WEBVTT 00:00:18.339 --> 00:00:20.339 anything that has a life, There's also a termination. So we cities as 00:00:24.059 --> 00:00:27.497 they're now, they're going to terminate themselves. But that doesn't mean 00:00:27.530 --> 00:00:31.877 that the city as a concept and as a reality is going to disappear. New 00:00:31.910 --> 00:00:39.910 cities are going to come about far better than the old cities. 00:00:52.340 --> 00:00:57.086 Paolo Soleri is a designer of new cities. Cities of enormous height and 00:00:57.119 --> 00:01:02.607 complexity and of great density cities. He believes we will soon need if 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:07.107 the man of the future urban man is to survive. 00:01:07.140 --> 00:01:11.947 World population is now 3.5 billion. A third living city. By the end of 00:01:11.980 --> 00:01:17.676 the century, the projection is 6.5 billion one half in city. This is the 00:01:17.709 --> 00:01:23.016 coast of north America from new york to Washington, D. C. When the first 00:01:23.049 --> 00:01:26.917 Europeans touched shore here five centuries ago, there was a wilderness 00:01:26.950 --> 00:01:31.316 with a scattered native population. Today. 30 million people live in this 00:01:31.349 --> 00:01:37.007 strip, Which is rapidly becoming one huge city. What human purposes do 00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:42.426 cities serve? What principles regulate their growth? What maintains the 00:01:42.459 --> 00:01:46.706 balance between demands for goods and services and those qualities of 00:01:46.739 --> 00:01:52.107 beauty, space and tranquility which men require. With few exceptions, 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:57.947 today's cities or haphazard conglomerations, unregulated, unhealthy and in 00:01:57.980 --> 00:02:02.007 trouble. 00:02:02.040 --> 00:02:07.826 Salary proposes archaeology, architecture plus ecology. Not just bigger 00:02:07.859 --> 00:02:13.487 buildings, but man made landscape. His plans and models show structures 00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:18.906 meant to intensify urban life and conserve natural resources. I would 00:02:18.939 --> 00:02:24.696 first say that I'm not necessarily advocating very large cities. In fact, 00:02:24.729 --> 00:02:29.807 I think that we should cut the size of our communities possibly possibly 00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:36.096 between, let's say 50,000 and one million might we might find answers 00:02:36.129 --> 00:02:43.856 which are more human Mhm than what we have now, the complexity of the of 00:02:43.889 --> 00:02:50.057 the system is in itself. I think the positive element because complexity 00:02:50.090 --> 00:02:54.547 seems to be in the nature of life. You you you spend a great deal of time 00:02:54.580 --> 00:02:59.147 discussing diversity and variety and complexity 00:02:59.180 --> 00:03:07.180 and this is very close to some of my own concerns. And the question yeah, 00:03:07.439 --> 00:03:15.439 that it seems to be needs to be dealt with is the how much variety is 00:03:16.770 --> 00:03:22.846 livable. Mhm. I believe that if we put people into environments in which 00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:28.957 there is that there is an amount or degree of variety beyond which people 00:03:28.990 --> 00:03:33.277 can't cope with it and similarly the same thing would be true of certain 00:03:33.310 --> 00:03:36.457 other dimensions of the environment that would go beyond that it becomes 00:03:36.490 --> 00:03:42.686 incomprehensible and and that people cannot somehow form their own micro 00:03:42.719 --> 00:03:44.807 environments. 00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:49.557 Well, I would say that one of the of the disquieting elements in the 00:03:49.590 --> 00:03:53.747 cities that we live in now is that they are undefinable there, you cannot 00:03:53.780 --> 00:04:00.106 grasp them, really, they slip away from you, you can't visually or or 00:04:00.139 --> 00:04:07.886 socially understand them. And one advantage of having this compact and 00:04:07.919 --> 00:04:12.186 small, miniaturized system is that you can grasp it visually, you can 00:04:12.219 --> 00:04:18.096 somehow move into it physically very, very quickly, very swiftly. So that 00:04:18.129 --> 00:04:22.546 really you, after a while you understand what you're dealing with. I think 00:04:22.579 --> 00:04:28.166 people have different views as to what the city should be, what what it 00:04:28.199 --> 00:04:33.606 should provide or whatever something should be provided to it. Well, if 00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:40.166 the city was was only a tool, you know for for affluence, I would say that 00:04:40.199 --> 00:04:46.036 it's very unimportant we might get away from it. But if the city is that 00:04:46.069 --> 00:04:51.697 specific place, that cityscape, that man made landscape, well, the 00:04:51.730 --> 00:04:57.067 institutions that makes civilization can leave survive and develop, then 00:04:57.100 --> 00:05:01.486 the city becomes the most important instrument that we have to to really 00:05:01.519 --> 00:05:06.916 produce a better life for mankind. And apparently if you take away from 00:05:06.949 --> 00:05:10.846 history, the history of the cities and the towns and the villages, you're 00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:15.786 somehow canceled civilization itself. So the concept of the city is 00:05:15.819 --> 00:05:21.087 absolutely fundamental in central to the development of civilization, of 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:27.726 culture, of men as a person in men as a, as a group three d. Jersey and 00:05:27.759 --> 00:05:31.976 Archaeology proposed for the New Jersey Meadowlands for comparison. The 00:05:32.009 --> 00:05:35.986 hancock building in Chicago three New Jersey is designed as a 00:05:36.019 --> 00:05:39.556 sophisticated transportation hub with jet airport serving the greater new 00:05:39.589 --> 00:05:44.416 york city area is enormous by today's standards. Yet it would occupy very 00:05:44.449 --> 00:05:48.356 little ground space is designed to fit a site that is now threatened by 00:05:48.389 --> 00:05:53.046 the encroachment of turnpikes, garbage dumps and oil refineries in the 00:05:53.079 --> 00:05:58.286 outer skin. The dwellings open to light and air. These would not be boxes 00:05:58.319 --> 00:06:02.387 but spaces in a large grid. The resident might choose from a variety of 00:06:02.420 --> 00:06:07.017 possibilities from a tent in the garden to a small house. The core of the 00:06:07.050 --> 00:06:11.147 city would contain public facilities such as theaters, universities, 00:06:11.180 --> 00:06:15.536 hospitals, department stores and churches. Monorails would connect 00:06:15.569 --> 00:06:19.197 specific areas of three d. Jersey and there would be a network to of 00:06:19.230 --> 00:06:23.957 elevators, moving sidewalks and bicycle paths. Cars would have no function 00:06:23.990 --> 00:06:28.306 within the city. So they might be used for sport or short range 00:06:28.339 --> 00:06:32.656 transportation outside. Urban dwellers would be only minutes from whatever 00:06:32.689 --> 00:06:38.596 they need and they would get used to walking again. Article 40. The 00:06:38.629 --> 00:06:43.786 village of 20,000 on a sea cliff planned as a tourist center is about as 00:06:43.819 --> 00:06:48.906 high as the Empire State building all around it. Open space and the sea. 00:06:48.939 --> 00:06:53.707 It is dwarfed by Babalola. An industrial center with a population the size 00:06:53.740 --> 00:07:00.106 of new york city Outside his 18,000 acres. A nature dominated Hinterland 00:07:00.139 --> 00:07:04.606 By comparison, New York City covers 200,000 acres and is the center of the 00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:10.707 megalopolis that requires hours of driving to escape. Heck, sanhedrin, 00:07:10.740 --> 00:07:15.346 twice as high as the Empire State building population about the same size 00:07:15.379 --> 00:07:20.317 as savannah, Georgia, racine Wisconsin or atlantic city, New Jersey. But 00:07:20.350 --> 00:07:24.377 whereas those cities occupy thousands of acres and are surrounded by 00:07:24.410 --> 00:07:29.947 industry and suburbs. Hex Tahitian is designed to stand on 148 and be 00:07:29.980 --> 00:07:32.906 surrounded by open land. 00:07:32.939 --> 00:07:37.106 Of course nothing being built today attempts the scope of an archaeology 00:07:37.139 --> 00:07:41.906 of some radical experiments share an interest and multilayered urban life 00:07:41.939 --> 00:07:48.197 habitat by the Canadian architect moshe Safdie is one of these, it's a new 00:07:48.230 --> 00:07:53.687 thing in terms of scale. The group of people who built a village in a 00:07:53.720 --> 00:07:58.806 certain time span, made, made 00:07:58.839 --> 00:08:05.406 joint decisions, common decisions which permitted them to have a certain 00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:11.837 control over the destiny. Now we we expand by many, many folds of this 00:08:11.870 --> 00:08:15.967 activity. All of a sudden we're building an environment in a much, much 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:21.176 shorter time span for millions of people. And so we explore the morphology 00:08:21.209 --> 00:08:25.017 of what that community and city is all about in order to try and translate 00:08:25.050 --> 00:08:31.246 that into a form which is an organism. But I think that this that this new 00:08:31.279 --> 00:08:35.957 scale of activity which is new to humanity creates new problems that 00:08:35.990 --> 00:08:40.356 didn't exist before. And it's I'm not saying that's specifically the case 00:08:40.389 --> 00:08:43.797 in your interpretation of making that three dimensional city or anybody 00:08:43.830 --> 00:08:49.427 else's, but that when you make decisions at that scale Yeah. In that time 00:08:49.460 --> 00:08:54.626 span you are affecting the lives of millions of people in a way that they 00:08:54.659 --> 00:08:57.856 feel they're threatened. They're frightened. I'm talking about about the 00:08:57.889 --> 00:09:01.146 man in the street who looks at your drawings and say, do I want to live 00:09:01.179 --> 00:09:06.947 there? He feels my God, I've lost control. I mean, his, his reaction to 00:09:06.980 --> 00:09:11.567 that is to say to use language that is familiar to him. He says, is this a 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:15.577 democracy for example, which is a very fashionable word in America is this 00:09:15.610 --> 00:09:20.467 democracy? What what control do I have over that? If we take the example 00:09:20.500 --> 00:09:24.807 of arab villages or italian hill towns of the indian pueblo, they, over a 00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:31.317 period of time evolves certain vocabulary of elements and the peasant who 00:09:31.350 --> 00:09:35.516 built his house, he accepted that if he wants a room, it has a certain 00:09:35.549 --> 00:09:39.167 proportion and he puts a dome over it and he has a certain way of making a 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:43.917 window. And he added that to the fabric of the village. The result was an 00:09:43.950 --> 00:09:46.866 environment that had a great deal of unity and he never went to school of 00:09:46.899 --> 00:09:50.276 architecture and he had no degree and his house is 100 times better than 00:09:50.309 --> 00:09:56.106 most of the houses were built today when the Villager was defining its own 00:09:56.139 --> 00:10:01.596 environment. He was accepting a topography that was existing and that 00:10:01.629 --> 00:10:05.927 topography, that landscape was sufficient for its needs was very good. It 00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:11.707 was really what he needed. My contention is that now this topography, this 00:10:11.740 --> 00:10:16.476 natural setting is not sufficient anymore. So somewhere somehow we have to 00:10:16.509 --> 00:10:21.157 find, we have to define this topography which takes the place of the, of 00:10:21.190 --> 00:10:26.707 the natural landscape and then let the individual define its own 00:10:26.740 --> 00:10:30.947 environment. So in a way, I would say, and this is very elegant, I would 00:10:30.980 --> 00:10:38.506 say that we or I would say would take the place of nature in defining this 00:10:38.539 --> 00:10:44.626 man made nature within which the social being developed and this might be 00:10:44.659 --> 00:10:49.787 arrogant, but I think it's unavoidable because because of this avalanche 00:10:49.820 --> 00:10:54.047 of complexity that we are involved with and the natural landscape is not 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:59.957 anymore sufficient to let society developed as individuals. You have you 00:10:59.990 --> 00:11:04.496 have to have an an intermediate stage where you take from nature of some 00:11:04.529 --> 00:11:08.986 some elements and not just that. But you take the basic guidelines from 00:11:09.019 --> 00:11:13.846 nature, the living nature and define this new landscape. And actually this 00:11:13.879 --> 00:11:17.626 is very easy to say. It's very, very difficult to implement. Doesn't that 00:11:17.659 --> 00:11:20.787 responsibility of taking the place of Nature frighten you? Doesn't give 00:11:20.820 --> 00:11:23.606 you nightmares. 00:11:23.639 --> 00:11:29.356 Yes and no, because I think that nature really compels me. It demands from 00:11:29.389 --> 00:11:35.776 the demands from us. This new step, it's unavoidable. It's really a new 00:11:35.809 --> 00:11:39.616 reality, a new intermediate reality that we are we are defining. We have 00:11:39.649 --> 00:11:43.886 been defining for a long time. The cityscape has been for a long time and 00:11:43.919 --> 00:11:48.667 intermediate step between nature and man. Now this escape has to become 00:11:48.700 --> 00:11:53.606 more responsive to the needs of natural men of today, which is not the 00:11:53.639 --> 00:11:59.776 natural man of of yesterday. The future of man Is salaries real concern 00:11:59.809 --> 00:12:04.217 inextricably bound up with the future of nature. The complicated systems 00:12:04.250 --> 00:12:08.707 through which we see life expressing itself and this concern flows from 00:12:08.740 --> 00:12:13.217 certain basic principles based on the observation that life is on a course 00:12:13.250 --> 00:12:18.006 for each stage is increasingly complex and increasingly compact. 00:12:18.039 --> 00:12:22.827 Miniaturization is a key Solari concept. His comprehensive volume of 00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:27.577 theory and drawings is prefaced with a single arresting line. This book is 00:12:27.610 --> 00:12:32.606 about miniaturization. Our goals today seem inspired by what is feasible 00:12:32.639 --> 00:12:36.266 or practical and the practical is almost always such a short term 00:12:36.299 --> 00:12:41.167 consideration, intending to fragment the long range reality against this 00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:45.687 tyranny of the practical. So Larry proposes love of an order implicit in 00:12:45.720 --> 00:12:48.476 nature itself. 00:12:48.509 --> 00:12:54.726 There is a very evident discipline in the biological kingdom, both vegetal 00:12:54.759 --> 00:13:00.907 and animal. And it's the discipline of the animal, of the plant, which is 00:13:00.940 --> 00:13:06.526 this absolute rigor to which any biological system is submitted in order 00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:11.807 for it to grow, festival to be and then to develop and to grow and to 00:13:11.840 --> 00:13:17.707 possibly go beyond itself. And it is the discipline of matter and energy 00:13:17.740 --> 00:13:23.106 we are under. We are biological machines of an incredible 00:13:23.139 --> 00:13:26.526 if anything goes wrong among the trillions and trillions of performances 00:13:26.559 --> 00:13:30.746 that are present in every instant. If something goes wrong, the whole 00:13:30.779 --> 00:13:36.526 system collapses. And unless this discipline is carried from the natural 00:13:36.559 --> 00:13:40.707 to the human and from the biological into the mental. I think we are 00:13:40.740 --> 00:13:46.896 somehow living in a utopian council over life is my question would be too 00:13:46.929 --> 00:13:50.577 many young people is, do you think this discipline is necessary? Or you or 00:13:50.610 --> 00:13:55.057 you feel that this is a negative thing and and this seems to be a 00:13:55.090 --> 00:14:00.427 fundamental difference between a natural system which is plante system and 00:14:00.460 --> 00:14:04.006 a man's social system. I mean, they seem to be quite at quite different 00:14:04.039 --> 00:14:06.266 levels. In fact, that's one of the things that makes man very different 00:14:06.299 --> 00:14:10.947 from the rest of nature is his ability to constantly break out of his own 00:14:10.980 --> 00:14:13.986 framework and think of come up with new ideas, which is what you're 00:14:14.019 --> 00:14:20.376 suggesting somehow seems to be some sort of control. You know, what I'm 00:14:20.409 --> 00:14:24.616 suggesting is that as as there is a discipline in our body, an incredible 00:14:24.649 --> 00:14:29.187 discipline, biologically speaking. So the body of society, the structure 00:14:29.220 --> 00:14:32.797 for the body of society has to have some kind of discipline. And this 00:14:32.830 --> 00:14:36.447 discipline is basically the ability of the physical body of the biological 00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:41.016 body to be highly complex. The discipline of the social body, the 00:14:41.049 --> 00:14:45.717 instrument again, and should be able to accept this complexity because it 00:14:45.750 --> 00:14:49.307 is within this complexity. Then then the individual elements are going to 00:14:49.340 --> 00:14:53.947 be able to through this intensity of of connections are going to develop 00:14:53.980 --> 00:14:58.996 their own personal uh freedom. So I really think that it's it's an 00:14:59.029 --> 00:15:02.677 evolutionary process. We cannot say, well, the city is beyond the 00:15:02.710 --> 00:15:07.396 biological process. I think it's beyond because it's above them, not, not 00:15:07.429 --> 00:15:11.667 because it's detached or because it's something else. It's just that up to 00:15:11.700 --> 00:15:17.356 a point life has evolved biologically. Now life is evolving and evolving 00:15:17.389 --> 00:15:22.506 technologically, but the the goal seems to be that life has to become 00:15:22.539 --> 00:15:29.807 spiritually more intense. And I personally would wear a great deal of of 00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:34.337 of a couple of things. Number one of leaping from the biological into the 00:15:34.370 --> 00:15:37.516 cultural, I think it's well and good to speak of plant and animal, but 00:15:37.549 --> 00:15:41.016 there's been a great many evolutions in between. That's number one. So 00:15:41.049 --> 00:15:43.537 that I 00:15:43.570 --> 00:15:48.226 think second in the relationship that that the idea the idea of using the 00:15:48.259 --> 00:15:51.967 body as a system has been done in India has been done in ancient Greece 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:57.986 etcetera. And every time it's done, it leads to a totalitarian to be very 00:15:58.019 --> 00:16:02.207 kind, extreme authoritarian system. In other words, when you start talking 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:05.937 about the body, politic of the body, social as being heart, brain, 00:16:05.970 --> 00:16:13.026 etcetera, etcetera. Whether plato or in in in India, it's it's a it can be 00:16:13.059 --> 00:16:17.707 a disaster because culture is extremely, it's far more complex than that. 00:16:17.740 --> 00:16:24.606 Yes, well, I would say that and what I'm suggesting is a necessary step. 00:16:24.639 --> 00:16:28.726 I would never dream to say that it's it's the sufficient step. But I feel 00:16:28.759 --> 00:16:34.106 really that is necessary in order to achieve a greater level of individual 00:16:34.139 --> 00:16:40.667 freedom. We have to as social beings, we have to accept a certain kind of 00:16:40.700 --> 00:16:45.207 discipline that is evident throughout life. And I think that this 00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:48.407 discipline is necessary 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:52.396 in order to really be able to move from from what you might call the 00:16:52.429 --> 00:17:00.429 social uh, qualification to a an individual expression in its own rights. 00:17:02.740 --> 00:17:07.877 And I don't I don't think we cannot we cannot avoid that as you as you 00:17:07.910 --> 00:17:11.506 begin. So shall you end if you begin in blood like Russia, you people are 00:17:11.539 --> 00:17:14.210 selling with ghosts.