structures” – in his ‘Spaceship Earth.’ These spheres and other proposals of Fuller’s were characterised by organic forms, prevalent in the aesthetic of post-war America. These proposals may be seen to be extremely similar to those of Soleri, however, when looking at the theories behind them one can begin to see the differences: Fuller was to some extent aware and accepting of the fact that these visions would require an extreme amount of resources to be built, prompting Soleri to write: “Even though Fuller may tell us we will never run out of resources, we must now accept frugality.”12 Seemingly unaware of the fact that his proposals were extremely similar to Fuller’s and that they, too, would require such resources, Soleri would appear to be more of a dreamer than a pragmatic planner.

Fig. 6: 1929 sketch proposal for the redevelopment of Sao Paolo

Fig. 7 (Opposite): Fuller’s 1960 dome concept, imagined to cover most of lower Manhattan

Fig. 4: Le Corbusier’s 1931 Plan for Algiers

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9 Reyner Banham, Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 9.

10 Linda Sargent Wood, “The Built Environment: Buckminster Fuller’s Spaceship Earth,” in A More Perfect Union: Holistic Worldviews and the Transformation of American Culture after World War II, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 56.

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Wood, “The Built Environment,” 55.

12 John Morris Dixon, “Job Site for Utopia,” Progressive Architecture 54 (April 1973): 79.

Kenzo Tange and Fumihiko Maki were some of the megastructural proponents who were most taken seriously, and to some extent most of their projects were grounded in reality, reacting to very real briefs and necessity.

Kenzo Tange’s 1960 Tokyo Bay project (Fig. 8) is considered one of the prime examples of megastructural and Metabolist architecture and was created in response to the city of Tokyo’s growing urban footprint and the idea to ‘reclaim’ some of the land in Tokyo bay in order to allow the city further growth. The result was a series of floating highways and roads along a main axis on which the ‘Central Business District’ was placed and off of which smaller roads turned, leading to a series of large-scale terraced housing blocks. Every element in this project is in some way a megastructure: from the massive bridge freeways to the long, A-frame housing blocks which were designed in such a way as to allow for an extension where necessary. These vast structures may have been considered inconceivable for the time if it were not for Maki’s defence of these massive forms in his 1964 ‘Investigations in Collective Form’ book in which he argues that most buildings have no coherent theory behind their design and that it is necessary for them to learn from the organic collective form and arrangements present in most cities and towns. When discussing the viability of the ‘Megastructural Form,’ Maki referred to the Museum of Modern Art’s 1960 show ‘Visionary Architecture,’ which featured outlandish, large-scale utopian city designs, including Soleri’s own ‘Mesa City’ project. Maki argued that the ‘cycle of change’ of buildings meant their functions were changing at rapid rates, while large infrastructural projects such as dams, harbours and highways were designed to withstand long cycles of use.13 His idea therefore was that architecture could take on a similar role to that of infrastructure and accommodate different changing functions within one megastructure. This shows how the Metabolist movement had reached a similar end product as Soleri, stemming from the creation of new land on which to grow cities. While they are intrinsically different in the sense that Soleri would have advocated for ‘inward growth’ of the city, they both viewed infrastructure such as highways and dams as an inspiration for their megastructures.

Fig. 8: Kenzo Tange’s Project for Tokyo Bay, showing the Metabolists presenting their concept in a specific, existing context

13 Fumihiko Maki, Investigations in Collective Form (St. Louis: Washington University School of Architecture, 1964), 8-9.

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Perhaps one of the most widely recognised and most influential megastructures of the 1960’s, Archigram’s ‘Plug-In City’ (Fig. 9) was based on ideas very similar to those put forth by the Metabolists in Japan. The drawings, first published in the third and fourth issues of Archigram, ‘Amazing Archigram / Zoom’ and ‘Metropolis’ respectively, depicted the city as a ‘kit of parts,’ with diagonal frames that link highways, ‘capsule’ housing units, office towers, and massive cranes used to move parts around.14 While the project and the ideas behind it were similar to the megastructural cities proposed by the Metabolists, the drawings show another important aspect of utopian projects of the 1960’s: a strong aesthetic, often related to technology and the wires, pipes, antennae and more, which became associated with it. Much like the graphical language of the Archigram magazine, the ‘Plug-In City’ proposals featured a strong industrial image, which Banham correlated to the ‘plug-in’ aesthetic of power plants.15 Along with ‘PlugIn City,’ other Archigram projects such as ‘Walking City’ and ‘Underwater City’ were all seemingly unfeasible and as such were never realised. Meanwhile, proposals such as their ‘Paddington City’ project (Fig. 10), which applied the ‘PlugIn City’ concept to London’s Paddington district, began to ground these ideas by placing them in real places, however still remaining unbuilt. Considering that Archigram was formed as a way of revolting against the architectural mainstream of the time,16 one can begin to understand these drawings not as specific blueprints for new cities but more as a series of visual manifestos aimed at rethinking the way cities are viewed and planned, and reconsidering the role of architecture from forming singular units within a city towards being the main unit of a city. Archigram’s drawings and the graphical language of the published magazines, much like other utopian visions of the 1960’s, can be seen as catalysts for social change more than plans intended to be realised.

Fig. 9 (Above): Archigram’s PlugIn City concept, with their more contextualised Paddington City proposal, Fig. 10, below.

14 Banham, Megastructure, 94.

15 Banham, Megastructure, 18.

16 Johnathan M. Woodham, “Archigram,” in A Dictionary of Modern Design (Thousand Oaks: Oxford University Press, 2016), 2.

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03. Arcology Drawings & Theory :

Formalism and Utopia

Since its conception, Paolo Soleri’s utopian vision, and more specifically, his Arcologies have been admired more as beautiful and intricate paintings or sculptures, and less so for the urban planning theory Soleri proposed alongside them. His many circular and polygonal plans, rounded or stratified towers, his arched dam designs with research spaces and airports projected into the water, his inhabited bridges cantilevered over ravines, high-rise towers embedded in the caves of cliff edges, the apses of his cold-climate sun traps and the rigid geometries, towering hundreds of metres over the ground all showcase the aesthetic qualities of his drawings. All these, overlaid with etched patterns, possibly meant to symbolise a complexity imposed within each Arcology, give Soleri’s drawings an expressive quality which at once draws people’s attention and arouses their imagination.

While the aesthetic aspects of his work were in many ways its most redeeming quality, the opposite is true within the field of architecture, with professionals often dismissing his Arcologies as ‘non-architecture’ or simply artwork.17 However intrinsic the beauty of his drawings may have been to his success, Soleri claimed the aesthetic of his drawings to be the least important aspect of them, writing in the preface of Arcology: ‘The graphics are not to be taken literally. The symbolism is evident and is characterized by the different hands that helped to produce it. The complexity of the system would in any case preclude the possibility of well-thought-out detail.’18 This statement proves itself paradoxical to Soleri’s abundant writing on the value of aesthetics: ‘it is in any and all fields the ultimate qualification. It is as if the redeeming power of the aesthetic could redirect even the most evils toward a positive pattern.’19 While the formalism of Soleri’s drawings hold the power to inspire audiences and bring attention to his Arcological theory, those same drawings are responsible for his concept being considered unattainable.

Fig. 11: Plan of the Babel IIA Arcology, showing the formalism of Soleri’s drawings

17 Huxtable, “Prophet,”118.

18 Paolo Soleri, “Preface,” in Arcology: The City in the Image of Man (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969).

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19 Soleri, “Arcology”, 20.

Looking back at Soleri’s work before Arcology, one can find the same sculptural forms and Space-Age forms seen in his later work, albeit without his Arcological ethos. His ceramics factory in Salerno, Italy features ‘Gaudiesque’ forms on the exterior, with organic tree-form columns and stratified floor plates on the interior. His Dome House, built in collaboration with architect Mark Mills in 1949, was built into the desert ground, with its main prominent feature being a large glass-dome ceiling.

(Fig. 12) His proposal for Mesa City features organic forms, often described as ‘clustered mushrooms,’ terraced high above the surrounding desert landscape,20 and plans which border between blueprints and elaborate drawings (Fig. 13) His ‘Sketchbooks of Paolo Soleri’ book reveal the development of his ideas and their relationship to his sketches; organic and geometric forms depicting architecture, as well as miscellaneous objets d’art with similar motifs, accompany illegible and incomprehensible scribbles of Soleri’s urban planning and philosophical musings.

All this work shows a fixation on form that predates Soleri’s radical urban planning ideas and his ideas about the importance of aesthetics to man; in some way showing Soleri prioritising an architecture of sculptural forms above all else, despite his inconsistent claims otherwise.

Fig. 14: Soleri’s Sketches of planters ave a sculptural form similar to that of his Arcologies

20 Huxtable, “Prophet,”118.

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Fig. 12: Soleri and Mill’s 1949 ‘Dome House’, built in to the desert floor

Fig. 13: Soleri’s 1960 Plan for Mesa City, as exhibitied at the Museum of Modern Art

In ‘Paolo Soleri and the Aesthetics of Irreversibility,’ Busbea writes that Soleri’s strong aesthetic preoccupation was the cause of contemporary architects criticising his work, considering his Arcologies ‘eccentric utopias’ or ‘massive sculptural artefacts of an organic architecture parading as ecological design.’21 Beyond Soleri’s strong urban ideas and proposals for the separation of functions within his Arcologies, his strong formalism countered what was happening in mainstream architecture at the time. While Soleri was designing his sculptural, organic vision, architecture at the time seemed to be losing its form, replacing it with a ‘cybernetic’ aesthetic, composed of geodesics, inflatables and curtain walls all arranged within megastructural space frames.22 These proposed systems treated architecture as ‘bodiless’ and ‘dynamic’23 and would therefore able to cater to the ever-changing needs of the city dweller; a wavering array of functions that are able to adapt to every desire, as seen in Plug-in City. Similarly, contemporary city planning was preoccupied mostly with spontaneity and flexibility, unlike Soleri, who was proposing places of rigid, autocratic design, as is reflected in the strong, distinctive aesthetic of his drawings.

To further this point, Soleri created a ‘Schedule Sequence’ to his Arcologies, showing how they would be planned and built, with Phases 9-10 showcasing the lack of flexibility of his Arcologies. (Fig. 15) Phase 9 shows the city’s metamorphosis as it makes ‘adjustments and changes demanded by the times’ and ‘becomes historically significant’ while Phase 10 sees the Arcology ‘disassembled’ as ‘functional obsolescence overshadows the liveliness of the city,’ stating that the city may be ‘partially or totally disassembled.’ Finally, in Phase 11 the construction of a new Arcology begins, using ‘new cybernetic’ parts.24 Soleri seems to design his Arcologies with a planned obsolescence of its technology, all while remaining unaware of the fact that his strong, sculptural aesthetic would meet the same fate. As if attempting to counter this, Soleri writes in Arcology that ‘the morphology of the city will be determined by this “epidermic” distribution of wills, the mind of the city, composed of thousands of peripatetic particles all operating from individual brains.’ In essence, within his self-designed megastructures, he proposes that each individual be able to alter the skin of their dwelling and therefore have some control over the aesthetic of their home.

This would result in many miniscule iterations of different skins fixed on one main structure, as Soleri represents in the different etching patterns applied to the facades of his Arcology drawings. (Fig. 18) This may resolve some issues regarding Soleri’s autocratic approach to the design of his utopias, however, it also raises new concerns regarding the practicality of his ideas.

Figure 15: Soleri’s ‘Schedule Sequence’ shows his Arcologies being rebuilt as their technology becomes obsolete

21 Larry Busbea “Paolo Soleri and the aesthetics of irreversibility,” The Journal of Architecture 18, no.6 (December 2013), 781.

22 Busbea, “Paolo Soleri,” 781-783.

23 Gyorgy Kepes “Art and Ecological Consciousness” in The Arts of the Environment, ed. Gyorgy Kepes, (New York, Henley: Aidan Ellis, 1972), 11.

24 Soleri, “Arcology”, 35.

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Looking beyond the ‘epidermic’ aesthetic of Soleri’s Arcology drawings one can begin to closely examine the structure concealed underneath. In most of the drawings published in Arcology, Soleri presents plans, elevations and sections to illustrate his ideas. Whilst the plans and elevations largely appear to focus on the forms and ornaments of his Arcologies, the sections often attempt to show, at least figuratively, the underlying structure shaping the compact cities.

Arcologies such as his ‘Arcollective’ proposal for a 50-100m high apse located in a ‘cold region’ appear to be structurally simple and somewhat achievable (Fig. 16), as do his proposals for hydroelectric dams with dwellings superimposed in their outer skins. (Fig. 17) While these proposals were largely considered achievable,25 at least structurally, other proposals put forth by Soleri involve Arcologies elevated hundreds, and often thousands, of metres off the ground, with the structural members seen in section scaling up to be hundreds of metres long. (Fig. 18) These amazing structural components are somewhat responsible for the attention Soleri received throughout the 60s, as illustrated in the introductory statement to the ‘Visionary Architecture’ exhibition, which explains how the idealistic drawings presented ‘a second history of an architecture unhampered by technical details and uncompromised by the whims of patrons or the exigencies of finance, politics, and custom.’26 The unbuildability of the utopian visions of the 1960’s did not hamper their cultural significance: they are products of a time in which cities were undergoing exponential growth, accompanied by a simultaneous advance in the technical components of buildings.

As Soleri wrote in the chapters of Arcology preceding his drawings: ‘The real is the present. The practical is in most cases the past, a frozen imagery of the real not fully becoming.’ Soleri views his drawings as something to be realised, but most importantly he sees them as a driving force towards new technology; he chooses not to limit himself by the ‘practical’ things that have been achieved in the past, but rather pushes the vision of what architecture can become. In the 1963 book ‘Fantastic Architecture’ Sperlich and Conrads propose the idea of a ‘structural utopia’ which for the time can only exist theoretically, assuming that ‘present limits will be far surpassed.’ They propose the idea that the value of imaginary architecture, like Soleri’s, is essential for progress, claiming that reality and technology will adapt themselves to man’s creative will.27 Soleri further proves this point in the first chapter of Arcology, aptly titled ‘Utopia’: ‘the results are not a blue-print for a city-civilization but only a guideline toward a new option.’ This claim shows Soleri’s attempts to disassociate from the label of ‘utopian’ and as such should be taken lightly. Only in his realised Arcology, Arcosanti, can one truly begin to examine whether he remains faithful to the idea that his drawings are not in fact blueprints and whether or not his main focus is on implementing his own aesthetic vision.

25 Banham, Megastructure, 201.

26 Museum of Modern Art “Visionary Architecture,” press release (September 29, 1960)

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27 Hans-G. Sperlich and Ulrich Conrads, Fantastic Architecture (London: Architectural Press, 1963), 19-20.

Fig. 16: The Veladiga Arcology uses a dam as a framework on which to implant living and working spaces

Fig. 17: Arcollective, the smaller scale proposal for a cold-climate Arcology, uses apses to gather sunlight and warmth to grow and harvest crops

Fig. 18: Babel IID’s side by side elevation and section illustrate Soleri’s distinction between the ‘skin’ and ‘structure’ of his arcologies, the section depicts the large-scale structural members seen in most Arcologies, while the elevation’s etched patterns show the ‘epidermic distribution of wills’ of its inhabitants.

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The impact of Soleri’s aesthetic and the forms of his Arcologies has led to people ignoring the theory presented alongside his elaborate drawings.

A 1971 review of Arcology and its travelling exhibition brings up the topic of utopia, relating Soleri’s Arcologies to the High Renaissance tradition of merging formalism with ‘skill and inventiveness in engineering.’28 While this is in part correct, the article goes on to classify Soleri’s vision as a ‘visual’ utopia as opposed to a ‘literary’ one, according to city planner Martin Meyerson’s definitions of utopia. While both utopias portray a ‘desirable future,’ the ‘design utopias’ propose ‘altered artifacts [sic] and the organization of space,’ while the literary utopias altered ‘social organizations and institutions.’29 White’s classification of Soleri’s utopia as ‘visual’ ignores a whole facet of Soleri’s Arcologies and his theories regarding the sort of institutions and lives his Arcologies would create. Soleri’s arcologies cannot be considered simply ‘visual,’ but they cannot be summarised as visual and literary either. Rather, they can be considered a ‘utopian process,’ as suggested by Meyerson: a ‘sketching out of the implications of altering certain fundamental features of society and environment.’30 Rather than simply presenting images of a utopian world, Soleri is proposing changes to how cities are viewed, which he hopes will fundamentally alter people’s lives.

Seen under this light one can begin to understand Soleri’s dismissal of the ‘utopian’ label and understand his Arcology drawings as a life force that intends to set out a new model of living in which the urban sprawl suffocating the planet is exchanged for a new way of living in high-rise, high-density urban environments. Soleri even envisions a sequence of development to implement his Arcologies: the ‘Dionysian’ and ‘Apollonian’ phases. The former represents more ‘free-form’ structures and plans (Fig. 19) while the latter is represented by more strict geometries, as seen in Arcube and Hexahedron. (Fig. 20) While this shows a clear fixation on form and its meaning, it also shows the architect’s understanding of the need to implement a gradual process to realise his vision. In ‘Utopias and Architecture,’ Coleman touches on this point, expressing his hope to reform utopias into a ‘positive informing model’ that should not be taken as wholes to be fully realised.31 He further argues that ‘an initial wish can be effectively negotiated into reality – albeit in a limited form – as partial realization.’32 Soleri sees his

Fig. 19 (Opposite): the plan of Novanoah II represents the more free-form Arcologies

While the attention given to the Arcologies published is largely focused around the aesthetic of his drawings and the expressionistic forms given to his future cities, the theory proposed by Soleri is really the driving force of his utopia. Many architects criticised his work as being fanciful images of organic megastructures to be completely realised, or blueprints for new megastructural cities, ignoring Soleri’s many claims otherwise. At least in writing, Soleri saw his drawings as a means to push his ideas to the forefront of architectural debate and inspire architects, city planners, and the general public to look at new ways of city planning, aiming to put an end to the unstoppable forces of outward growth of cities and their suburbs.

Fig. 20: Arcube and Hexahedron exemplify the more strict geometrical forms of Soleri’s ‘Apollonian’ schemes

28 Dana F. White, “The Apocalyptic Vision of Paolo Soleri,” Technology and Culture 12, no. 1 (January 1971): 78.

29 Martin Meyerson, “Utopian Traditions and the Planning of Cities,” Daedalus 90, no. 1 (Winter 1961): 180.

30 Meyerson, “Utopian Traditions,” 183.

Arcologies in a similar way: ‘Arcology is not a new strait jacket put around society.

It is meant to be a framework well equipped to sustain and inspire the action of man.’33 Taking this into consideration, Soleri’s drawings and models can be seen more as a mechanism of drawing people in and inspiring them, while the theory behind it, specifically the idea of increasing the urban density of cities and abolishing urban sprawl, is what should be implemented. Sperlich and Conrads further emphasize this point, describing how many utopian ideas are considered too far advanced due to their unattainable image.34 If Soleri had been able to move beyond the form and aesthetics of his Arcologies and concentrate more on attempting to eradicate the urban sprawl that provoked his ideas, perhaps his vision of a new urban structure would have been more successful.

31 Nathaniel Coleman, Utopias and Architecture (Padstow: Routledge, 2005), 5-6.

32 Coleman, Utopias and Architecture, 238.

33 Soleri, “Arcology”, 27.

34 Sperlich and Conrads, Fantastic Architecture, 21.

19

03. Arcology Drawings & Theory :

Fig. 22: Schiaparelli’s Map of Mars, 1888

Otherworldly Ideas

‘It has always struck me that the power of

a musician’s work is strictly related to the vastness and seriality of his total production. […] they build enormous constructions towering above their times, any time.’ 35 - Paolo Soleri

The forms and aesthetics seen in Arcology were not to be taken as a visual utopia or blueprints for megastructures; they were mechanisms to bring recognition to the underlying concept, which was to be a well of inspiration for architects and urban planners alike. Delving deeper into Soleri’s written work, however, reveals a dystopian aspect to his drawings and theory which could explain why their popularity did not translate into the realisation of his Arcologies or, at the very least, some of his urban planning ideas. Soleri’s more eccentric megastructures, the fact that many of his proposals appear to not be grounded in reality and the verbose prose and incomprehensible portmanteaus that accompany them make it unsurprising that his ideas failed to translate into reality.

Fig. 21: Doxiadis’ Ecumenopolis World Map, 1960

35 Paolo Soleri, preface to Sketchbooks of Paolo Soleri (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971), vii.

36 C.A. Doxiadis, “Ecumenopolis”, Ekistics 21, no. 123 (February 1966): 110-114.

37 Soleri, “Arcology”, 2.

20

38 Meyerson, “Utopian Traditions,” 181-182

In the first chapter of Arcology, Soleri presents a future world map proposed by architect and town planner C. A. Doxiadis, a figure in 1960s urban planning, known for his vision of a future in which the world would be dominated by a single, world-encompassing city, which he called ‘Ecumenopolis.’36 (Fig. 21) This map, which Soleri describes as ‘The Map of Despair,’ in which ‘human ants are everywhere and everywhere are human ants,’ is the dystopian starting point to his Arcologies, which present a more ecologically-oriented future.37 This ‘antiutopia,’ an undesirable warning of what could be is a common starting point for utopian visionaries,38 and can be further seen in the ‘Automobile Mystique and the Asphalt Nightmare’ (Fig. 23) and the ‘Comparative Densities’ (Fig. 24) drawings presented in Arcology. Further into this chapter Soleri imagines an alien situated on Mars, observing as Doxiadis’ predicted process of urban sprawl unfolds, writing that ‘ecological architecture is the inversion of the process that the Martian can detect from his cosmic viewpoint. It is a cosmic task, (…) an evolutionary phenomenon.’ Soleri goes on to compare his Arcological world to the 1888 map of Mars proposed by Giovanni Schiaparelli; describing the ‘rivers’ drawn by the astronomer as ‘the channelling of the doings of man into vast rivers of action on a harmoniously preserved and man-organized (agricultural) landscape.’ (Fig. 22) In his comparison of the two planets, one can begin to see how Soleri’s theory treats Earth as a ‘harmoniously preserved’ landscape, devoid of any urban settlements.

This demonstrates the dystopian future and how Arcologies would prevent them, while also showcasing Soleri’s treatment of Earth as a tabula rasa on which to implant his megastructures, an idea which pervades his work and is dystopian and unrealistic in itself.

Fig. 23: Soleri’s ‘Automobile Mystique and the Asphalt Nightmare’ drawing, showing how his Arcologies would differ from Megalopolis

21

Fig. 24: Soleri’s ‘Comparative Densities show the size that different cities could be reduced to if they were replaced with Arcologies.

22

Soleri largely ignores the characteristics of the world in which he places his Arcologies, treating the planet as a new land to be inhabited in a completely new way, devoid of any pre-existing urban centres. This radically contradicts the mid-20th century tendency of proposing schemes built around retrofitting cities with more efficiently planned megastructures.

Instead of acknowledging the existing urban fabric, Soleri draws his Arcologies spread out across the vast landscapes of the continents, connected only by his ‘vast rivers of action’; turning his utopian vision into dystopian images of thousands of isolated urban centres. (Fig. 25) Soleri claims, however, to be designing his Arcologies for the human scale, going as far as accompanying his drawings with figures relating to the height, length and width of his proposals, as well as showing a figure representing the Empire State Building alongside his plans, in a bid to contextualise them. The result is unchanged, however: rather than showing a deep consideration of pre-existing conditions, the simplified world the drawings are placed in are a chilling glimpse of a totalitarian utopia. In ‘Utopias and Architecture,’ Coleman claims that this is a common issue in utopias, where the human scale is intended as the ‘basis for all planning decisions,’ the result is ‘of minimums made into the maximum possibility.’39 While Soleri attempts to form his vision around the human, and by extension the human scale, the Arcologies presented would vastly overpower it. This is clearly seen in Soleri’s work, where in the pursuit of improving people’s lives he, perhaps unintentionally, shows a world of total social control and a destruction of urban dynamics. Despite his attempts to clear his Arcologies of this association, his later plans for ‘3D Jersey’ propose a megastructure built aside from any existing urban fabric and are just one example of Soleri’s failure to adapt to reality.40 Even when given the opportunity to apply his concept to a specific city, Soleri ignores any elements of the existing urban fabric, presenting his proposal as a disconnected sculptural structure. As Coleman puts it, the ‘potential of utopian imagination and its capacity for terror seem to turn on the permissibility of partiality as opposed to totality’41; while Soleri’s drawings present imaginative, inspirational worlds, the sculptural Arcologies and the lack of context in his drawings suggest that his vision is one that he hopes will be implemented in its totality.

Fig. 25: This plan of ‘Theology’ shows the interconnected Arcologies as they spreadout through vast, uninterrupted landscapes

39 Coleman, Utopias and Architecture, 2.

40 Arcosanti, “3D Jersey,” published September 4, 2017, https://arcosanti.org/arconewsblog-16282/.

41 Coleman, Utopias and Architecture, 5-6.

As much as the vast landscapes and massive scale of Soleri’s drawings result in a dystopian or other-worldly atmosphere, it could simply be the product of over-simplification, as explained by Meyerson. It isn’t uncommon for utopian visionaries to ‘evade the physical environment’ while the ‘limitations of human understanding’ result in creators selecting key principles on which their utopia will stand, whilst ignoring others.42 This oversimplification could also be seen in the formalism of Soleri’s Arcologies; where he claims to only be offering guidelines for new city life, he has a limited ability to truly represent a varied and versatile world, therefore resulting in a utopian vision where Soleri has totalitarian control over form. According to Moholy-Nagy, the sculptural forms of Soleri’s Arcologies go against the ‘City as an Act of Will’ concept proposed by Ed Bacon in his 1967 book ‘Design of Cities,’ as well as the ‘temper of our times’ which called for the ability of cities to undergo organic growth,43 ideas which were similarly seen in Maki’s study of ‘Compositional Form’ and ‘Group Form.’44 Where other architects at the time were studying organic city growth and advocating for a city which would act as a framework for flexible living, Soleri’s Arcologies were massive superstructures of autocratic design in which the city would be forced to grow following the forms and aesthetics put forth by a single authority, Soleri.

While his arcologies may appear totalitarian and inorganic in their conception, Soleri’s writing attempts to dispel this idea through his interest in ekistics, the study of urban settlements as proposed by Doxiadis. In a 1991 interview, Soleri explains that he sees the source of society’s problems as the ‘suburban pattern,’ ‘the wrong pattern to build upon’ which the American dream is needlessly tied to.45 He goes on to claim that his projects are not in fact megastructures, but ‘mini,’ whilst cities such as Phoenix and their unending urban sprawl are the true megastructures;46 ‘ministructures’ (Arcologies) would allow the surrounding landscape to be freed and the city to work more efficiently in terms of time, space and energy.47 In his 1971 essay titled ‘Utopia and/or Revolution’ Soleri proposes that his ideas are ‘Not utopia and/or revolution but evolutionary radicalism,’48 but take inspiration from the historical evolution of urban spaces, specifically the high-density old European walled cities and, much like Doxiadis, Native American cliff dwellings and pueblos.49 Soleri argues that revolution is a move towards conditions not yet seen in history, while radicalism is integral to the evolutionary process.50

These excerpts all show Soleri’s interest in continuing a legacy of evolution in cities, but also showcase a key aspect of his work which makes it unconventional and inaccessible. The first chapter of Arcology is littered with portmanteaus, made up words and incomprehensible ideas about the cosmic order of cities, pinpointed by Peter Blake’s foreword which questions what Soleri is attempting to say and states that it ‘is a very difficult book to read.’54 Soleri’s later publications, ‘Utopia and/or Revolution’ (1971), ‘The Omega Seed: An Eschatological Hypothesis’ (1981), ‘The Bridge Between Matter & Spirit is Matter Becoming Spirit’ (1973), and many others, show Soleri’s thinking to be based more on abstract philosophical systems than economic, social, or industrial considerations, unlike other utopian visionaries of the 20th century.55 Excerpts from these publications showcase the incomprehensible connection between Soleri’s theologies and his ideas regarding city planning: ‘The legitimacy of the city has its own origin in the nature of man (in the vectoriality of life)’ and ‘The City has to discover its own morphology within the discipline that governs each physical, biological, and mental phenomenon’56 are few of the many abstract philosophies that he relates to his architecture.

42 Meyerson, “Utopian Traditions,” 181.

50 Soleri, “Utopia,” 281.

43 Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, “The Arcology of Paolo Soleri,” The Architectural Forum 132, no. 4 (May 1970): 70-75.

51 Soleri, interview.

44 Maki, Investigations, 6-23.

45 Paolo Soleri, “Paolo Soleri’s arcology: updating the prognosis,” interview by Philip Arcidi, Progressive Architecture 72, no. 3, March 1, 1991.

46 Soleri, interview.

24

From the Apollonian schemes proposed in Arcology, to the Dyonisian schemes that would evolve from them, Soleri appears to be attempting to create cities which will be able to evolve in a similar way to historic towns, thus making them non-utopian. When it comes to the organic forms which Soleri has imbued in his drawings, he argues that nature itself ‘miniaturizes,’ becoming more complex while simultaneously generating functions that follow forms.51 Furthermore, he argues that the current trend of urban expansion is in fact utopian or incongruent with the way ‘cosmobiological evolution’ usually occurs.52 Soleri proposed that if organic elements in nature are able to organise into complex structures, following varying aesthetic forms and reaching a certain level of consciousness, then cities could undergo the same process of organic evolution through ‘miniaturization’ and ‘complexification.’53 Not only is Soleri suggesting that the Arcologies he is proposing may be able to achieve a state of consciousness, he also considers the aesthetic he imparted in them to be intrinsic to that evolution.

47 Soleri, interview.

48 Paolo Soleri, “Utopia and/or Revolution,” trans. Jules Noel Wright, Perspecta 13 (1971), 281.

49 Banham, America Deserta, 83.

52 Soleri, “Utopia,” 285.

53 Soleri, “Utopia,” 285.

54 Peter Blake, foreword to Arcology: The City in the Image of Man (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969).

55 Moholy-Nagy, “The Arcology of Paolo Soleri,” 74.

56 Soleri, “Utopia,” 281.

This preoccupation with the cosmic order and with seeing cities as a way of developing man into a divine system is seen in the biblical names Soleri imparts upon his Arcologies, upon which he attempts to impart the idea of ‘genesis,’ to show them as the conception of a new life. This bizarre writing appears to set Soleri apart as more of an eccentric philosopher turned urban planner and further turn his Arcologies into unrealisable ideas that are based in outlandish philosophical concepts, not reality. It’s almost as though the drawings presented, and the population figures, dimensions and urban densities accompanying them show Soleri’s attempt to ground his ideas in reality, as they are accompanied by writing too complex for many people to fully understand. Despite Soleri’s many attempts to contextualise and justify his Arcological ideas, his philosophical ideas and almost incomprehensible writing transcend any reality and bring his work into a world of unfeasible fantasy.

Fig. 26: a drawing of Soleri’s depicting the evolution of man alongside architectural forms, showing a parallel between the formalism of the drawing and the formalism of Soleri’s Arcology drawings

25

4. Arcosanti In Process

Arcosanti, the final Arcology presented in the book, is perhaps one of the most important Arcologies when it comes to understanding Soleri’s utopian vision and whether his hopes to realise it were successful and consistent with the adaptability he advocated for. It was intended to be the first step towards the wide-scale implementation of Soleri’s vision: a testing ground of his ideal living, a so-called ‘urban laboratory.’ Arcosanti would be home to groups of students and apprentices coming to learn about Soleri’s new urbanism, as though Soleri was establishing his own Taliesin West only an hour’s drive from the original; where Soleri would be the genius architect leading a group of scholars towards a new urban future.57 Instead of cars, residents would transport themselves through systems of lifts, escalators and conveyors and would have all the elements of a city and the benefits of city life at their fingertips.

The drawings as shown in Arcology present a megastructure with a rectangular plan consisting of 5 largescale apses with 16 ‘beam dwelling’ cylindrical columns which pierce through a ‘suspended floor level’ with roof gardens and studios. The whole compound is grafted on top of a desert mesa, and incorporates workshops, meeting areas, studios, a theatre, and living-working spaces, all under the roof of a suspended floor-garden. Soleri proposed that this Arcology should house 1500 people, with a density of 531 people per hectare and a height of 50m. Along with these drawings Soleri adds a sense of scale by adding a drawing of the existing structures of the Cosanti Foundation constructed by him and a small group of students over the course of 6 years. (Fig.27) While Soleri is showing his realised work, presumably to make Arcosanti seem more plausible, the dwarfed Cosanti Foundation structures show Arcosanti to be designed at an unimaginable scale. Larger Arcologies such as Babel Canyon, Arckibuz, Arcvillage I and Arcvillage II further overshadow the drawings with their relatively enormous scale. The last plan presented shows the original Arcosanti plan with the same plan mirrored in front of it, showing Soleri’s intention to further grow this Arcology, eventually doubling his urban laboratory.

57 Banham, America Deserta, 81.

26

Fig. 27: Arcosanti as it compares to the Cosanti complex, 1970

Fig. 28: Longitudinal section of Arcosanti, 1970

Fig. 29: Elevation of Arcosanti, 1970

27

28

Fig. 31: (Opposite) 1973 revised plan of Arcosanti: parts constructed are highlighted and dated

The drawings further show Soleri’s focus on aestheticism, with his usual apses and vaults and elaborate geometric forms having a strong presence throughout. However much the apses and vaults presented are an element of Soleri’s aesthetic, their form can also be explained as resulting from Soleri’s experimentation with building methods at the Cosanti complex, where concrete was poured over rammed earth, which would then be swept away, leaving a structurally sound apse or vault shape.58 (Fig. 30) Soleri dubbed this method ‘silt casting,’ and it became the predominant form of construction at Arcosanti.

Fig. 30: Model of Arcosanti, 1969

In Arcology, however, Soleri explains these shapes as arising from living in a ‘spherical cosmography’ in which the ‘structural morphology (parts of it) is spherical (curved)’; a wordy way of saying that these forms would allow residents to work outside and benefit from natural sunlight, all while being sheltered from the hot sun. Models of the initial proposal for Arcosanti also show its curved structural components being perforated with circular holes, a motif that is continued in the roof of the model, with the ‘living columns’ that penetrate it having half cubes with circular cutouts and a central cube with the same motif.

Approaching the initial stages of construction, however, Soleri found himself having to review his initial drawings, making changes to ensure the buildability of this new urban model.

The first of these changes came in 1970, a year after the first publication of the drawings, with Soleri proposing an initial, decisive stage to the construction of Arcosanti: ‘Critical Mass.’ This stage would see Arcosanti housing 600 of the total 5000 inhabitants within an eight to ten storey structure, and once reached, would be the point at which the Arcology would be self-sufficient enough to experience rapid growth and function efficiently, hence its name.59 This change was accompanied by the addition of an ‘Energy Apron,’ a south-facing greenhouse structure which would provide the scheme with energy, heat and food to support its inhabitants. At this stage Soleri also presented the concepts of ‘Apse Effect’ and ‘Heat Sink Effect,’ which would be combined to ensure a good quality of life by creating architecture that would provide good amounts of daylight, and in the colder months, the utilization of solar gain to warm the Arcology. Despite the changes to the developments’ more technical aspects the overall aesthetics remained the same; instead, Soleri was altering the plan of action for Arcosanti upon realising the difficulty of building the entire structure at once.

Substantial changes to Arcosanti’s masterplan came with Soleri’s 1975 review: while the Critical Mass section remained untouched, the shape and size of the main structure were radically different, divided in two sections: ‘Valetta Spring Complex’ and the ‘Educational Complex.’ The former was composed of two ‘exedra’ structures that would host 2000 residents, with the top dedicated to residences and office spaces, while the bottom portion was to house a large market or public space, as well as a small performing arts school. The other section would

58 Banham, America Deserta, 82.

59 Grierson, “Unfinished Business,” 68.

29

host 1200 people as well as three schools: one for theology and religious studies, a school of architecture and environmental design, and a school of agriculture and forestry.60 This change shows Soleri’s move towards a more institutional approach, establishing Arcosanti as a place in which students could learn about the three main topics of interest to him, and which he thinks should be relevant to architecture and urban design: environment, self-sufficiency, and perhaps most importantly to Soleri, theology.

Fig. 32: Model of ‘Arcosanti 2000’, 1991 Project: Period: Year:

154

Arcosanti Super Critical Mass

Double Exedra 1995

Fig. 33: Drawing of Super Critical

T h is la te st ch an g e to th e d e sig n o f A rcosanti is th e a d d itio n o f th re e te n -s to ry theo rig apse the m ass b u ild in g s o n th e s o u th s id e o f the d o u b le exMass’ e d ras b, e1995, h in d the in al on C ritical project. Tfurthest h is ch a n g eright can be c o n sid the ered already a n in te rm e d ia te p h a s e b e tw e e n th e ex istin g fiv e shows sto ry stru c tu re s a n d th e tw e n ty -e ig h t-sto ry sm all A rco lo g y c o m p o u n d in g th e full constructed parts of Arcosanti d e v e lo p e d project. T h e a d v a n ta g e o f th is in te rm e d ia te size is th a t it offers th e p o ssib ility of testin g the b asic te n e ts of A rcology w ith in a m o re fin ancially feasible s tru c tu re .

The 1991 review of the drawings, ‘Arcosanti 2000,’ (Fig. 32) saw another change to the masterplan, caused by the tricky topography of the site on which ‘Valetta Spring Complex’ would have been constructed. In this scheme, the main structures are placed on flat land directly behind the ‘Critical Mass’ section. A further development is made in what Soleri calls ‘garment architecture,’ which uses different fabrics or materials hanging at the open end of the apse to be able to control climactic conditions within, depending on the activity undertaken or the outside conditions.61 This was quickly changed again, in 1995, as Soleri renames the initial stage ‘Super Critical Mass,’ (Fig. 33) increasing its population by 1500 people, classifying this phase as an Arcology in its own right.62 This alteration would make the initial construction phase more financially achievable, while still providing a testing ground of the Arcology concept. Soleri proposes creating three exedra structures alongside each other, with one embracing the already-built structures.

A final adaptation was made in 2001, named ‘Arcosanti 5000’ after Soleri’s desire for it to house a population of 5000 people. The drawings and models of this project show a series of apses nested within each other, the smallest of which would be located just behind the already constructed ceramics workshop. (Fig. 35)

The changes made to Arcosanti reveal Soleri’s adaptability when it comes to the construction of his Arcology designs. He proved himself able to put his initial drawings aside and be pragmatic about making necessary changes, as long as his proposed new cities could be tested and brought a step closer to reality. While the Arcosanti he hoped to build would provide a testing ground for his Arcological ideas for a new urbanity, the construction process and the changes it brought along tested Soleri’s capacity to put his ego aside and make much-needed corrections to his masterplan. It’s worth noting, however, that throughout these changes Soleri had an unwavering focus on forms and aesthetics.

The initial rectangular plan for Arcosanti was tossed aside for more circular plans, perhaps more in tune with his ‘spherical cosmography’ ideas, in which circles and spheres, and fragments of them are an overriding force along with the motifs seen in the original Arcosanti drawings. While Soleri is able to make the changes necessary to bring his Arcology vision to life, he never releases control over the forms of the project, perhaps in an attempt to ingrain in them his own aesthetic signature.

F ig u re 48. A rco san ti S u p ercritical M ass. A erial p ersp ectiv e.

60 Rafael E. Pizarro-O’Byrne, “Soleri’s Pendulum: Between Urban Design and Theology” (Master’s thesis, Arizona State University, 1996), 74-76.

61 Pizarro-O’Byrne, “Soleri’s Pendulum,” 153.

30

62 Ruth A. Rae, “Arcology, Arcosanti and the Green Urbanism Vision,” Open House International 41, no.

4 (December 2016): 60-61.

Fig. 34: (Opposite) Latest model of Arcosanti 5000, the grey sections represent what has already been built

4. Arcosanti Realised?

Fig. 35: ‘Crafts III’ section of Arcosanti, showing the precast concrete slabs and their geometric openings

“Might this not be the proving ground for an architectural tyranny as potentially harmful to humankind as the atom bombs that were also tested in secret seclusion in these deserts.” 63 -Reyner Banham

As evidenced by Soleri’s constant reviews of his plans for Arcosanti, the progress of building at his complex was slow. Ground was first broken at Arcosanti in August 1970, with one of Soleri’s cherished barrel vaults being the first structure completed.64 The scale of the constructions that followed in the ensuing years remained small, largely because of the labourintensive construction methods used by Soleri.

In his rejection of capitalist interests and their wastefulness, Soleri chose to have students and workshop attendees, along with a small group of long-term crew members, as the primary builders. Silt-casting was the primary construction method, however, for the large-scale structures at Arcosanti, Soleri devised a new method of pouring pre-cast structural slabs, 5m2 in size, to act as the structure’s walls and floors. (Fig. 36) Despite their necessary rigid form, Soleri pierced these slabs with circular openings similar to those seen in the initial models and drawings of Arcosanti.

(Fig. 35) Soleri’s formalism permeated the built work at Arcosanti, with the architect working ornamentation into the ceilings and floors of the concrete structures by etching decorative patterns and pigments into the formwork, continuing his use of circular forms throughout the site, and adding decorative elements to the top of his apses.65 (Fig. 37) Soleri’s imported olive trees and tall cypress trees provide shade while also adding to the aesthetic of the site, giving it an organic Italian hill town appearance.

32

While progress at Arcosanti was slow, Soleri still remained popular with young and aspiring architects and members of the counterculture movement of the 1960’s, with visiting architecture students expressing dissatisfaction with contemporary architectural education and its lack of focus on growing environmental concerns, for which the architect had become popular.66 Soleri’s commitment to environmentalism and continued push to a new architectural culture was seen throughout the large number of books, papers, exhibitions and architectural proposals that followed the publishing of Arcology, and brought in continued support which translated into the much-needed financing of Arcosanti. As construction began at Arcosanti, Soleri needed a $50.000 initial payment, half of it funded by grants that he received from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Graham Foundation.67 The other half, however, was funded largely by Soleri’s Cosanti Foundation, which profited off his published work and the sale of the

63 Banham, America Deserta, 86.

66 James Shipsky, “Diary of an Arcosanti Experience,” AIA Journal 71, no.5 (May 1982): 32.

64 Busbea, “Paolo Soleri,” 788.

67 Huxtable, “Prophet,”118.

65 Busbea, “Paolo Soleri,” 788.

Fig. 36: workers laying rebar over silt formwork;

Fig. 37: patterns and colours molded into the concrete by silt casting

Fig. 38: Poster advertising the start of construction work at Arcosanti and calling for volunteers.

now iconic bronze bells that were handcrafted at the Cosanti studio and later at Arcosanti.

Construction started with nothing more than the bare essentials, as Ada Louise Huxtable wrote ‘he now has six shovels, some rakes, a cement mixer, some stouthearted graduate students and a firm intellectual conviction.’68 Once construction started at Arcosanti, workshop goers, mostly students and hippies, had the opportunity to take part in construction by paying a $400 fee that enabled them to live and work at Arcosanti for up to 5 weeks. Day visits to Arcosanti were also important for sourcing funds, with tourists paying for tours of the grounds, meals in Arcosanti’s café, as well as hotel stays at Arcosanti, which are now accessible through online accommodation site Airbnb. Crops planted and grown at Arcosanti provided another source of income, as they sold surplus harvests to people outside Arcosanti, with melons being their ‘cash crop.’69 To some extent, this grassroots form of funding can explain the slow development at Arcosanti, as Soleri and residents made desperate attempts to make money for construction in any and every way possible.

68 Huxtable, “Prophet,”118.

69 Shipsky, “Arcosanti Experience,” 32.

Fig. 39: Cube City in the 1970’s

In 1989, almost 20 years into the construction of Soleri’s urban laboratory, only 3% of the total project had been completed, with the foundation raising an estimated $500.000 annually.70 As seen in the ongoing revision of plans for Arcosanti, much of the construction and work taking place on site was makeshift and addressed the Arcology’s pressing needs: housing and the planting of crops. Workshop participants, being promised the opportunity to work in the construction site, found most of their days were filled with other types of labour. Regular jobs they would undertake ranged from digging irrigation ditches to weeding crops or designing and building a ‘nature walk,’ all far off the mesa-top site.

Few days were spent in the construction-related work which included welding, steel-working, casting concrete slabs and digging foundations for the new additions to Arcosanti. While the 30-40 people living there had proper housing, workshop participants were urged to bring tents or campers, and where this was not possible, alternative housing was provided in rudimentary plywood shelters.71 These tents and makeshift constructions gave way to unplanned temporary developments in the grove below Arcosanti’s mesa-top site, known as ‘Plywood City,’ ‘Cube City’ and ‘Tent City’, which ironically seem to mirror the unplanned urban sprawl that Soleri despised. While ‘Tent City’ shows no focus on aesthetics, the other two show Soleri returning to the geometric, circular and spherical forms that prevailed in his original Arcosanti drawings. (Fig. 39, 40) Hidden in the wilderness, the location of these developments could show the architect’s attempts to hide the failure of his proposal or at the very least maintain the aesthetic image of Arcosanti as planned by him.

Fig. 40: Cube City in the late 1980’s

70 Marc Ramirez, “Paolo Soleri’s Vision Of City of Future Remains a Dream,” Wall Street Journal, August 14, 1989, 1.

71 Shipsky, “Arcosanti Experience,” 32.

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Soleri’s focus on the image of Arcosanti, and by extension, of himself, pervaded the architecture and progress of his proposal to his relationship with residents, workshop attendants and the media. This led to Soleri being labelled a ‘prophet’72 or ‘guru figure,’73 or most poignantly a messiah whose disciples are the students and hippies following him.74 Banham described Soleri as appearing ‘ascetic enough’ for his role of preaching ecological ‘doctrines,’ dressing in ordinary blue jeans and a white singlet.75 As work progressed on site, his focus on his image turned him into an elusive figure: he spent most of his time at his residence at the Cosanti Foundation, making the trip out to his urban prototype only once a week or two.76 Many detractors of Arcosanti blame its slow growth on Soleri’s distance from it, the lack of strong leadership that that distance entails, as well as growing conflicts arising between residents and ‘those with power,’ Soleri and Cosanti Foundation’s Board of Trustees.77 These claims were dismissed by Soleri as ‘arrogance of ignorance. There is this sudden explosion of the wisdom of babies. They try to spew out sentences before they know anything, instead of being humble.’78 Other detractors of Soleri’s, mostly hippies and members of counterculture, claimed Soleri’s ‘messianic undertones’ and the ‘undemocratic social structure’ of the burgeoning community at Arcosanti as reasons for their departure.79 Soleri, for his part, denied any connections to counterculture movements, believing that the hippies’ ‘quest to simplify existence’ has lost all positive aspects of culture, turning them into little more than ‘naked apes.’80 Despite this, Soleri’s popularity with the counterculture continued, and accordingly, neighbours and onlookers began to see Arcosanti more as an eccentric ‘vestigial commune of the 1960’s’ or ‘Hippieville,’81 rather than the urban prototype he hoped it would become.

let them buy their own mesa and build on it. But not here.’83 When asked whether he considered the community at Arcosanti a democracy, Soleri doubled down, stating a firm ‘No,’ and changing the subject back to his philosophical and theological musings.84 It is clear that beyond taking control over the aesthetics of his urban prototype, Soleri wanted total control over the lives of those who would inhabit it, despite the many claims about his work being simply a framework intended to captivate and inspire people.

Soleri’s insistence on realising his vision continued to attract the attention of architects and critics at the time, but this time for a different reason: praise of Soleri’s drawings and vision transformed into uncertainty about his project’s ability to be built and criticism of his authoritarianism. When visiting Arcosanti, Archigram’s David Greene wrote that Soleri ‘has a passionate desire to make the city a sculptural object with reference to his own styling preferences’85, pointing out the architect’s focus on implementing his own aesthetic vision more than the austere, yet personally fulfilled, society he sought to create. Reyner Banham, on the other hand, praised Soleri and his follower’s commitment to Arcosanti and the testing of his Arcological vision, all while pointing out their naivety in believing that his rejection of capitalist interests and his hand-crafted construction would ever result in his vision being realised.86 Fig. 41: Arcosanti during a fundraising festival, early 1970s

Further questions relating to the slow progress at Arcosanti and the lack of realised work were likely pivotal in causing Soleri to become avoidant when it came to the seminars he organised and addressing the press.82 Transcripts of interactions that occurred between Soleri and workshop attendees at seminars reveal Soleri’s authoritarianism when it came to the developments taking place on site. When asked if he believed autonomy over the designs and buildings would help foster a stronger community between residents and administrators he said ‘If they want to design their own arcology,

34

72 Huxtable, “Prophet,” 118.

73 Banham, America Deserta, 82.

74 Robert J. Dunphy, “A Dream City Rises in the Desert,” New York Times, August 29, 1976, 18.

75 Banham, America Deserta, 82.

76 Nordheimer, “Desert Vision,” 86.

77 Shipsky, “Arcosanti Experience,” 36.

78 Ramirez, “Paolo Soleri’s Vision,” 1.

79 Robert Jensen, ‘The Arcosanti Antithesis: Paolo Soleri and the Counter Culture’, Architectural Record (August, 1974), 121–126.

Fig. 42: (Opposite) Soleri and students at one of his seminars 80 Paolo Soleri, The Bridge Between Matter and Spirit is Matter Becoming Spirit (Garden City: Anchor Press, 1973), 128 81 Ramirez, “Paolo Soleri’s Vision,” 1.

82 Nordheimer, “Desert Vision” 86.

83 Shipsky, “Arcosanti Experience,” 35.

84 Shipsky, “Arcosanti Experience,” 36.

85 David Greene, “A Blast from the Past”, Architectural Design 41 (July, 1971), 433-434.

86 Banham, America Deserta, 85-86.

05. Conclusion Soleri’s Arcology presented the image of a future megastructural city that would abolish urban sprawl and entropy, bettering the lives of its inhabitants and allowing the surrounding environment to thrive.

While much of his writing was hard to fully comprehend, the drawings accompanying it were incredibly detailed and showed a utopian world of considerable scale, which quickly captured the attention of architects and the public in the 1960’s. Whilst the drawings presented in Arcology were largely considered unbuildable, and thus utopian, Soleri repeatedly insisted that they should be realised, and that his vision of a future city should be implemented. Arcosanti would become the testing ground and first step towards the realisation of Soleri’s vision.

At first glance, perhaps the most captivating element of Soleri’s work is the strong formalism of the drawings presented. In fact, it was Soleri’s drawings that were largely credited with captivating and inspiring audiences, with architects and critics describing them as beautiful, yet rarely considering them buildable. Other architects and urban visionaries of the time met the same fate as Soleri: Buckminster Fuller, Frank Lloyd Wright, Archigram and the Japanese Metabolists all presented their own visions of a technologically driven future which was largely considered utopian at worst, or inspirational at best. These visions were sometimes founded in reality, often-times not, yet they always intended to act as the foundation for a future in which they could be realised.

What set Soleri apart from these visions, however, was the strong focus on aesthetics in his drawings and the way he treated his megastructures as a single sculptural form, along with his, then outdated, approach to urban planning. Soleri’s strict zoning and separation of functions reveal an early Modern tendency to seek total control over the vital life of a city. This approach largely differed with the later Modern tendency that was seen in Le Corbusier’s plan for Algiers, Archigram’s ‘Plug-in City’ or Kenzo Tange’s plan for the development of Tokyo bay.

These plans all revealed a focus on the adaptability of cities and their liveliness, within the larger framework of their megastructural proposals.

Soleri attempted to prevent any judgement over the autocratic city life that

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he was promoting by claiming that his Arcology drawings were simply idealistic frameworks to inspire architects at the time to seek a solution for the increasing entropy of modern America’s urban sprawl. What Soleri never truly sought to defend was perhaps one of the most important causes of the portrayal of his work as utopian: his treatment of the planet as a blank canvas on which to build, which was largely exemplified by his comparison of Earth to Schiaparelli’s early drawings of Mars. Soleri’s drawings show his Arcologies in vast landscapes, unencumbered by any past human settlements. This not only shows Soleri overlooking preexisting cities and their urban life but could also prove the totalitarian nature of his work, as though Soleri would expect all of human civilisation to abandon the pre-existing infrastructure of cities and towns to move to newly constructed Arcologies.

Delving deeper into Soleri’s writing reveals what may have been an even greater problem with his work: the veil of dense prose and made up portmanteaus hide ideas that attempt to relate the proposed Arcologies with theological and philosophical ideas ungrounded in reality. Soleri’s theories about ‘complexification’ and ‘miniaturization’ as they relate to architecture and his later published writing, which proposes theories about consciousness arising from the complexification of architecture, epitomise this. While there is nothing inherently wrong in Soleri’s philosophical writings, it becomes somewhat concerning to realise that much of his criticism of entropy in city life stems from his hope that moving into more complex and dense cities will cause them to develop a conscious life of their own. This places Soleri’s architectural proposals in a category of theoretical utopias unlikely to ever be realised, with his musings about creating an urban consciousness particularly improbable.

Despite the seeming impossibility of the implementation of Soleri’s Arcological vision, the architect remained firm in his convictions, claiming that action would be the stepping-stone towards the realisation of his megastructures and proving that they could work. The construction of Arcosanti began soon after the book was first published. While initial plans showed Soleri’s intent to realise Arcosanti as it is shown in the

book’s drawings, later changes to the plans showed him adapting his ideas to the real world and making any changes necessary to build his Arcology.

Despite the changes made as construction progressed, Arcosanti never grew beyond an estimated 5% completion, while Soleri’s aesthetic convictions remained firm, with the forms and motifs seen in the original drawings repeated throughout the partially realised Arcosanti. If this urban prototype was to test his claims that the drawings were intended to be inspiring frameworks, not aesthetic blueprints, Soleri would have clearly failed. Despite his adaptability as he attempted to implement his vision, he never ventured far from his own ideas and forms nor did he allow others to take control of it, as demonstrated by the mounting conflicts between him and the residents. His desire to fully build Arcosanti in its own deserted landscape further revealed the intention for his Arcologies to be a totalitarian utopia, not the framework for a new urbanity that he had claimed them to be. The control Soleri exerts over the construction at Arcosanti and the community formed there demonstrates a possessiveness over his own ideas, as though his work was conceived around reinforcing his own ego rather than bettering society or urban life.

Through his published and built work Soleri attempted to present himself as a pragmatic genius, builder and visionary, whose groundbreaking ideas should have been taken as a framework towards a new urban future. What onlookers saw, however, was an architect whose work faltered between acting as an idealised framework based on a considered study of urban structures and focusing on simply promoting the idiosyncratic formalism which permeated his work. The built Arcology further shows Soleri to have been more concerned with his own theoretical and visual ethos than with truly implementing radical changes to architecture and planning in the ongoing environmental crisis by which he claimed to be motivated.

9951 words

Fig. 43: (Previous spread) Panoramic view of Arcosanti as it stands today.

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Epilogue

Following Soleri’s death in 2013 work at Arcosanti continued to progress, still at a slow rate, with the president of the Cosanti Foundation calling for construction to continue along with investigations into new, more environmentally friendly city designs. An attempt to request certain scans of Soleri’s work from the Cosanti Foundation revealed ‘drastic reorganization’ at Arcosanti as it came under new management, which included the closure of its planning and construction department, with a single member staff working to catalogue the archives at Arcosanti. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first edition of Arcology being published, which is celebrated by the book being republished, this time by the Cosanti Foundation, not MIT Press.

In 2017, Soleri’s daughter, Daniela Soleri, came forward with sexual abuse allegations against Soleri, urging people to look past his work to acknowledge the late architects many flaws.

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Bibliography Arcosanti. “3D Jersey.” Published September 4, 2017. https://arcosanti.org/arconewsblog-16282/.

Nelson, Arthur C. “Broadacre City.” In Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, edited by Ray Hutchison, 84. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2019.

Banham, Reyner. Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past. New York: Harper & Row, 1976.

Nordheimer, Jon. “A Desert Vision Takes on Shape As Builder Seeks New Society.” New York Times, November 20, 1975.

Banham, Reyner. Scenes in America Deserta. Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, 1982.

Pizarro O’Byrne, Rafael E. “Soleri’s Pendulum: Between Urban Design and Theology.”

Master’s thesis, Arizona State University, 1996.

Blake, Peter. Foreword to Arcology: The City in the Image of Man. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969.

Busbea, Larry. “Paolo Soleri and the aesthetics of irreversibility.” The Journal of Architecture 18, no.6 (December 2013), 781-808.

Dixon, John Morris. “Job Site for Utopia.” Progressive Architecture 54 (April 1973): 76-81.

Rae, Ruth A. “Arcology, Arcosanti and the Green Urbanism Vision.” Open House International 41, no. 4 (December 2016): 56-62.

Ramirez, Marc. “Paolo Soleri’s Vision Of City of Future Remains a Dream.” Wall Street Journal, August 14, 1989.

Doxiadis, C.A. “Ecumenopolis.” Ekistics 21, no. 123 (February 1966): 110-114.

Sargent Wood, Linda. A More Perfect Union: Holistic Worldviews and the Transformation of American Culture after World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Dunphy, Robert J. “A Dream City Rises in the Desert.” New York Times, August 29, 1976..

Shipsky, James. “Diary of an Arcosanti Experience.” AIA Journal 71, no.5 (May 1982): 30-39.

Greene, David. “A Blast From the Past.” Architectural Design 41 (July, 1971), 433-434.

Soleri, Paolo. “Paolo Soleri’s arcology: updating the prognosis.” Interview by Philip Arcidi, Progressive Architecture 72, no. 3, March 1, 1991.

Grierson, Davis. “Unfinished Business at the Urban Laboratory: Paolo Soleri, Arcology and Arcosanti.” Open House International 41, no. 4 (December 2016), 63-72.

Huxtable, Ada Louise. “Prophet in the Desert.” New York Times, March 15, 1970.

Jensen, Robert. “The Arcosanti Antithesis: Paolo Soleri and the Counter Culture.”

Architectural Record (August, 1974), 121–126.

Kepes, Gyorgy. “Art and Ecological Consciousness.” In The Arts of the Environment, ed.

Gyorgy Kepes. New York: Henley: Aidan Ellis, 1972.

Maki, Fumihiko. Investigations in Collective Form. St. Louis: Washington University School of Architecture, 1964.

Soleri, Paolo. “Utopia and/or Revolution.” Translated by Jules Noel Wright. Perspecta 13 (1971).

Soleri, Paolo. Arcology: The City in the Image of Man. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969.

Soleri, Paolo. Fragments: A Selection from the Sketchbooks of Paolo Soleri. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.

Soleri, Paolo. The Bridge Between Matter and Spirit is Matter Becoming Spirit. Garden City: Anchor Press, 1973.

Soleri, Paolo. The Sketchbooks of Paolo Soleri. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971.

Meyerson, Martin. “Utopian Traditions and the Planning of Cities.” Daedalus 90, no. 1 (Winter 1961): 180-193.

Sperlich, Hans-G. and Ulrich Conrads. Fantastic Architecture. London: Architectural Press, 1963.

Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl. “The Arcology of Paolo Soleri.” The Architectural Forum 132, no. 4 (May 1970): 70-75.

White, Dana F. “The Apocalyptic Vision of Paolo Soleri.” Technology and Culture 12, no. 1 (January 1971): 75-88.

Museum of Modern Art. “Visionary Architecture.” Press release (September 29, 1960).

Woodham, Johnathan M. “Archigram.” In A Dictionary of Modern Design, 2. Thousand Oaks: Oxford University Press, 2016, 2.

Nathaniel Coleman. Utopias and Architecture. Padstow: Routledge, 2005.

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Image Credits Fig. 1: Image of Soleri at the Corcoran Gallery Exhibition: Cosanti Foundation. Accessed November 21, 2019. https://arcosanti.org/.

Figures 23-25: Drawings from Arcology: Soleri, Paolo. Arcology: The City in the Image of Man. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969.

Fig. 2: Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘Broadacre City’ drawing: Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. Accessed November 20, 2019. http://www.iaacblog.com/programs/x-urbancities-broadacre-city/.

Fig. 26: Soleri’s Evolution of Man drawing: Organism Earth. Accessed November 19, 2019. https://www.organism.earth/library/.

Fig. 3: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Highway Interchange System: Banham, Reyner. Megastructures: Urban Futures of the Recent Past. New York: Harper & Row, 1976.

Fig. 4: Le Corbusier’s ‘Plan Obus’: Fondation Le Corbusier. Accessed November 20, 2019. http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/.

Fig. 5: Le Corbusier’s Plan for Montevideo: Museum of Modern Art. Accessed November 20, 2019. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/558.

Fig. 6: Le Corbusier’s Plan for Sao Paolo: Museum of Modern Art. Accessed November 20, 2019. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/558.

Fig. 7: Fuller’s 1960 Manhattan dome: Archdaily. Accessed November 20, 2019. https://www. archdaily.com/871752/bring-new-yorks-never-built-projects-of-to-life-with-this-kickstarter.

Fig. 30: Model of Arcosanti: Cosanti Foundation. Accessed November 19, 2019. https:// arcosanti.org/portfolio/arcology-1969/.

Fig. 31: 1973 drawing of Arcosanti: Dixon, John Morris. “Job Site for Utopia,” Progressive Architecture 54 (April 1973).

Fig. 32: Soleri’s model of Arcosanti 2000: One-Way Street. Accessed November 19, 2019 https://onewaystreet.typepad.com/one_way_street/2013/04/paolo-soleri-and-fourier.html Fig. 33: Soleri’s Drawing of Super Critical Mass: Pizarro O’Byrne, Rafael E. “Soleri’s Pendulum: Between Urban Design and Theology.”

Fig. 8: Kenzo Tange’s Tokyo Bay Plan: Banham, Reyner. Megastructures: Urban Futures of the Recent Past. New York: Harper & Row, 1976.

Fig. 34: Soleri’s Model of Arcosanti 5000: The Guardian. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/04/story-cities-35-arcosanti-paolo-soleridesert.

Fig. 9: Archigram’s Plug-In City: Archigram Archival Project. Accessed November 20, 2019. http://archigram.westminster.ac.uk/.

Fig. 35: Crafts III section of Arcosanti: Arizona Memory Project. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/digital/collection/p17220coll8/id/32/.

Fig. 10: Archigram’s Paddington City Proposal: Archigram Archival Project. Accessed November 20, 2019. http://archigram.westminster.ac.uk/.

Fig. 36: Workers at Arcosanti: Pintar, Ivan. Cosanti Foundation.

Fig. 11: Babel IIA Plan: Soleri, Paolo. Arcology: The City in the Image of Man. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969.

Fig. 37: Arcosanti Apse Patterns: ARTSTOR. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/#/asset/ ARTSTOR_103_41822003440839;prevRouteTS=1575987117481.

Fig. 12: Soleri and Mill’s ‘Dome House’: Organism Earth. Accessed November 19, 2019. https://www.organism.earth/library/.

Fig. 38: Arcosanti Construction Work Poster: VICE. Accessed November 19, 2019. https:// www.vice.com/en_us/article/bj7jjd/arcosanti-city-future-paolo-soleri-arcology.

Fig. 13: Soleri’s 1969 Mesa City Plan. Museum of Modern Art. Accessed November 19, 2019. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/166241.

Fig. 39: Cube City, Arcosanti: ARTSTOR. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/#/asset/ ARTSTOR_103_41822003440896;prevRouteTS=1575987555695.

Fig. 14: Soleri’s planter sketches: Soleri, Paolo. The Sketchbooks of Paolo Soleri. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971.

Figures 15-20: Drawings from Arcology: Soleri, Paolo. Arcology: The City in the Image of Man. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969.

Fig. 21: Doxiadis’ Ecumenopolis World Map: Doxiadis+. Accessed November 19, 2019. http://doxiadisplus.com/tomorrows-exhibition-urban-fictions-for-possible-futures/doxiadis1960-ecomenopolis-world/.

Fig. 22: Schiaparelli’s Map of Mars: Wikimedia Commons. Accessed November 19, 2019. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Karte_Mars_Schiaparelli_MKL1888.png.

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Figures 27-29: Drawings from Arcology: Soleri, Paolo. Arcology: The City in the Image of Man. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969.

Fig. 40: Cube City, Arcosanti: Shipsky, James. Diary of an Arcosanti Experience.

Fig. 41: Arcosanti during a Festival: ARTSTOR. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/#/asset/ ARTSTOR_103_41822003440698;prevRouteTS=1575988070098.

Fig. 42: Soleri and Students in a Seminar: Pintar, Ivan. Cosanti Foundation.

Fig. 43: Panoramic View of Arcosanti: M. Kenan Photography. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://mkenanphotography.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/440/.

Appendix: Excerpts from Arcology

The following pages include scans of whole pages from Soleri’s Arcology: The City in the Image of Man. The drawings included were chosen because they best demonstrated the aesthetic qualities of Soleri’s work.

The writing included is intended to showcase the scale of Soleri’s proposals as well as their intended dimensions and populations.

Most pages show drawings of a main Arcology alongside comparative drawings of other Arcologies.

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Elevation and section of Novanoah I, alongside elevations of Arcoforte, Stonebow, Theology and Arcanyon.

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Elevation and section of Novanoah I, alongside elevations of Arcoforte, Stonebow, Theology and Arcanyon.

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Partial plan of Babelnoah, alongside a section of Babel IIC.

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Plan of Logology, alongside a roof plan of Infrababel.

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Section and site plan of Babel IIC, alongside an elevation of Veladiga.

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Elevation, site plan and sections of Arcanyon, alongside a partial elevation of Babel IID.

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Section of Stonebow, alongside elevations of Infrababel and Veladiga.

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Section of Arcoindian I, alongside a section of Babel Canyon and an elevation of Veladiga.

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Plan, elevation and section of Arcoindian I.

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Elevation of Theology, alongside elevations of Arcosanti and Infrababel.

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Elevations, plan and light studies of Arcube, alongside an elevation of Arcodiga.