of course one has to point out that bells are in fact simply upside down
pots and one of the books that Carlo read a long time ago and is still on
his bookshelf. These mumford, the city of history and in the opening
paragraphs, he talks about the city as a container. The city is a pot. Of
course, Paulo. Cities are containers. They are pots. There is of course
also the great importance of Kazan T uh is not just a workshop of building
techniques but as a place where ideas have bore fruit, handcraft processes.
The casual, intimate personal kind of experience on these five acres
perhaps anticipate the richness of intimate and personal experience that
would ultimately experience in these almost megalomaniac structures of
giant our colleges. Tallow put together some ideas that he'd had earlier
and put together a sketch book called the cosmic potentials. We're being
in the Sunni country and being very
having a propensity for the elder maybe think that the sun should be used
even more than what I was using it and natural anything of the sun and
automatically think of the wind and the water and tides in the morning.
Yeah, it's available. So I began to try to think what would happen if you
could Come out with structures shaped in such a way as to be able to
capture those energies. One of these sketches, 1950, it's a a building
that shaped something like a catcher's mitt which would face the sun
balconies, then would catch the sun's energy and transform it into
something usable. This one was used. The potential of wind and would
collect the wind on the surface is another design consisted of a huge,
slowly rotating metal rod heated on one side by the sun and cooled on the
other side by a stream of cold water. The expansion contraction of the rod
would be translated into useful energy. After two years of being in that
and being through one of the symposium on solar energy in phoenix, I
decided that the time wasn't right or I was after something that for the
moment will not be successful in you. So my interest slackened and at that
moment I began to be installed in the new urban problem, but the structure
were somehow more than the bridges were the beginning of the psychology
concept. In the meantime, paolo was involved in the design and
construction of a theater for the indian school in santa fe new Mexico. He
quit the project before its completion, Jeffrey Cook describes the design
of the theater paolo had in mind several images including the path of the
sun of the moon. He provided ramps and balconies and stairs and upper
levels of sort of greek chorus like general architectural scheme to
encourage the liveliest application of imagination to a program which
didn't really exist. I mean indian drama or theater does not occur in
built structures. I think the liveliest and most important idea in the
santa fe theater was this ramp, which stuck off the one side of the
theater and ramp down to the stage level. And the idea was that you could
run horses or cattle and buffalo down this ramp across uh and around the
stage so that the action, which is such an important part of indian
ceremonial tradition could become a part of the dynamic experience in this
theater. The most important work of Palo during the early and mid sixties
uh was his work on a theoretical project called Mason City for between one
and two million people, which would be built on the top of the mesa in the
southwest of the United States. The mesa would be something like 10 km
wide and 35 km long. One of the elementary things is that paolo designed
the site, so therefore the site fits the plan very well. Someone suggested
when they that I should design a city I think was a, it was an art dealer
and the day after I started designing the city, what prompted him to make
that suggestion saying my design my work, How did that was consequently
smell working around the idea of a community or city or, but they were
scattered sketches and ideas and at that point I guess I was ready for
concentrate in something more definite. So after doing some sketching, I
applied for the grant, I got it. The plan in general is a kind of dumbbell
shape, lopsided dumb bell uh in which the uh two nodes, one consists of
university in this end and the other end, uh consists of a world center of
religions, This drawing of an artist village. The drawing is over 100 ft
long on butcher paper and if you look carefully you can see the little
fingers here holding the thing up. This drawing was done and it was never
ever seen all at once until this day that we held about Charles eames was
here taking pictures and we took turns holding the thing up and then
running around and see what this thing looked like. Some of the buildings
start to develop into quite large forms. These are really villages Which
are about 300 stories high, which means that within themselves, they are a
kind of microcosm when you get a building, which is that high, even the
natural climate at the bottom, it was very different from the natural
climate at the top. But then if you consider the fact that the building
has an open courtyard in the center, you begin to realize that you're
developing a pretty heavy interior or semi controlled micro climate so
that these buildings certainly approached archaeological possibilities in
their size and in the possibility that the various parts of them would be
designed comprehensively in an integrated way. The one criticism of Mesa
City, which has been published one paragraph In Chris Alexander's Pivotal
Essay of 1965 on Modern City Planning Theory, which is called a city is
not a tree. And in that paragraph, he is critical of the mason city plan
because he says it's just flat planning like every other 20th Century City
Plant. He says that in spite of its organic appearances, it's enrich
appearances, it is very two dimensional. Nevertheless, mason city was very
important in paolo's self growth. It gave the opportunity of assembling on
an ideal basis. The many components which we usually consider are
necessary parts of the city. And it also gave him sites for a whole bunch
of theoretical buildings in which he could explore in depth many of the
architectural ideas which he was interested in at that time, not to be a
flat tell eventual city basically based on, on the logistics of the
automobile with somebody peculiar maybe exciting concept mixed in it
Consider it became very common 15, 20 years later, but one was the
transformation of over scar into a garden. I love gravel pit or the a
quarry into a garden into park. The woman was, mm hmm. The recycling
through a systematic built trouble to systematically he would have
utilities and devices for recycling materials and, you know, refurbishing
hardware and so on. That was the beginning of the integrated systems where
you don't have only work or living or production or marketing or this or
that, but you have all those things. One of the other things was that
there were two centers in the city of one was a cultural center. Learning
center was a theological center. So those were probably key elements for
the future developments in a way. Then Mesa city was an archaeology was a
torn apart ecology. So how did it come together?
Uh huh. Mhm Slowly and with a realization and I wasn't as yet dealing with
the core of the problem which is a far better logistics like a second
grand to finish the the material Mississippi. Yeah, when I got the second
grand somehow I got into it more intensely and at that point I switched
promise city to our culture. Some of the ideas which were part of the city
were already partial colleges as far conceptually because I had a
Princeton villages which were one building and in those villages that were
many, many of the things that would be needed by the community immediate
needs from the clinic to the market, to the school, to the church and so
on. Anyone all incorporated in this building, which was a village about
between two and 4000 people depending where they were. So those were
already small, partial college and that there were other structure like
the learning center, which was definitely a three dimensional. Well what
happened between there and the publication of city in the image of man
about the work of so redefining the criteria to of how to go about
designing a city and then trying to illustrate those criterias. So you
decide that this is going to be one building and then here to go on from
there. Try to illustrate this concept. The book, Our Ecology City in the
Image of Man was published in 1969 by MIT Press. The first part explained
the theory of our ecology, assuming that there are no problems of crime
discrimination, unemployment, et cetera. In our society. Salary explains
that it is still imperative to apply the concept of our ecology that is
miniaturizing the urban environment in order to improve mutual access of
the elements within the city. The second part of the book presents designs
for possible our ecologies. At some point, I went into some kind of a
binge Where early two or 3 months they would come up with an idea. So in
less than two years, I I had sketches for about 40 or 45 colleges. That
means immediately that those blueprints those well fantasies.
But fantasy is based on a certain logic. So as a phase of a certain
process of going from from the theoretical into the Rio, I think it was
important. Very important. So people should look at the mess fantasies
about the country around the concept which is the concept of the complex
the mineralized The integrated three dimensional. I began to think that
the next step would have to be demonstration. So I couldn't begin to think
that I would I would be able to begin the demonstration, but I started to
work around the idea of a small psychology and that became the last design
and in the book.
But at that point I began to really think seriously about where to, it
could be and how we go about about doing it. So I designed that one in
mind, Certain specific landscape. Beginning as early as the winter of 61,
paolo realized and was trying to make plans for leaving Doubletree Road
and going to a larger site. He was aware that the ranch style houses were
coming down Doubletree Road. He knew the Paradise Valley was filling up
and he was anxious to have a larger piece of land in which there could be
a more complete control of the larger environment in which there could be
a community of like spirits of other people involved in arts and crafts,
who could live in a more exemplary fashion. And so he began a search in
which on successive weekends there would be expeditions. One day in two
day expeditions to various parts of rural Arizona. I went on a lot of
those expeditions with them and as did the whole family and we usually had
a very good time hiking around. It was very good for many points of view
because first of all we saw Arizona first hand, we appreciated the desert
and more particularly we came to understand what the desert meant. The
delicacy in which these thorny and and fortified plant survive. There's
slow rate of growth, their visual transparency, their vulnerability. Only
two man, they're not vulnerable to the extremes of climate or to the lack
of moisture, but man is their most horrific predator. Mhm. And we came to
understand the delicacy in the balance of this beautiful natural landscape
under these harsh conditions.
We came to understand this very thin skin vegetation which paolo has
written and talked about uh which is uh the frail basis of all of human
life. Well, I looked for about eight years. I was scouting very regularly
and very presently land on a radius of about 100 miles from phoenix.
And then after a few years of that, I begin to concentrate in in the areas
between Prescott and phoenix or around college junction here
and
after an attempt to get some land could annoyed for which I designed the
first layout, which was so my layout done at the Mesa city time, I got a
hold of this land. I got interested in this land. I bought some land on
the opposite side, 68, we decided we would buy 60 acres Arcosanti. The
word is a contraction of our ecology and co Santee is a proto, our ecology
for 3000 people. That salary started to build on this land in 1969. The
work is done by volunteers who come for six weeks and contribute about
$300 towards the cost of materials, equipment and food. Salary is able to
match this amount from the proceeds of the sale of his bells books and
fees from his lectures, I asked so leery what he has learned in the
process of building arcosanti stuff. The main thing is that evidently
theoretical, it's important, but it's only the first step from the
political to the actual there's an enormous amount of work to do and you
can fail in any step inside the movie material
and there are things that yet I find out it yet. What I think is necessary
is to combine the long term planning with existential
transform of the process, which means that do you maintain a certain
scheme almost unchanged as a concept? You have to keep it up in this game
to the contingency of the moment, which is not just a landscape of people
or this or that it's everything. A little bit of material, materials
availability of cash to buy the material credit. Um how much you feel you
can, how much probably if you you might have now and then
the climate, the weather within the climate, the people working with you,
how many I'll feel the scheduling the influences of, of environment in
terms of people building codes and zoning. So this is a practical
demonstration of the thing that you talk about it. It's not possible to
predict the future with a living process. Well, in a way I'm the least apt
to predict the future in scientific terms. One reason it was because I
don't have the means, but if I was more instant employment find the means.
Well, I've been involved somehow in empirical processes for a long time
to the building. Of course, auntie. So it comes more natural for me to go
about empirically. So that's why it's good that people are. Needling me
about the fact that we should plan. But I'm the first one to say that
should plan because the psychologist to be planned, so we have to find the
optimal weather planning might become more systematic at the same time,
that direction the construction keeps keeps being geared
to the imminence of the process. It's the present to the fighting. The
process is in a way as important as the end goal. You find that as the as
the project is growing, it's getting a life of its own. I hope so. I think
it's beginning for one thing, the violence of the sentiment and
surrounding it, another one is that I begin to feel that
the structure of the geological structure and the climate is working
pretty well with what we're building. What are you talking about? The
violence? What do you mean by the violence surrounding you know, the yeah
, the emotional Mhm attitude of the people and also outside.
I don't think there is a difference. I think there is a briancon and very
much for very much against and so on. I asked so leery why it is
imperative that we apply the principle of miniaturization complex
ification to the urban environment, Taylor then says, um we are part of
them, our process of genesis and this genesis, one of the main
characteristics of this genesis is that you're always moved from the
simple into the complex, relatively so successful. Next step is always
more complex than the preceding step.
So that was the key element that I picked up
and I pick it up before I found out about Sheldon, because the colleges
were already in the making. But that gave confirmed to me that I was on
the right track the next I was for me to connect the concept of a physical
dimension, so that that's where military militarization came. How is
complexity possible to the process of implosion,
implosion of not necessarily matter the implosion of of a consciousness or
activities or information and so on. So, whatever your complexity, you can
sure, you're going to find out miniature defined miniaturization. She
applied that to to the hole, but what we know concerning life then, you
see, that seems to be confirmed. It seems to be confirmed by not just my
note or uncertain terms, but in terms which are
substantial in space and time, time being, all the three billions of years.
Space being, space of your shadow talks about an omega point as the final
goal of consciousness. What is this omega point? It was the exasperation
of this idea of complexity. Militarization. That convinced me that by
necessity, at the end of the prices you would have. That I'll make a point
and
this will make a point would be a little type of consciousness and control
and power and presence. So at that point it's the closest thing to the
construct guard that we in the Western world and can come up with. During
the early 60s, there was a movement among theologians declaring God is
dead. God is dead in the center. It never existed, but there existed as a
final accomplished
entity. It always existed as an attempt or as a hypothesis or as a partial
realization. So we can say that each present at its own imminent god. But
the godfather is dead. For me, it's that kind of original
trust or consciousness or will that can be found in broad matter. And
since Brooke matter seems to be somehow segregation or in the sense of not
being able to to understand itself through its own particles, at least in
a way that we understand understanding, it's easy to see that this God
instead of being one god, is an infinite number of God. Let's so you have
absolutely fantastic condition, a fragmented universe. The granular
universe
for which each isolated particle can be seen as an expression as the most
prime media playing medieval expression of, of some kind of in essence and
you can call it and this is a God
and from there on it's the reduction in the number of those guards through
the introduction of Consciousness up to the point where this consciousness
becomes one that is the omega god, the monotheistic.
Tonight to end this program, I will read a short segment from paolo's book
, The Bridge between Matter and Spirit is Matter becoming Spirit, Which
was published in 1973 as a double day anchor original. We are at most the
first groping generals wedging themselves in the dark granularity of
spirits. Underpinnings the future is literally the whole of life's
evolution in time, space, power, but mainly in intensity. How else can we
life create God
Man.
Arcosanti is located one mile northeast of Cordes Junction, which is 60
miles north of phoenix on interstate 17 at the Prescott turn off except
during the winter months. The site is open to visitors Tours are given at
11 am and two pm.
Cause santa is located in Scottsdale and is open to visitors who may buy
metal and ceramic bells There. For information about Arcosanti workshops
right to the casa santa foundation. That C O S A N T kO 76 433 Doubletree
Road Scottsdale Arizona 85253.
Let me repeat the address. Co santa Foundation 6433 Doubletree Road
Scottsdale Arizona 85253.
This program was produced and narrated by frank Kroger at Pacifica station
Kpfk in los Angeles with technical assistance from Peterson time and PhilMendelson