As with all the criticisms in my Thesis, I will focus on one work per individual with references to other their works and I will follow both Barzon [link] and Elliot [link] in my approach to critique.

Soleri redefined the role of the architect [link] and the definition of the city although there are presidents of his approach in history [link]. I had sketched my first megacity concept before becoming aware of his work but did not develop the idea, seriously, until after exposure to his ideas in the mid 60s. Soleri turned his back on conventional building and started a journey most likely impossible to accomplish in his lifetime. He went out into the desert to build a city from nothing - not a conventional city, an ARCOLOGY [link]. He created many ways of supporting himself and the project from making highly original hand crafted bells [link], to teaching promoting his community-scale environment for many uses. A basin of attraction has been created. Time will tell if it can sustain itself and live beyond its founder. When I moved to Phoenix in the mid 60s, I moved there after buying several hundred acres to do the same kind of thing. I was surprised and delighted when I saw an article on Soleri who had recently won the AIA Gold Medal and published two books [link]. I was disappointed, however, in reading about his ideas in regards economics and ownership. I believed that they would cause him to fail. I still believe he had - and still does as far as I know - an inadequate philosophy in regards these matters. Given the way our economy has developed, and the political distortion of the free-enterprise concept, it may turn out, however, that he executed the right tactics. His way may have been the only way to protect the project through the incubation stage. Time will tell. There remains the questions: what will happen after Soleri; how will the project scale, how will ownership and governance work - can a diverse city evolve from a project? Also, now that the traditional suburban pattern is encroaching on the desert context surrounding Arcosonty, how does this alter future design and growth of this specific experiment [link]?

I have said that an architect should integrate and practice Design/Build/Use - Soleri has done this. I have said the architect is wise to develop revenue sources other than just fee-for-service - he has done this. I have said that an architect should focus on work and design concepts that are relevant to the times - he has done this. I have said that an architect should build based on a concept of life and work as an integrated process - Soleri has done this. I have said that an architect should be able to relate every project from a room to a city to GAIA [link] as a system, and a work of art and a Garden for all life - he has done this to a greater degree than any architect I am aware of except, perhaps, than myself. I have said that cites following Greene's [link] concepts, should have an Armature that allows diverse development within a context and ties to amd preserves history - Soleri has done this in the vast majority of his designs, and, as new as his Acology concept is, it is amazing how much of Tuscany you can find in it.

Also, I have said that architects have to build a variety of types, in a variety of places, circumstances and contexts in order to demonstrate, broadly, their philosophy and methods [link] (soleri has not); that the architect’s primary role - with built work - is to advance the state-of-the art in key projects (soleri has) and to transfer this knowledge (he has), and, develop means that are scaleable - here I have serious questions [link]. These questions in no way detract from Paolo Soleri’s significance and achievement. I do not know, from direct experience, what his thinking is on these issues nor what he considers a professional life well lived. I believe, however, it would be a better world, and that Arcology would be more advanced (in concept, form, practice and influence), if Soleri had built more outside of Arcosonti (even if many of these projects were of far more modest scale). If he has not because of intent and policy or because a world has refused to play - I do not know. For myself, I do not wish to retreat to a sanctuary, nor do I want to “fight the world,” either. I have chosen to create a new practice model [link] of architecture with the intent to create Authentic Architecture [link] at a scale sufficient to bring real alternatives to society.

hexahedron

I turn now to HEXAHEDRON. Even though there has been a considerable amount of building at Arcosonti, to me Hexahedron represents one of the most pure expressions of Paolo’s ideas. The design has always moved me. This is a habitat for a 100 thousand people. The structure is about 3,000 feet high - a human made mountain. It is composed of two offset, inverted, pyramids - simple forms that, because of their relationship to one another, create an amazing Armature that frames a great variety of spaces. This Armature - this mountain - would be encrusted with landscaping and inside and outside “lots” where “buildings” for various purposes would be built. The building would never end - The Armature providing services, context and unity, the encrustation of landscape and specific structures a rich, always changing diversity. I would love to build Hexahedron. I think that it would be one of the great works of all time.

It is important to IMAGINE - to think through - what amenities a structure like this would provide that are nearly impossible to accomplish any other way. For one, the ability to walk to and have access, within a few minutes, to any one (or grouping) of a 100,000 people. The traditional “flat” city cannot provide this and it fails to do so at great expense. Because of the shape, configuration and size of the structure, it creates both landscape and micro climate. A layered approach to the exposure to this weather can provide an almost endless variety of landscape contexts with a minimal amount of mechanical tempering. The design is essentially a cube on a bias configured with an offset that creates a large open park about 1,500 feet into the air. This is a way to get the best of the Medieval city [rbtfBook], combine it with the best of modern technology and create a new form. The STREET [rbtfBook], particularly, can find an expression here that we have not see in centuries. A great deal of the food required by the population would be grown in/on the building, as well as, upon the immediate ground landscape below the structure and that surrounding the structure. Major services and transportation is provided in the vertical supporting columns of Hexahedron with the heavy technology below ground under it. Access to the natural surrounding landscape is a matter of a few minutes for each citizen - a maximum of 700 steps and a vertical drop. The size of the population equals a comfortable political unit - a small “city-state” capable of diversity, “replacement” [rbtfBook] and self-rule. One could imagine how a city like this, with some kind of theme and basin-of-attraction would play out over a couple of hundred years.

One of the great barriers to this kind of solution is that it is extremely front-end capital intensive. It is far less capital and costly in maintenance for infrastructure on the back end of the project because of the inherent efficiencies of this kind of configuration. This is against the grain of how development is done today which is based on tax law and extreme capital leverage and land exploitation [link]. UpSideDownEconomics does not see the advantage here [link]. Another barrier is how cities are thought of - and built. They are not conceived of as a system. At the same time, they are over designed in many critical aspects and do not emerge, organically, over a long period of time - as the great cities of the past did. The wrong things are controlled. And, the wrong things are left to random chance. It is almost perfectly backwards. A systematic method that facilitates both design (intent) and emergence (learning and feedback) is required. And, as a further barrier, a city like this would require an unique approach to public/private collaboration. These aspects of economics, life and governance cannot be seen to be in conflict as they are today. Individual wealth and commonwealth have to be in balance. This is the opposite of what happens in our contemporary over-hyped, thoughtless, spin-based approach to the creation and facilitation of the body politic and the sprawl we call cities. I do not think that Soleri has grappled with these barriers, beyond the philosophical level, and approached them with a transferable, scaleable method engineered to overcome them. I have the same criticism of Oneal’s Space Colonies [link] - the social architecture is the most critical aspect of these new city designs on the planet or off of it. Soleri has evolved a community over nearly half a century and perhaps that is his plan. The results are still ambiguous. What is certain is that today we have the worst of both worlds between the traditions city [rbtfBook] and the possible future city - Arcologies remain one of the best concepts for exploring a viable, sustainable and socially exciting alternative to the existing city schema which has reached its point of absurdity.

Designing Hexahedron will not be easy - there are many habits to break. The mechanical engineering will be challenging. The structural and physical building aspects, while massive in scale, do not, in themselves, present huge challenges except for one aspect. Remote Arcologies will present transportation challenges (during the construction phase, which can take decades) while those close to existing cities will offer political and transitional (social as wells as technological) challenges. However, if you look at the annual expansion of a city like Calgary or Los Vegas is can be seen that the scale of localized Urban/suburban building is not inadequate to that necessary for the making of Hexahedron. It is just that these are two opposed design strategies and the existing system-in-place (from zoning, politics, economics, infrastructure, ownership, social conventions, and power-bases) is tuned to the creation of horizontal spread.

Soleri deserves to be considered to be more than a personality on the fringe of alternative architecture. He should be seen as a primary form giver and his concepts should be tested. The traditional city will not gracefully evolve from where it is today to something that will work in the future. And even if it can, and in some places does, there needs to exist the pure expression of an anti-thesis to challenge and stimulate it. Hexahedron is, in fact, far closer to the great cities of the past and far more capable of accomplishing a full expression of Pattern Language [rbtfBook] than the so-called modern city is.

Paolo Soleri as a life lived and as an architect has added much to Humanity and the language of a future sustainable city. He is one of the first to think about the city in an ecological context and offered fundamental alternatives to the existing habits. He has pursued his vision. He has employed prototyping which is rare in architecture. He has lived in and placed his business in his own prototype designs. He has invested a lifetime to his work. However, it seems to me he has trapped himself in a world of his own making. I do not know if this is true or how this aspect of his life and work has played out in relationship to his intent. I leave this question for the future to answer.

Go to Thesis Introduction and Overview Part Three Go to Thesis Introduction and Overview Part One Return to Thesis Index Return to INDEX Architectural Projects 1952 - 2004 Mega Cities

posted October 30, 2004