Our signing letter number two
has now slept
down by a cottonwood tree.
Late last night, I slept in the open
just to let just to let just to let us
have you seen it
like to to
it's just a long loathsome taxi
when they I slept in the open real hat in the
down cottonwood trees. Mhm.
Last night a step in the open
just on that. Just that just on that my soul.
That
yeah,
it's just a long lone taxi
I want.
Yeah, I
here we are sitting on the fashionable cafe lounge waiting to take you
further into our Cassani. This is our first letter, first letter. We've
had any real control over any real say, any real thinking about trying to
say to you another place in Fin Horn who we are and what we're about. My
name is David and this is Cheryl and this is David who's a friend of
another place who has been with us helping us on this tape. The tape has
produced a lot of good and traumatic experiences in all of us trying to
portray the complexity that is here at Al Kani and we've done that
hopefully in small snippets and you have seen some of it and hopefully
we'll see more in the next couple of minutes. We will track you to a
couple of environmental places where we work where ballots a re made where
, um, we're trying to change and hopefully further the process of human
evolution.
Uh Let me change it over now to, to David who might lead you into more
things about what we're doing and what the video letters. Ami
Hello out there, go here. Um
It certainly is a different place from that little farm off in New
Hampshire.
The tapes were well received. People are pretty excited about them. I
guess what we're trying to do here is to start off with a general picture
of our Kanti. What happens here from day to day? Why are some of the
people here? It's a very complex place to know and it's gonna take several
tapes and your reading of our news of the newsletters here to start
getting a feel for it. Um Maybe Cheryl wants to say something about what's
happening here right now. Um In contrast to what happens here in the
summer right now, it's basically the winter season and that means there
are no construction workshops um for working on the buildings at the end
of March will be the first construction workshop and they run all the way
until Thanksgiving
during the winter. It's usually just a, a core of the staff people which
are here. And this winter, even a lot of staff, people are on vacation. So
the people here are, are quite sparse. But uh the people that are here are
also uh some of the most important ones right now, there is work uh on the
greenhouse which is down in camp. And um it's it's the first um attempt at
a greenhouse here and it's an experimental ground for the larger
greenhouse which will be a skirt around the city. Uh There's also been two
wood workshops, which one which um concentrated on making a gallery in the
second floor of this crafts building. And this gallery will, will be the
new visitor center and it will have posters of Soleri's work and cell
bells and it'll just be a very nice space. Uh The second wood workshop is
doing more furniture making and finer um detailed woodwork
a bit. Um Our, our cameraman tells us we have two minutes left. So I think
we should kind of, we'll get that into that later. Um Why don't we go
quickly over what else is here and what we're going to be doing in this
tape.
Do you want to do that? Um
Well, in this tape, we'll be uh going over to the ceramics apps and
interviewing a worker there and we'll be going over to the foundry and
seeing some of the exciting processes that go on there and talking to the
, the foreman there and uh we'll also be seeing some of close up details
of the buildings around here
we, is there anything else we need to say? OK.
OK.
The uh it's one thing that, that I've always amused me about television
and about video and I think that uh as we're reaching this new planetary
culture that maybe telepathy is better than television. But uh since we're
here now this is what we're gonna use and I think we'll all see how it's
gonna work. That's about all I really wanted to add and take the tape for
what it is. We obviously there's more that we could show you, but an
overload is not our intention. Our intention is to give you bits of our
Cassani from time to time.
Let's think for a second. If there's anything else we wanna say right now
,
shall we go on? Think that's it? Is there anything else anybody else wants
to say? Well, we'll talk to you right before the end of the tape. OK.
It is anti utopian by,
by design and intent.
Now you're on now we go,
it's not utopian or a communal is anti utopian by design and intent.
The buildings that you'll be seeing here at Arca Sane are a very small
portion of the eventual um development. These a re still single buildings
, the idea now is to build one totally integrated structure. The this has
come about through a number of design changes. So these buildings are
actually somewhat mistakes.
The building that you're seeing now is the ceramics apps by using this
quarter sphere structure.
The building itself acts as a passive solar collector in that in the
summer when the sun is high in the sky, the internal space shades itself
in the winter as you can see. Now,
the building is sun filled because the sun is lower in the sky.
The ceramics was one of the the first buildings to come about at Aas Santi.
Although all the buildings have been built somewhat simultaneously, it
was one of the first in the, the initial sequences. The construction
started about 1970.
The operation of the ceramics work has been going on for about two years
now. Although it's only coming into ah full production or semi full
production, it's still developing. It's only coming in to that stage. No.
Hello, here we are in the ceramic apps uh with Susan who is a ceramicist.
I'm gonna ask her a couple of questions about what she does and why she's
here. So let me start off with the first one. What is exactly that you do
?
I do the ceramic windmills here, which I've done for about a year and a
half, which is primarily concerned with uh mold pouring. We have three
different kinds of molds that we use. Plaster earth and silt. I don't know
if there probably isn't time to go into the whole explanation of the
process, but it's a very simple, very primitive, very direct process. Each
bell is hand carved after it's poured. Um, we fire them in propane kilns
here and we assemble them and they're set off to shops and galleries. How
, how does the environment affect your work? Do you find that it does in
any way? Oh, I'm sure it does. It's hard. I think it would be hard to say
exactly how, but I think there are very few studios that are set up quite
like this where you're in direct touch with uh not only shelter but also
just the expanse of the natural surroundings of nature. Even when the
weather is uh rather bleak and difficult to work with. It's still, you
can't avoid working, you can't avoid um being affected by rain, wind, sun
, et cetera. I can't chart exactly how it comes out in one's work, but
it's a glorious feeling. Nevertheless. How do you, how do you see crafts
as being related in uh the whole scheme of things here in Rocky? I mean,
how do you find yourself as a craftsperson involved in uh Ar Cassani?
Um
to be truthful, kind of on the periphery of what is actually happening
here right now? I think eventually the crafts will come to play a larger
part than they do right now. But this is a process which is integrally
bound up in, in principle on the whole construction process.
But I think it's only in principle, right now?
Great. OK, thank you, Susan. If she has anything to say
that's a possibility. I just got a little off, off Ca Mera uh idea. It was
the idea that, uh, perhaps we should ask Susan what she would like to tell
you folks
in what respect do you mean?
No, I, I think that, uh, like most people here, I'm sure that we should
have greater communication with all three, between all three communities.
I'd like to see this happen. I'd like to know more myself.
OK.
We're standing right on top of the ceramics apps, looking at the bells
they're made here,
walking up the stairs to the very top of the ceramics apps and looking
down at the Foundry app
on top of the Foundry apps in each of those little sections that you see.
Um There are apartments for individuals and inside the apps is where the
foundry is located
and we're looking over into the Mesa and Valley
and over to the crafts building.
Me and my walk right
and down into the ceramics.
We're in the craft three building. It's a combination restaurant, cafe,
acting now as a visitor center and there's also a residency space and some
display space at the top from where we're filming. Now,
this is a, a fairly large scale model of Ar Kanti. Uh the most recent
design, it's gone through a number of design changes, but there have been
two major changes or one distinctly major change. The latest has gone to
what we now call the Two Sons archology. And it is a theological focus and
it's theological. If you want to take ecology and push it to the point
where it borders on theology,
what we're trying to define as an, an urban environment. And if we take a
biological view of evolution or biological evolution in general, compared
to cultural evolution, then we might trace the idea of urban back to the
the first forms of um life or pre life that started acting in ways that
weren't governed solely by determinism or fate. This is the model of a
Cassani. Mm
It is uh pretty much structured physically on a series of effects. What Mr
Sary terms in total, the urban effect
and the urban effect generally says that ah
what does the urban effect say? Well, there are the series of effects. Um
The building is structured in the same way as the ceramics apps that
you've already seen is structured by using what Mr Slade calls the apps
effect. So we have a, instead of using an apps which although it catches
the winter sun and shade the summer sun, we are now using a somewhat of a
a cone which is truncated half cone, it's truncated. Uh The trouble with
the apps was that it was always a shaded spot on the top. So now we sort
of cut off the top and get rid of that shade and we have two blades
sandwiched together that are angled. It, it's such an angle that in the uh
summer when the sun is high in the sky, the entire town will shade itself.
Um in the winter when the sun is low in the sky, the entire town will be
sun filled. So the sun will penetrate on these blades. Um Up the blades
are residency. Um The point about the, the architecture itself, the most
important point is integration. So if we have a uh if we have a container
, then we automatic uh uh very distinct container, we already
automatically have a um an integrated environment. But the point about
integration is that we're not only integrating people and uh types of
people in different professions, but we're, we're integrating uh what we
do every day of working and playing leisure.
A few things. Um I'd just like to point out one of two things is an
outsider. Very excited about this. You can see here that there's the edge
of the mesa which David is shooting right now in their apartments all the
way down the back where individuals will live um have their own space and
do what they will with their space around the top of there are greenhouses
um and, and, and, and garden space and the same is so for the bottom of
the front of the archaeology, um Now, the greenhouse space provides heat
for the Archology uh model which is uh the greenhouse is used as a
combination of two effects, which is the horticulture effect, which is
very old and the chimney effect, which means any heat that is any air that
is heated will automatically tend to rise. So these are two more of those
effects.
Now, do not touch that dial, do not change stations. We have a temporary
problem in the technical uh abilities of the people doing this video. If
you will be patient and hold on please, you will uh go get your sandwich
or maybe have a some herbal tea and come back. Hang on one moment standing
by.
Oh OK. Well, we'll just walk.
Have you stopped it?
Come here? Why don't you say how complex this is and how it's going to
take another few takes to really get into the whole structure? Because you
, you um because you know, I I because it's just so many different.
Yes, of course. Tell me when I OK. Of course, any, any environment you
build is gonna be very in, in intense or um intricate. So we can't explain
it all. So we might as well come back some other time and do that and, and
it would be good if you can pass on your questions about this environment
because it's a very complex one to understand the casual observer may be
turned off because it's so large. Did you mention the size?
It's very small compared to uh uh another comparable town, but it's 25
stories high and covers about 10 acres of the building itself and holds
5000 people. About 5000. We'll get into the whole dynamic of, of urban
space and concentration and miniaturization at another time. Right. That's
good. Kind of we, we, we're sitting in front of west housing one of the uh
side parts of the vault structure. This is a living and library space.
This is also the place where we serve lunch, lunch is usually made down in
camp and brought up here. We have before us, the majority of people you
see one, I'm sure from another place we'll know uh Josephine's on your
left. Chris Blackwell is next. Then we have Mark who's visiting from
another place Langdon and of course David who's also visiting from another
place. These um make up some of the community of Al Kani.
OK. That this guy.
Hello, Matt. Hello, Dave. I have a small question for you. What is the
thing that most uh excites you about living in Azan,
the
good lunch. OK. Talking to Langdon who is a friend of mine as well as a
member of the community. And I was gonna ask him a very similar question.
I just asked my other friend Matthew, which is, what do you find the most
exciting thing about living here in Rakas? Thought about it. I decided I
couldn't answer it. We then continued our conversation. Uh Why couldn't
you answer that mainly because there's so many different aspects of our
designing.
There's no fun in, uh, I take one,
I thought about it. I don't think, I think about it. How would you want to
think about being here then? I don't, I mean, being here has been here and
thinking about it. I don't know. It's like
the difference between knowing, knowing and being.
It's like, it's hard to have a discussion, a real discussion in front of
the camera. Hello, everybody. We're talking with one of the younger
residents of Ar Kante. And your name is? What's your name? Karen? Ken. Ken.
Say hi to the camera. Hi, camera. Tell me where's your mother today? She
, she, she, I goes up and what she doing? She's pooping out of the pants.
What else is she doing? She's pooped on her hair. Oh, come on. What's she
gonna have? She's gonna poop on her. What is she gonna have? She's gonna
poop on her head. Oh, then I'm gonna have to tell everybody,
you know what Klins mother's gonna have gonna have a baby, right? No,
they're gonna have a new brand new baby. Window. A baby. Yeah. What else
have you got to say? I got to say poopy POY poop.
Yeah. OK. Here we are from uh Ar Casan saying hello to the Children of
another place and Fin Horn, right? Yeah. Fin Horn. Fin Horn. Fin Horn baby.
OK.
It does not endorse the notion that all men are created equal as if cloned
from some God given prototype. It endorses the notion that the individual
is born with his own original specific and irre repeatable characteristics.
The foundry process has been going on for about three years now. Here at
Ahaan, we have a foundry at Kani, these metal wind bells that you see
hanging around and being made here, a re the main or very substantial
portion of the income for the uh building materials we use at Ahaan.
The foundry was constructed simultaneously with the ceramic apps. It was
another one of those buildings that was constructed in the initial
sequence of buildings. You might say
it was ah one thing very important about the architecture beside
integration
is that ah the aesthetic quality of the architecture is very important.
So
what it was,
what you, what you're watching now is just the pouring of the metal, the
hot bronze at 2000 some odd degrees into the sand mold in which the bells
are have been formed.
Did you like not to?
Here we are the foundry, the uh more transformative quality of our sane.
Here. We have uh the one of the foundry folks, particularly in the guise
of Nick. Hello, Nick and Nick is one of our more ah prominent foundry
members here. I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about ah what you
do here as well as how you live in a Kani first. Let's start off with, um
what do you actually do here? Uh I make bells and why do you make bells?
That's a, that's a complicated question, David, you know, uh uh to build
the city, I suppose. Uh The idea is that the bells finance the uh
construction. And so that this operation was set up early in, in, so
Larry's operation in order to finance his drawing, so he wouldn't have to
work uh for, you know, normal architectural offices or anything. And so
that, um, it's gradually grown into a fairly large operation and uh
there's a foundry here and another founder of Kanti right now. How do you
like working in an app that is in an open space in which you both have the
joy of looking out? But the drudgery of, of uh the climat conditions, it,
it makes a difference between working in what would normally be a factory
operation and working outdoors in a fairly healthy physical kind of
situation. Do you find it affects your work? And in terms of height? Yeah
, I couldn't work. If there's another side of this building, I couldn't
work here, it would be, there would be nothing to, there would be no air
to it, no breathing to it. Right. Exactly. And the final thing is how do
you see if you see the role as bells being um, a financial import? How do
you see it in terms of the city that is, do you see Bells as part and
parcel of the experience here or is it simply a tangential thing used to
um, further the construction process? I'm not sure I understand you, but I
it's, it's involved with things. Bells are nice things to have around. You
know, it's hopefully this will expand into something a little bit more
than just so it might actually like an art in a way.
That's the heart of the, this is David signing up.
What?
Yeah,
for you guys
not win.
New York City.
We get many tours as part of the problem of being involved in creating a
city for the future is the people in the present a re as interested as
those of us who a re concerned about living in the near future.
And we're on top of the vault space from the highest spaces now to give
you a vantage point of both Rakosi and its environs. It's a rather
gorgeous day when the first we've had in a long time. More like the
weather we're used to getting. We had a bit of our wintry season as we all
do. It's, it's rain and you can see some of the green that still abides
desperately trying to hold on to the life that it is so hard to get.
And, uh, you're now looking for another, as another view from the f of the
Foundry apps which you can see and we're coming across the mesa, see the
rocks part of our everyday experience and the power lines. One of the
things we most obviously don't enjoy but was part of us down far. There is
camp where the majority of the staff live since there are not enough
spaces up on the site. Every everybody wants to live on the site. But
that's in due time.
There's still some snow on the peaks of the mountains as you can see. And
here we are, I guess we tried to say a lot, probably more than we could
within the time we had to do. But I think that we did it as best we could
at the moment. It's just the beginning. It's our first. Hello.
We want to thank Bill Beamer for singing the first portion um, of our tape.
He's uh one of our entertainments at a Kani.
Now we see our reluctant editorial assistant.