this recording is made possible through the facilities of how architecture
, library, Arizona State University.
Yeah, Side one Follow Salary, Lecture December 17, 1971 one h 45 minutes.
Today. It's my pleasure to introduce to you. One of the, in my estimation
, one of the rare men in the world who through his creative endeavors has
become a phenomenon in his own lifetime. So if you would please welcome
policy area,
just go with the original
can. Mhm.
Mhm. Well,
the first phenomenon is that I don't speak english, so
that's going to be tough
and being the theory a little abstruse or a little difficult to present in
one hour, especially for a non speaking english person. I'm going to show
the material first and then we might get into a discussion. I hope
the material has, his mailing has two parts, one is construction in your
own is a theory.
The reason to show the construction is to demonstrate that we are also
building and we are also living a normal life so that you don't believe
that you didn't think that we are only sitting on a desk coming up with
strange ideas. So it's very important for you to go through the building's
first and then get acquainted with the concept and possibly develop a
dialogue about the concepts.
We are in Scottsdale, I mean five miles north of Scottsdale and many of
you have been there probably, you know more or less what we are doing. But
you see some of the ways that we have been using to build a very simple,
very small structures that we are using for our purposes. Um metal works,
ceramics, work drafting,
living and so on. This compound has developed in the last 15 or so years.
Most of the buildings the last 10 years in collaboration with the College
of Architecture, we had summer workshops and Between 15 and 30 or 40
students used to come for six weeks and do some manual work there and
discuss the ideas involved in it. In the last three years we have been
beginning to work on the new side about 70 miles on Black Canyon Highway.
And this is the site for Arcosanti which is hopefully going to be a
building for about 3000 people involved in living, working,
producing, playing All under one roof. So it's a small town for about 3000
people built on 10 acres About 25 story high, Occupying 1% of about 860
acres that we have. So it's going to be the opposite of a suburban
development
because the concentration of the activities will be very high and very
purposely hi and somehow centered around a small urban device which would
be a nucleus for some research on urban problems. So what we're going to
do in the next 10 years hopefully is to experiment and to experience and
to be the guinea pigs
of a certain environment that we are devising and developing. So the main
teaching process would be learning about what we are doing and the doing
is going to be mostly building for many years.
Mhm and Mhm,
Mhm.
This is the place I was telling you, we live and work. Yeah. And it felt
very positively there was not playing such every year. We build some of
the structures or one or two then and then the year after we built
something more to accommodate they're changes that we've Roosevelt.
The first experiment was this slab which became a roof for low house and
what I did instead of casting
slip casting ceramic species in the ground as I used to do cast a sleep
cast somehow this slab on a mountain made of soil. So this is the Earth
House about 30 x 30 in the dimension and the roof was cast on a mound of
soil
after that came this studio lifting and ceramics later on this north to
use the entrance there
and then year by year we enlarged the operation. We were got into larger
work in ceramics, we got into foundry work, we build house for the
apprentice plate will be built swimming pool, a canopy and a larger we are
now stopping the building in this side because we are concentrating on
news.
This is the view of this
structure from this side.
Thank you.
The work here is all done by young people and myself and my family. So
there is no professional skills involved. This is a passageway went
through here.
The view of this larger house from this side and the swimming pool
can be about the swimming pool,
little drafting room.
Now I'm going to show some of the techniques that we used in building.
This is the building, the construction of this.
Sorry
that what you see there is served and has been packed on a form which
which is movable. You see it later. Those are some of the views of the
compound is in the north studio looking into the ceramics area,
the ceramics area where we do packing and casting
the courtyard on the right and how's the swimming pool area
san topology
that you can see the what kind of services you get when you cast against
the roughness of the soil. The law has the first experiment. This was the
room I was telling you. And this is a it's another underground houses a
ground which is which is a house which is below great believe it has a
large opening on the south, one of the north and the skylights. I'm sorry
about this
business.
The margins are getting along passageway boy to the podcast, which is the
larger house,
no serious frame was movable and we cast Many of those sections. 11 of
those by moving the frame assembly, putting up the silt, cutting into
pageants, putting paper to obtain different cause inside of the shell and
pulling
city sections for one day. One supported by the scaffolding
and then the last section have to be cast before the scaffolding came
This is the keystone and after that you can you have the structure working
compassion. So you take it off, take off the support.
This is the area oh boy. Where we do Islamic. We are a skylight in
cardboard and we later on we made it into plastic and
complete.
We are shaping a formula in soil again to make this war which contains the
killed for the ceramics. This is pure soil has been packed cut worked.
This is a calling of semen to stabilize in a way path. Now we're pulling
there. You see the war itself, the shelf and this was the form has been
demolished afterwards. So we used
soil performing that. We use concrete for the structure itself.
We were shaping amount for a boat. It's a storage now and this girl is
coming nose cribs and now we're pouring the concrete.
Those are again are sheets of instead of paper, cloth, plastic cloth. And
you see the difference between the areas where the cloth is on and where
it's not
the word concrete picks up pigments and soil itself. So you have a
different color.
This was one of the estimated shells is the promotion of another one using
cars on the soil itself.
Mr baez recalled
just before the cast to go to shut itself
after the casting before and after. This is a storage for the found really
we're building here area space which is sheltered for the foundry work
by using this technique we needed bulldozers to escalate under those
shells and the bulldozers cut deep trenches. So we landscape those
trenches, just cutting the soil and packing it. Later along that we
stabilized by pulling see concrete shells,
the resulting shell.
Okay,
we are building an enclosure for one of the patios in a large tunnel,
ceramics. In this case we used we built three chronicle arches, one
following the next into a spherical shape. And then we concluded this
structured by pre casting an arch in sealed and then assembling it.
Did they receive the art missing the keystone. This is the concrete child.
The silt has been washed away.
There's subject of research.
No sir the 25
elements
and this is the the keystone car cast on the spot. So again you get
compression
stress is through the urge we put a bench table and only a tree house on
top of it.
It's so good. A few points Sunrise sunset for instance,
we are casting the walls of the larger house and we used the gun night
where we cast by hand. This was still a solid mound of dirt when we went
in with us and we escalated this ceiling of this. We call it the cat cast
because this shape was cut mainly by a bulldozer caterpillar
considered offense of the texture and the color of the soil specifically
using like
There are two light wells in the house mr glass line. Again, there's a
little ties. Those are panels we build in the house has divided for small
rooms.
We are moving powerful to make support for the canopy that is going to be
sheltering the swimming pool. We have four foundations here. 12 poles.
We're going to cast this lab there is it all those polls.
This is the molds form for disgusting. We're painting it,
we're stabilizing because
after the casting we dug out the song and now we're losing it
with two trades.
It's 20 tons slab
and it went up quite easily.
Now we are piling up dirt. You see the color that come out by painting the
soils painting the carrots. If you scrub this with blush and water you get
more brilliant protect pigments but a lot of them. So yeah,
now we're digging for the swimming pool.
This was one on a few occasions when we had a the crew of professionals
and the reason what we wanted a very good surface for purposes of cleaning
the swimming pool giving the swimming pool clean.
It became almost irresistible white inside the egg. So it was easter I
think at that time 40 years ago. So we got in and less than
we were doing a fast job so that we would have a good binding between
white surface and the color of chemical bonds like fresco. Well
the caldwell, we're fairly fast. We had them for four years and then last
thing we got bad allergy and one of the boys put in too much chlorine I'm
afraid that was so the call almost totally went in two days.
We are pre casting sticks of concrete by doing a slab and using dividers,
mental dividers and reinforcing those sticks with wild land which is
number of Strands of steel about an inch long and 10 meals in there after
you try them in a mixer and you get a diffuse strength, tensile strength
within the structure after the curing, assembled those into apps. I called
the structural apps is they are quarter of a sphere shape. They have the
peculiar quality of collecting the winter sun if they are exposed to the
south. So they become some collectors and it's very pleasant to work
inside here and in the summer day work as a shades so they somehow fit
this climate where in the winter you like to have the sunshine this summer
, you really need shade for work. So this is an outdoor working area. Have
fairly well set for this kind of climate. And we do the math found me this
is you see how we assemble those sticks at the same time. We were building
a very
peculiar shape that is going to become a work area for model. You see that
the making of decent together.
But
mm
it we are still using some of those techniques on the new side but in
different ways for different structures. What we're doing now is mostly
pre casting
slabs, precast and then assembled. This was an amount of soil. We began
the construction from the top then we cast this way here. Next was this.
Now we're ready to catch this one and we're going down to the floor and so
that we are not doing the footings. The last starting from the center
ceiling coming down into the fooling. In this case the students put their
own designs.
This is paper cut and applied
and you can see he was putting on this boy was putting on this parrot.
This is the north Studio communists the largest afternoon and it's almost
completed. Now what we did, we bought a flannel cloth three ft wide. We
dipped it plaster. We hung this wet cloth on a friend that you don't see
in the slide and then when it was dry and steve we picked it up and
assemble many of them on the scaffolding. So this is a flannel cloth form
that is going to be visible inside is supporting the casting on this trail.
This is the beginning of this process we bought for soil pipes. 10 tons
of peace we found out later decide to hold my hand and the same. They
framed the classic
they see this sewer type telephone calls and press those are the ribs made
in the final sit up in the process of being assembled, final surface
inside.
It does work very well as little studios, we are drafting room, a drafting
table, the table in this and it's fairly pleasant space.
Dozen models you see later. Those are the ecologies models.
We used to have one A summer workshop then we got into five or six last
year we had 11 beginning in March, ending a few weeks ago And last summer
we had 250.
Mhm participant plus the group that we have a more permanent group. So it
was very large and we poured modern for under the hours I think of
concrete,
we intend to do the same thing next year but possibly more people involved.
And so the thing has been developing
Pretty well the last two or 3 years we have meetings, one or 2 meetings
per week with myself,
we support the foundation, the foundation that we have founded to support
this work by making metal work and ceramic
mostly bells, wind bells because they sell very well. You go from very
small bells. A few dollars a piece too. Groups of thousands of dollars
apiece.
I use some figures in styrofoam, like those things. Also, maybe it starts
then we cast, they lost starting from life technique, this is all we know.
Keep pushing the wrong button. We were asked by the indian school in santa
fe to build an outdoor theater using the same technique because techniques
were used in the sponsor because they liked the feeling of the structures.
So here we are building this shell about stage and the staging goes on
here here at different levels in the bridge of this runway. Also visit the
spectator. Whoa! The stage is 20 ft below ground.
Yeah, preparing for the casting of these shells.
Mr wrong way. And uh
they receive different texture to soil. That would the embankment made a
very
I can get
Yeah,
late again.
This is still a theater.
We're going into the stage.
I see what I'm doing
for protection.
Mm
I tend to use to work in series when I do something, I'll begin with one
idea that I developed different ideas around the same general concept. And
this was the case for bridges for instance, I made those models in a few
weeks
and those were made in silt. Then what you see now those models transfer
into plaster. This was a memorial bridge
with a tubular bridge. You see the background some of the designs a
project two million population City
Two bridges.
So we brought the
This was a tubular structure so that it has the The advantages of serving
the two frames but also serving value. So if you have you can come up from
this level up to this side of the barrier or to that side person.
The underside of it.
The cantilever bridge
the same. This has been landscaped.
Save it
A sketch for one cantilever bridge and model made after the sketch.
This was a large sketch for a large model that I made for the exhibit when
it opened at the court.
This is the model is about 45 ft long
and it's a suspension bridge. But instead of having vertical violence
with cables coming up and then going down into anchorages, doesn't have
any anchorages. Just has one foundation, 1, 1 side, one on the other one.
And then those pilots are slanted. They come down there inched here, so
the weight of this bible By the way to the other one through the cable
tension A long way in, disgrace three levels you suspect from the cable
cables. So what we saw Suspued bridge with only two Yeah, points Coming
down into the ground into the four.
Yeah. I began to be very much industry in urban problems when I got a
grant from the Graham Foundation about 15 years ago I guess and I
developed an idea for two million population community.
Some of the elements are pretty interesting. No, with the ecological
almost fair that we have and there was for instance, a quarry along the
axis of the city which was made into a man made landscape. So this is an
open pit mining, let's say introducing gravel and aggregate for building,
for building, construction, construction and long ways
and instead of leaving this skull as we do most retirement, this was made
into a park with its own little valley and sub is a structure which was
the dark cut or tunneled into it. So it's a geology which has been made
into men shape geology.
Another famine was that we had
belt here some into the ground which was the recycling belt taking old
rejects waste of the city and coming up with the materials or energy and
so on. So you would have, you would be closing the cycle that we leave now
open
which go for waste pollution and so on.
There were many rings, one side of your the center was a learning center.
Then there was a ring which was given to small industries and home
industries. I want to start now for villages organized in fellowships that
it was another belt which was mainly of marketing standard products
produced.
There was a theological center connected through this part to the
learnings.
This was a very scattered kind of the pattern. This is about 30 miles and
it was from this, the inability to organize this space better than I got
into the three dimensional concept and this is the beginning of this three
dimensionality expressed very strongly. This is I think 150 floors or so
just want to love himself. This was a suggestion of this man made
landscape technological, sexually,
we're getting into more conceptual
those two sentences tends to sanitize the reasons for doing what I'm doing
now the last three or four years. The first one said that there is a
direct relationship between liveliness and complexity.
Things are more likely when there are more complex and this can be checked
within the biological universe constantly from the beginning of life
through to this to the president. The second sentence connects this idea
of lightness and complexity with the physical dimensions of geography is
um complexity is somehow coincidental miniaturization
and the consequences of those two very simple statements is that if the
city is an expression of liveliness, the city be very complex and
automatically very miniaturized.
It might sound very strange but we might try to get into this idea in a
discussion and at the end I have some charts. Might help a little to
understand. Yeah,
this is one of the page of the sketchbooks with indicating very roughly
what this translates into. If you take this as a very dia grammatical
scheme of a city. In the section, vertical section you see a lot of ground
level, the robot ized aspect of society, which means the production and
the solar system for the life of a certain human good and about ground you
have urban Yes. Structure itself containing private and the public sector
of the life of this community.
This includes living working producing plane basically regarding. So it
contains the institutions that makes the incredible life. I mean
in order to illustrate this counselor, which is fairly simple but it might
suggest that once you you accept the concert you come out with cubes and
invade the earth with thousands of little larger cubes containing Cities.
I developed about 40 different schemes just to illustrate the concept. So
what you see from now. Very schematic, abstract symbols, all and ideas
develop some flooding suggestions.
This is one of those schemes. There are two main Types of structures. one
is the productive
Germany is the
this is the water level here you have an artist thing of the sea. And do
you have the manipulation transformation, processing those products into
mineral chemicals, proteins, who knows what they've done? You have the
story and the shipping research connected with and some of the urban life
connected with this activity. You can close the many of those into come up
with a plaster system collected by
also problems which contain over activities objects and so on.
No scheme based on the same idea, flaunting again. Yes, this one you see
the skeletal system somehow this
and again this could develop from a small hub which will build original
town into larger metropolitan.
If your structure is anchored to the continental shelf, let's say, you can
have again, production and service systems below water level and urban
life above water level or encountered with open space. In this case you
can produce energy by using the target because you have an anchored stable
system working with changing
level of water. So you feel that what the reason was. You can feel an
empty too to the tide flows and usability that way.
one example of somehow a dead or empty our ecology, which name are using
for the structure is a damn,
but that is a massive block to the floor water for purposes of energy
production, water containment, irrigation and recreation. That we could
add domestic uses or make this dead dumb block of country into a living
system. Just being after. When we plan, then we plan it as a, as a carved
structures that are being dance, a political structure. So this indicates
world of possibilities on the outside.
So mhm.
This is a section through here from the inside wall of this double
structure against the water storage, warehousing. Some industries from the
outside world. Yeah. Holmes
the private sector of the city for Holmes two apartment housing and the
larger systems which are part of the structure. So you can have production
, marketing and so on. You can have heavy heavy industries power
production in our series cutting board with water ways and parking.
You have to keep in mind that a damn side, you have everything already
somehow there from power to water from immigration to form possibilities.
And then you have this massive and very expensive structure that small
bags for life.
Does the same schemes. Same ideas with different structural scheme. This
is a small one. This is much larger.
Some of the example of the again, as I was telling you about symbols. Oh,
common centers
those two. This is about twice the hydrogen in the past a building. So
it's a very large structure, but it's a very, very small city. It's for
about 0.5,400,000 people. I guess suggested the car naturally stops at the
end of the city. There is no room for for cars inside of the city,
pedestrians are again part of the life of the city. You can reach
everywhere within the city in a few minutes by walking by elevators,
escalators by who in sidewalks accepted by bicycle.
And you can also reach very quickly the outdoor, which is the real outdoor
is not closing out adorable Sibolga or
city park or so on.
As for all the other ones, you have some kind of accent of the private
life on the dividing membrane between the cityscape and landscape so that
your client life is set at the edge of most of the cityscape and landscape
, which I think it's very important.
This was a scheme for, let's say what you might call it twin city of about
one million population. And keep in mind that this dimension is no more
than tomorrow's. I think you're still wearing with a system which allows
you to communicate and transfer transport things very sweetly and very
efficient. That means that you're cutting down the size of your service
systems to a fraction of what we need not to keep things going. This goes
for transportation
two for help two learning policing
delivery, tribal and so on. So that you end up by seeing that
miniaturization is not just a way of making things about economic and
political
aspect, how we are going to function if we're going to function better
what we are doing now, because we are going to come into the treasury into
the soil from society. Billy substantial way.
If you adopt the renal scheme, you can have a main logistical systems
cutting through a continent
and then plotting to this system which is in short in section here along
the building, you can plug your urban structures, situating every city
dweller very close to the urban institutions, land, open land into the
main transportation system, including airports on the top of the whole
system.
If this was adopted, you would have to bridge obstacles. And this is an
indication of, let's say all of us city bridge colleague bridging canyon
the same here, bridging a river.
Those are only stated into
ecology book the book and as I was saying, there were attempts to
illustrate the concept and show almost a limitless possibilities. Once you
introduce the third dimension into your development for permanent
communities
story,
those are very schematic models of other ecologies. This is the same one
indicating the scale. This is a Palestinian building at the same scale,
you know what another one there, This is for 450,000 suggests that
population is about 250,
170,000. This is about 30 times.
And this could be a farming community where the farmer can enjoy the urban
life if he desires. So you can leave there and going forward husband,
european farmers difference. This is a cut out indicated
what could be the city center like many levels. We did not some kind of
conditioned space so that if the climate outside is very harsh, you can
have a better climate inside without sealing off the city completely
the same model.
A larger scheme than this one.
This is really a cluster of skyscrapers but it's still being somehow
segregated because they're only connected at the base like we do. Now they
desegregated structurally because they are connected at different levels.
They're connected around the periphery and also a radio.
This indicates a modular system that you would be able to somehow shape
according to your desires for your private convertible.
Sorry,
what?
And
Another scheme a little smaller. About 170,000 in this one. We tried with
the model to indicate this by just the possibility of organizing spaces
and structures in very different ways somehow expressing individual or
team for the calculations that would be involved in the It is right.
Yeah.
This is the same one that was indicated before.
You have very large playgrounds and gardens for instance at this level.
Mhm.
Mhm
Yeah.
Mm hmm.
Right.
This was the most abstract and the most
Somehow the terrorizing one. And it was intentionally very abstract
because I was saying I was trying to investigate how you can, what you can
do with
those space With a solid and say in this case a Cube one km. Mhm.