Paolo Soleri

Paolo Soleri
b. Turin, 1919.

Paolo Soleri - Visionary Italian architect and planner who has created the word “arcology”, combining architecture and ecology. Educated in Italy between the world wars, Soleri graduated as a Dottore in Architettura from the Turin Politecnico in 1946. Apprenticeship for sixteen months with Frank Lloyd Wright followed. His first building, the Dome House at Cave Creek, Arizona (1949), was designed and constructed in collaboration with Mark Mills. In Italy from 1950, Soleri worked in Turin and on the Amalfi coast before returning to the USA in 1955. Since 1956 he has worked alone from “Cosanti” studios at 6433 Doubletree Road, Scottsdale, Arizona, with the continuing assistance of apprentices. Soleri’s naive but telling penetrations into the conventions of society are a particular response to the horizontal suburban consumptive culture of the surrounding Phoenix metropolitan area. Although early projects were based on bioclimatic principles and later proposals insist on energy and ecological responsibility, these techniques are less visible than Soleri’s Utopian “megastructure” ideas, best seen at Arcosanti, his ongoing urban experiment in Arizona. He is exceptional in expanding the dimensions of design responsibility. Yet with single structure urbane visions for millions Soleri insists on “miniaturization”. In a spiritual quest inspired by Teilhard de Chardin he pursues imploded human and social intensity through three-dimensional density in experimental buildings, visionary proposals and inspired writing and lecturing. His Architectural Vision exhibitions were seen in major N American cities in 1970.

List of major buildings / works:
Ceramica Artistica Solinene, Vietri sul Mare, Italy, 1953.
Cosanti Studios, Scottsdale, Arizona, 1956-74.
Proposals for Luxembourg Bridges, 1958; and Space for Peace since 1980.
“Arcosanti” under construction since 1970.

Bibliography:
Paolo Soleri, Arcology: The City in the Image of Man, MIT, 1969;
Paolo Soleri, The Sketchbooks of Paolo Soleri, MIT, 1971;
Paolo Soleri, The Bridge Between Matter and Spirit is Matter Becoming Spirit, 1973. JC

Filed Under S on September 26, 2008

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