Paolo Soleri Italian born architect, visionary and recently theologian
sees humanity in terms of evolution, a 3 billion year long struggle which
has resulted in consciousness. Man is not the end result of life. He is
only a stage in the adventure and he now must consciously take up the
burden of making the future miniaturization complex. The process whereby
each higher level of evolution rises above the preceding stage and the
process that was described by Taa to the Chardin is applied by Soleri to
the urban environment. He arrives at the Archology, the high three
dimensional one structure city that will permit man to reach higher levels
of consciousness by improving the connections and accessibility of people
and other elements within the city to each other. He provides a framework
within which man can bridge the chasm between matter and spirit.
This program is about Soleri's life and the development of his ideas. I
urge listeners interested in finding out more about Soleri Archology or
Santi to have pencil and paper ready for some announcements. At the end of
the program,
all material presented in the program was recorded at Kanti. The sounds
you hear in the background in parts of the program. Are those from the
manufacture of metal bells?
I asked Soleri about the significance of his name
where it stands now for revelation, the revelation that power had when he
fell from the horse. So that means we the sun in the past tense. You were
the sun in your youth. Did you have any vision or dream of where you are
today where you were going? Oh, I have a vision of the car and I was very
much, very busy physically.
I enjoyed it very much. The only thing was that I didn't enjoy very much
socializing. So I had a number of friends, but when they started
socializing, I would leave them in, play around with other things,
bicycles, swimming, climbing trees,
the to take a look. You never had any, any visions of changing, changing
civilization. No, no, no. What effect did the reign of Mussolini had on
you? You, you were born in it and in a way you cannot imagine not being
with it. So it was, it was normal. Not so much in the sense that there
were, there were a constant reminder that Mussolini was there and you
accept as a normal thing because so what is there? I'm here, I'll do my
thing. And, and I wasn't there the perception that you were, you were
driven by Mussolini. The only, the only way that I, I have a conscience of
being real. Muso is that my father was against Mussolini. So the life of
my family was
imprinted by my father's resistance to, to it. So my father left Italy to
make a living in France for us. And you stayed in Italy and we went to
France and we had to come back because he couldn't make it then. But then
I went back for a season to help him, him in uh in work. What kind of work
did he do? Uh electrical appliances. Paulo studied architecture at the
Torino Polytechnic Institute. Jeffrey Cook, architect, critic and friend
of the Salle describes the project that Paulo designed at the institute.
The most unusual aspect of the design comes with the collection of energy
in these high vertical comb like things that step out of the roof that
were supposed to collect solar energy, the solar energy then would be
transformed into some usable form. Paulo didn't really know how this would
be accomplished, but he was attempting to give architectural form to solar
uses. Paul was raised brought up educated in a classical environment. He
lived in the Italy in which the remnants of the classical world are still
around under foot and on the sides. Palos thesis was a redevelopment
proposal to build a university in the middle of the downtown of the oldest
section of Torino. He was using the same site uh that Guarini uh had
proposed to use to build a great new baroque cathedral. Guarino Guarini
Cathedral never got built. Uh Neither did Carlos University Paulo
graduated with a doctorate and was awarded a small honorarium that gave
him the encouragement to write to Frank Lloyd Wright and Wright encouraged
him to come to the United States. He told Paulo that if he would come,
there would be no tuition. So Paulo through his own efforts and his family
is a great deal of sacrifice. He got himself to the United States. What
kind of ideas did you have about America at the time? Uh Jack London,
Zenana Gray, the literature of the opening. And then uh you know, it was
just after the war. So you were just getting to know America the whole of
the image, which was a very powerful as an image powerful in the sense of
being in a way. The only thing you know about America,
I had a vague expectation about democracy because I didn't know what
democracy was really, we were just, we just got out of the fascist. So
politically, I was very, very uh immature or annoying or ignorant. But you
were expecting, you know, you come to America and all of a sudden freedom.
What happened that all of a sudden I must bring in Ellis Island.
So my 1st 35 days were were in prison in America. So I threw some cold
water on the whole idea. Yeah, because I couldn't understand why. I mean,
if somebody told me why, then I could try to reason I was 26 billion. So I
could reason but I was not told why did you speak English? But I think
that was the main reason because they, they, they used lawyers, you know,
people that talked Italian,
I just need to say, do you want a lawyer?
And that I didn't know that lawyers were useful for anything at the time.
What should I have with a lawyer? And Emma Emma told me you are here
because
up to this day, I had to guess he came to Arizona and to Taliesin West
when Taliesin was at its peak, the old man was in his, in his seventies,
but he was hitting his stride in terms of influence and creativity. Uh And
Taliesin West was less than 10 years old and it was in its early maturity.
Paulo doesn't remember much of what he worked at while he was at Taliesin
West. Uh but he did participate in the fellowship in the way in which it
was organized then and still is. And that is that your time was subdivided
into three parts. A third of your time is spent learning uh the
practicalities of living, baking bread, doing housekeeping chores. Um When
they were in the North, uh looking after the livestock, the chickens
cultivating the fields, uh life support. In other words, then a 2nd 3rd of
your time is spent actively learning construction, getting the feel of
materials with your own hands, swinging a hammer uh running wheelbarrow
through uh uh full of concrete. And then the last third of your time is
spent in the design studio under the armpit of the master working on the
drawing board. Uh So that an apprenticeship with uh Mr Wright was a very
balanced, very organized kind of structure. It's difficult to pinpoint
whether flank or light. I um probably was very much influenced by the fact
of being there and fundamentally not by his presence, but the presence of
him through his, through his work, through uh the environment both in, in
East and West Wisconsin and Arizona. They were both very exciting
environments in a very uh physical way, physical in the sense that you,
you, you felt yourself acting and, and being uh part of it and enjoying it.
Now, this is one of Powell's designs while he was at Taliesin
Paula was invited by Elizabeth Mock who was doing a book and an exhibition
for the Museum of Modern Art on the architecture of bridges. He was an
apprentice there and she took the liberty of inviting him to do a design
for this exhibition and book. And so in 1948 Carlo uh designed the beast
bridges are are in inviting as well as to think of them and designing them
because that they give possibilities for exciting structures. And at the
advantage of being very functionally, very simple, you just want to take
things from one side of a of an obstacle to the side of an obstacle. So
it's a very elementally functional here to, to deal with and cater to. So
that makes for um in a way pure solutions Powers Beast is a long open
highway of reinforced concrete in which the undulating slab flies
successively over and underneath to support the road bed. It is a
completely unified proposal in which one can't separate the various parts
, the columns, the beams, the arches are a complete flow in the beast.
They are absorbed in part of the totality of the whole thing. Frank Lloyd
Wright is known for his architecture in which structures blend with and
into the natural. Paulo comments on this theoretically, it writes that way.
But then he does also different things including the high of my needle or
the you know, the towers or the Gona Museum. There were many projects that
were not executed which were not blending at all. They were very strong
statements where all the buildings they live for cities in. So we
shouldn't stigmatize, right? With only 111 stigma which stigma in a good
sense in blending or being part of the landscape because uh there would be
a limitation of his, of his work.
How about your own position of man's man making a statement in nature? Oh
, I feel more strongly than ever did to nature has its own power and it's
we are lucky that it has this power and man is developing a different
power or a power, a modification of the power and they should state it, it
shouldn't be timid or cowardly about it. I think when, when I left I was
working in the idea that, that we are somehow oriented or the blending
with nature or the idea of, you know, flowing into nature and so on. And
some of that might have been left in me, but uh I soon changed my mind and
not necessarily consciously and in one stroke, things had to remain what
they are in, in fundamental instruments for, for something higher.
So in that sense that your stewardship is, it's right. I think, I don't
think it's right when it's taken uh as the some kind of a total acceptance
of a certain condition uh as uh this sacred God given condition and the
rejection of, of the influence of the transformation of this condition by
mankind, which is where I, I don't go with the, with the conservationists.
Many conservationists say there is something there, it's uh it's sacred,
it's beautiful, it's balanced, it's perfect, we should not touch it. We
just happened that that thing that wasn't existing 100,000 years ago and
uh many millions of years ago, not only it wasn't existing, but it was
even the beginning of life in this sacred thing. So that, which is sacred
today is not going to be sacred tomorrow or it's going to be sacred
tomorrow because it's going to be altered. And we are the, the altering
elements fundamentally at this point of it. So this necessity of
alteration is part of the, of the sacredness of that condition. So to be a
steward of something, it's the the maintenance aspect of the relationship
between me and the thing I'm taking care of. But then there is the other
aspect which is even more fundamental. What, what I do with that thing
there, what we do together, which is the creation of the future. If I have
reverence for that, I have to transform that. Otherwise, my evidence is
dwindles down into, into indifference. Sooner or later, Paul only stayed
with Taliesin for 16 or 18 months. He left in the middle of the summer
with a friend by the name of Mark Mills. They left that institutional
security for nothing. They had no particular program except that they were
ready to leave. It was,
what were you hoping to do then? How do you know it took a long time for
me to find out what the aim was
much longer than many of you people. Um When we left, we were camping on
the wrong side of the mountain alongside of our mother because it was the
north side and we spent a winter there and it was cold and we, well, we
didn't, we, we had a tent which was full, was full of, uh We didn't use a
tent. It was a storage tent. So we lived outside,
but it was good to learn about the climate of the area. After a year, the
fairy godmother arrived, her name was Mrs Woods from Pittsburgh who had
come to Arizona with her daughter who had just graduated from college. And
these two rather delicate ladies wanted to build a house in the desert
with their own hands and they went around to the local architects. Some of
them were rude, some of them were polite but they didn't get any plans.
And then they heard about these two rebels living out in the desert and
then we built a little house and
it was a good experience. It was small carry carry over of the experience
on the physical experience, the manual experience that we had in two years
never had in two years,
learn a little more of a construction. And the result was also uh that uh
Mrs Woods became Paula's mother-in-law and uh the daughter became a
Sicilian. The dome house is a kind of uh variation on the theme of
Taliesin West. On the one hand, you get this brutally strong base of
desert masonry, great boulders rolled up into a plum cake kind of masonry
and then rising out of that is this delicate tent like shape the dome of
glass. Now, the interior is really splendid because when you rise up into
the dome, you're in this lovely space which has a wallpaper of real
mountains that go 360 degrees around and you sit up there and your head is
above the roof. So you're looking at that marvelous. It's a beautiful
desert, very rich with vegetation. And then as the sun sets, the whole
interior becomes transformed and you find you're like the inside of a
spider and you get all of these multiple visions, multiple reflections.
It's like being inside of a kaleidoscope. And uh that's the stair on the
left that rises up into the dome. You'll notice these ridges back behind
the stairs which are um um grooves uh and up at the top, uh there's a
little fountain. Uh the water was supposed to overflow from the fountain
and run down the, the uh behind the stairs and then collect underneath the
stairs and run along this way and then water these plants. Um It's a very
pretty idea. The intent was to cool the inside by the presence of
fountains of humidity. Uh It has never worked and then this is the floor
which is very nice. Um The uh uh uh concrete was poured and while it was
still wet, uh very rich designs were cut into it and then uh cement color
was worked into those designs and the whole thing was smoothed over after
the floor had set up. Uh then the floor was ground uh to reveal these
designs and their colors so that you have a kind of inal uh oriental
carpet effect on the floor. This is how the Dome house was originally
published in the early fifties and there weren't many post war buildings.
The building building in the United States only gathered force in the
late fifties and this building was published very widely and gave Paulo a
lot of pr
uh here, you can best understand how the thing was supposed to work. You
can see how the thing is snuggled into the side of the hill. Cook further
stated that the building was published as an anticipation of that
sensitive new architecture that was supposed to flood the country, but
which never came after building the dome house, the Salis moved to Italy.
And here he had the opportunity to design and build a ceramics factory
for a family and home industry. It was the first such factory in this town
of Vieri Somare and yet the making of ceramics is a traditional occupation
which goes back to Roman days. Now, what Paulo did then was take the
ceramics process, which is purely a lineal process and he wound it around
itself into a sort of Helix to use in a way, a gravity flow, a continuous
gravity flow in the cycle of the of the making of the pots. You start with
the raw material. And then in the way you let the raw material transform
into a finished product through phases which are lower and lower in the
building. So if you have a gravity floor that continues.
The building is composed of a series of pot like shapes and each pot like
shape is built up out of pots. The kid who threw all the pots was 16 years
old when he started and 18 years old when he finished, that was 20 6000
pots. Later, some of the pots are glazed and some are bisque fired. Each
pot has a kind of narrow neck and on the inside, they're plastered over so
that the airspace is captive and contributes to the thermal stability of
the wall.
So the exterior of the building is extremely expressionistic. It expresses
the function of the building in two different scales. Has the building
been a success, a great success, I think, I mean, they, they did very,
very well and it became quite normal and they had uh people getting
married there and paying lots of money to get married there. And so on,
the Soliris returned to the United States for personal reasons and because
the village where we were living in was flooded was destroyed, puzzle
destroyed. And for eight months, we couldn't get water, we couldn't get
electricity and we in a way we couldn't operate. So after eight months, oh
, I'm decision maker. So I will come back after several months in New
Mexico, the Soleri settled on a five acre site in Scottsdale. A few miles
from Taliesin West. The site is called Co Santi, which is Italian, meaning
against things against matter in the sense that life is in a constant
battle to exude itself from matter. During the next 15 years, salary built
workshops for making bells, studios, living space and a swimming pool.
Ivan Pintar, a long time assistant to Soleri describes Kanti, the
buildings here have been built with the soil and then the soil has been
sort of built up around over the buildings and sort of terrains. It was
just a flat piece of desert here and all this play of the the shapes of
the walls and things were cut in and sort of played with, with the soil as
it was dug out and dug into, to shape little areas for collecting the
rainwater and also to sort of make sheltered work spaces from the desert
winds that sometimes whip up and also just kind of funnel the winds. So
really this area right through here uh makes a excellent wind trap that
comes right flowing through here, sort of a testing grounds for the bells.
In fact, uh sometimes power will come out and stuff a rag of some, some
bells really are located right in an area where they ring just constantly
like a little slip streamer. This is the earth house over here and it was
built right at desert level, mounted arched up a little bit just for
strength. This building was built in 56 and the concrete rim there as you
sat, you see at the roof line is not that thick, but it turns up the whole
soil on the top. So actually you get sort of a mound in the soil right
across the roof there. Uh I had uh about four months ago, about five
o'clock in the morning, a horse galloped over the roof and then the dogs
chased it and gulped over the other side of the road. So I'd like you to
come in and see the house. Uh The bathroom section is uh right here in the
front part which has uh two sinks and sort of a nice sculpted shower. The
house was original designed. Uh Paul had it in mind for his family, but
he's never moved in here and sort of taken over by people like myself for
the longest time, it remained almost like a concrete sculpture before it
was blazing was put out in cabinetry in the kitchen. Many of the
structures were built with a technique called silt casting. Adapted by
sole from the process. He used to make ceramic bells. The process involves
the shaping of silt that is fine sand to make a form over which concrete
is poured. The work was done by students from Arizona State University who
participated in summer workshops, the soil was shaped and then the
concrete was poured over it and then dug out. Now, this was the first one
that followed dead. Some almost described this as doing a giant bell and
Paulo particularly likes casting concrete. There's certain integrity about
a concrete building than a wood. He sort of has a certain vernacular and
working with concrete. It's personal preference and also the materials
lend itself better to the desert in this particular climate. Woods, unless
there are certain kinds of woods can very easily dry up and disintegrate.
There's no drapes on this house because the, the, the patio and the walls
around here form a unique enclosure that you don't isolate your house with
drapes and things. You let the sun play on this house. That wall is
immediately joining the shower wall on the other side, it's a very thin
concrete. So after you have a nice fire in there, you take a shower in
there, it's like an oriental steamy shower. I even describes the kitchen
living room. You don't articulate the kitchen from the living room. And in
fact, this whole kitchen area here, once you're cooking the meal, you can
sit around here and convince your chef no way. Is this a subterranean
piece of architecture? Both the north and the south walls are almost
totally glass. So from the interior of this thing, you're constantly in
contact with the outdoors, the neighbors cannot see the earth house and
the earth house cannot see its neighbors. But from the earth house, you
can see the distant horizon, you can see the mountains. Uh you can
completely enjoy an enriched desert environment. This house demonstrated
how to build in the desert, how men could live here and not violate the
visual totality of what the desert means. Pao has always earned his living
his livelihood. He has raised a family and supported his enterprise
through the use of his hands. Handwork, not brain work has been the basis
of his existence. So that bells which are the primary product of his hands
are an elementary form of his thought pattern. His sculptural way with
materials is developed over many years in his handling of the play. 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 is Mumford the city in history. And in the opening
paragraphs, he talks about the city as a container, the city is a pot and
of course hollow cities are containers, they are pots. There is of course
also the great importance of
Kant as not just a workshop of building techniques but as a place where
ideas have brought fruit. The handcraft process is the casual intimate,
personal kind of experience on these five acres, perhaps anticipate the
richness of intimate and personal experience that one would ultimately
experience in these almost megalomaniac structures of giant Arcos
Tao, put together some ideas that he'd had earlier and put together a
sketchbook called the Cosmic Potentials where being in a Sunni country and
being very uh having a propensity for the outdoor. Made me think that uh
the sun should be used even more than what I, I was using it. And that
should have anything of the sun and the automatic, anything of the wind
and the water and the tides and the moon and the energy it's available. So
I began to try to think what would happen if you, if you could come up
with, 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.