
Arcosanti - riffraff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcosanti
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nkoren
Well well! Funny to see this on Hacker News. This is something I can speak
towards: I lived at Arcosanti for five years, and knew its founder well. I
wrote his obituary in Architectural Record:
[http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2013/04/130419-Remem...](http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2013/04/130419-Remembering-
Paolo-Soleri-1919-2013.asp)

If you're curious, Ask Me Anything.

~~~
state
Nice to see another architect on HN.

I only visited Arcosanti once, and in my brief visit (around 2005) I found the
intellectual environment to be pretty dogmatic and deeply skeptical of
technology. Being an architect with a strong technical background I found this
strange. It seemed like if there were a place that could be thinking deeply
about how architects can productively use technology Arcosanti would be the
place.

The environment you describe in your other reply makes me think that perhaps
this wasn't always the case. Could you talk a little more about the
intellectual climate during your stay? Was there a period where people were
able to see Soleri's thinking as more of a springboard than a rigid system?

~~~
nkoren
The intellectual climate at Arcosanti waxes and wanes quite considerably. It
has gone through numerous ups and downs since my time there. I visited for a
couple of days last summer and found it to be mid-swing -- couldn't tell if it
was on the way up or on the way down -- but when it's up, it can be very
diverse and lively, with many seemingly polarised subgroups. Depending on who
you talk to, you can come away from Arcosanti thinking that it's a bunch of
Žižek-spouting primitivists, Kurzweil-spouting extropians, mildly paranoid
right-wing survivalists, or reasonably dispassionate architecture graduates
with a somewhat environmental bent who were just looking for a stimulating
internship.

One of Arcosanti's strengths is that it can accommodate all of these types
simultaneously. But tour guides are given/take quite broad latitude in terms
of how they present the project, so depending on who shows you around, you can
come away with an impression that it's only one of the above subgroups, when
in fact it's all of them. From what I could see, that tradition continues
today, although not quite as vibrant as during my mid-90s tenure.

Although Arcosanti accommodates many different modes of thought, paradoxically
it's been relatively hostile to people who want to push on the boundaries of
urban planning and design. When I came there, I was quite enamoured of
Soleri's "arcology" theory (and today I still am) -- but ultimately, I
disagreed with him that cities could be designed as fixed objects; I argued
with him that cities were _processes_ , not objects, and that what we really
needed to be studying was what kind of processes would lead to arcological
outcomes. Soleri, however, was quite defensive and dogmatic about his theory,
so I had to leave to pursue that particular thread. Ideas which _don 't_
particularly impinge upon the built form are far more welcome there. This has
been a shortcoming of the place for decades. I'm hopeful that it will be able
to reinvent itself, post-Soleri, to overcome this limitation.

~~~
state
Thanks for the thorough response!

I went to visit a friend who fell in the 'reasonably dispassionate' category
for a few days. Perhaps that's what influenced my exposure. It is, of course,
a beautiful place and I enjoyed my time thoroughly. I remember being
constantly paranoid about having a centipede attach itself to my body somehow.

What you describe in your final paragraph reminds me of the failures of other
significant voices from that generation that I have encountered. It's strange,
isn't it, that it's so difficult to get these people to see just a bit past
the horizon. Architecture exists at a boundary between writing and listening —
it's a response to culture and it shapes culture. It's strange that the titans
of the late mid-century became so dogmatic, but we do get to take the good
parts and move forward.

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dsiegel2275
My fiancee and I visited this place several years ago. We had never heard
about it (we aren't even from Arizona), but decided to pull off of I17 and
check it out after seeing a roadside sign for it on our drive back to Phoenix
from Sedona. For whatever reason - maybe a combination of the strange
architecture and there not being a lot of other people around at that time -
the place had a real eerie vibe. As we approached some visitor center type
place, something else freaked us out, maybe bells ringing; we then got
convinced we were stumbling across some type of cult and so we literally ran
back to our car and drove away!

Later that evening back in Phoenix we met friends of ours for dinner. We told
them about our escapade and they laughed, mentioning they had visited
Arcosanti, and knew all about the place. Six months later we received a
package from them - one of the Arcosanti bells as a wedding gift. We still
have it hanging outside on our porch.

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smcl
Strange, most of the photos on the page appear to be HDR'd for that dreamy
effect. I think the place would look pretty interesting without altering the
photos that way.

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brianshaler
Strange to see this pop up on HN with no context. I've been to Arcosanti a few
times; it's a fascinating place. During the last couple years, we've held a
few weekend-long hackathons up there.

~~~
riffraff
I ended up on the wikipedia page by some random navigation, felt interesting.

Seems like a pretty interesting concept of "city", so I thought the HN crowd
might appreciate :)

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bitslayer
I had Soleri's book as a youngster in the 70s, and I was quite influenced by
his ideas. I even taught a class to my fellow middle-school students called
"City" where we built a model of a single structure city, to be built in the
desert. What can I say, it was the 70s. My Mom has lived out in Arizona for
many years, and as I was getting ready to go visit her for the first time a
few years ago, I realized that Arcosanti was just down the road from her
house. She had never heard of it, despite being a bit of a counter-cultural
type herself. We took the tour... it was a little shabby, but quite
interesting. Of course it is just a pale shadow of the dreams of that wild
guy. But it is a working experiment, and has lasted. I was pleased to see a
poster advertising that young women were invited to be sketched nude by Paolo
and they could keep some of the drawings. Pretty nice setup for the old guy.

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locahost
I attended a school (relatively) nearby in the 1970s. We took many field trips
out to Arcosanti, which was under construction. Were told, "When you grow up,
you'll live somewhere like this!"

When I visited as an adult, I noticed Arcosanti seemed like an offshoot of
environmental architecture, rather than an influence: for instance, I was
surprised they didn't have graywater recycling out there on the mesa. It'd be
interesting to see some of Soleri's concepts expressed with an urban infill
project.

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stoolpigeon
My dad took my brother and I there back in the late 70's or early 80's. My
impression at the time was that it seemed to be falling apart faster than it
was being built.

Over the years it is the place I point out to my kids as we are headed up or
down I-17. But I've never been inclined to go back.

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restalis
"the concept of arcology, which combines architecture and ecology"

The first things that comes out at word deconstruction are "arc" (bow, curve)
and "logos" (science), which suggests some kind of discipline on curves. Very
far from "ecology and architecture combined".

~~~
TeMPOraL
'ecotecture' would be better, I think.

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mark_l_watson
I live an hour drive north of Arcosanti so I have been there many times, and I
had a few interesting conversations with the architect Soleri when he was
still alive.

I love the low environmental impact philosophy, and Arcosanti could be a
future pattern for habitation in the future. That said, my wife does not like
the place (except for going to concerts there and having a meal) because the
place is not always kept tidy.

Soleri admitted that not nearly enough people live there, so there are
problems. I do really like the place and I suggest visiting Arcosanti if you
are in the area.

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nobody_nowhere
If there's one lesson I take from Acrosanti's architect, Paolo Soleri, it's
"think big".

Fun fact: Arcosanti's prototype, Cosanti, was a big influence on George Lucas.
You can see tons of Soleri-style work in the film's sets, particularly
Tatooine.

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simonebrunozzi
I visited Arcosanti in February 2014. I have been a big fan of Paolo Soleri
and his creation.

However, when I was there for just half a day, my impression is that his
original goal (5,000 people living in this community) will never be achieved.
Numbers oscillate between 50 and 100, and don't seem to go up.

There's something fundamentally wrong in how the project is supposed to scale.
Very sorry to see this not growing the way he anticipated.

~~~
olefoo
I visited in 1996 and while I thought it was an impressive piece of
architecture; I got the distinct impression that even then it had already
ossified into a monument to itself.

Which is really too bad, because the Arcology idea is quite beautiful and
compelling; but to make it work in practice would require a distinct and
difficult balancing of the functional megastructure and providing the
inhabitants with the freedom to modify the spaces within for their own
purposes.

I spent many hours poring over the original arcologies book as a child and
still think it's one of the better pieces of design science fiction that I've
ever read. But the idea of the Arcology, of the city as an organism with a
structure to support it to maximise the health and happiness of it's
inhabitants needs to break free of the fascistic hero worship that has so far
kept it from expressing itself as anything but a heroic monument to it's
designers rather than the living creation of it's residents.

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32faction
I go to school (Embry-Riddle) about 45 minutes drive from Arcosanti and I have
to say while I pass the signs for it I haven't been up there. I remember one
of my professors mentioning the project during my Alternative Energies class
so I thought it was some sort of solar project.

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UserRights
People interested in alternative ways of living should read about Auroville,
India.

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hwc
If you are ever driving north from Phoenix, you can stop by and take a tour.

