WEBVTT 00:00:09.409 --> 00:00:11.409 Paolo Soleri Italian born architect, visionary and recently theologian 00:00:14.819 --> 00:00:19.637 sees humanity in terms of evolution, a 3 billion year long struggle which 00:00:19.670 --> 00:00:24.765 has resulted in consciousness. Man is not the end result of life. He is 00:00:24.798 --> 00:00:28.695 only a stage in the adventure and he now must consciously take up the 00:00:28.728 --> 00:00:35.036 burden of making the future miniaturization complex. The process whereby 00:00:35.069 --> 00:00:40.027 each higher level of evolution rises above the preceding stage and the 00:00:40.060 --> 00:00:44.597 process that was described by Taa to the Chardin is applied by Soleri to 00:00:44.630 --> 00:00:49.565 the urban environment. He arrives at the Archology, the high three 00:00:49.598 --> 00:00:53.726 dimensional one structure city that will permit man to reach higher levels 00:00:53.759 --> 00:00:57.936 of consciousness by improving the connections and accessibility of people 00:00:57.969 --> 00:01:02.896 and other elements within the city to each other. He provides a framework 00:01:02.929 --> 00:01:08.915 within which man can bridge the chasm between matter and spirit. 00:01:08.948 --> 00:01:14.477 This program is about Soleri's life and the development of his ideas. I 00:01:14.510 --> 00:01:19.176 urge listeners interested in finding out more about Soleri Archology or 00:01:19.209 --> 00:01:22.555 Santi to have pencil and paper ready for some announcements. At the end of 00:01:22.588 --> 00:01:24.885 the program, 00:01:24.918 --> 00:01:29.775 all material presented in the program was recorded at Kanti. The sounds 00:01:29.808 --> 00:01:33.406 you hear in the background in parts of the program. Are those from the 00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:37.926 manufacture of metal bells? 00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:43.766 I asked Soleri about the significance of his name 00:01:43.799 --> 00:01:49.217 where it stands now for revelation, the revelation that power had when he 00:01:49.250 --> 00:01:53.775 fell from the horse. So that means we the sun in the past tense. You were 00:01:53.808 --> 00:01:58.757 the sun in your youth. Did you have any vision or dream of where you are 00:01:58.790 --> 00:02:03.346 today where you were going? Oh, I have a vision of the car and I was very 00:02:03.379 --> 00:02:07.346 much, very busy physically. 00:02:07.379 --> 00:02:12.047 I enjoyed it very much. The only thing was that I didn't enjoy very much 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:16.066 socializing. So I had a number of friends, but when they started 00:02:16.099 --> 00:02:21.275 socializing, I would leave them in, play around with other things, 00:02:21.308 --> 00:02:25.745 bicycles, swimming, climbing trees, 00:02:25.778 --> 00:02:31.475 the to take a look. You never had any, any visions of changing, changing 00:02:31.508 --> 00:02:37.487 civilization. No, no, no. What effect did the reign of Mussolini had on 00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:44.245 you? You, you were born in it and in a way you cannot imagine not being 00:02:44.278 --> 00:02:49.846 with it. So it was, it was normal. Not so much in the sense that there 00:02:49.879 --> 00:02:53.237 were, there were a constant reminder that Mussolini was there and you 00:02:53.270 --> 00:02:58.366 accept as a normal thing because so what is there? I'm here, I'll do my 00:02:58.399 --> 00:03:03.275 thing. And, and I wasn't there the perception that you were, you were 00:03:03.308 --> 00:03:09.077 driven by Mussolini. The only, the only way that I, I have a conscience of 00:03:09.110 --> 00:03:12.957 being real. Muso is that my father was against Mussolini. So the life of 00:03:12.990 --> 00:03:15.755 my family was 00:03:15.788 --> 00:03:21.017 imprinted by my father's resistance to, to it. So my father left Italy to 00:03:21.050 --> 00:03:25.876 make a living in France for us. And you stayed in Italy and we went to 00:03:25.909 --> 00:03:28.275 France and we had to come back because he couldn't make it then. But then 00:03:28.308 --> 00:03:35.626 I went back for a season to help him, him in uh in work. What kind of work 00:03:35.659 --> 00:03:41.025 did he do? Uh electrical appliances. Paulo studied architecture at the 00:03:41.058 --> 00:03:46.116 Torino Polytechnic Institute. Jeffrey Cook, architect, critic and friend 00:03:46.149 --> 00:03:50.626 of the Salle describes the project that Paulo designed at the institute. 00:03:50.659 --> 00:03:56.767 The most unusual aspect of the design comes with the collection of energy 00:03:56.800 --> 00:04:02.346 in these high vertical comb like things that step out of the roof that 00:04:02.379 --> 00:04:06.886 were supposed to collect solar energy, the solar energy then would be 00:04:06.919 --> 00:04:14.305 transformed into some usable form. Paulo didn't really know how this would 00:04:14.338 --> 00:04:21.567 be accomplished, but he was attempting to give architectural form to solar 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:28.836 uses. Paul was raised brought up educated in a classical environment. He 00:04:28.869 --> 00:04:34.366 lived in the Italy in which the remnants of the classical world are still 00:04:34.399 --> 00:04:41.825 around under foot and on the sides. Palos thesis was a redevelopment 00:04:41.858 --> 00:04:47.926 proposal to build a university in the middle of the downtown of the oldest 00:04:47.959 --> 00:04:55.036 section of Torino. He was using the same site uh that Guarini uh had 00:04:55.069 --> 00:05:01.217 proposed to use to build a great new baroque cathedral. Guarino Guarini 00:05:01.250 --> 00:05:07.176 Cathedral never got built. Uh Neither did Carlos University Paulo 00:05:07.209 --> 00:05:11.676 graduated with a doctorate and was awarded a small honorarium that gave 00:05:11.709 --> 00:05:15.877 him the encouragement to write to Frank Lloyd Wright and Wright encouraged 00:05:15.910 --> 00:05:20.526 him to come to the United States. He told Paulo that if he would come, 00:05:20.559 --> 00:05:26.726 there would be no tuition. So Paulo through his own efforts and his family 00:05:26.759 --> 00:05:31.257 is a great deal of sacrifice. He got himself to the United States. What 00:05:31.290 --> 00:05:36.736 kind of ideas did you have about America at the time? Uh Jack London, 00:05:36.769 --> 00:05:43.526 Zenana Gray, the literature of the opening. And then uh you know, it was 00:05:43.559 --> 00:05:48.145 just after the war. So you were just getting to know America the whole of 00:05:48.178 --> 00:05:53.245 the image, which was a very powerful as an image powerful in the sense of 00:05:53.278 --> 00:05:57.455 being in a way. The only thing you know about America, 00:05:57.488 --> 00:06:00.507 I had a vague expectation about democracy because I didn't know what 00:06:00.540 --> 00:06:04.937 democracy was really, we were just, we just got out of the fascist. So 00:06:04.970 --> 00:06:12.856 politically, I was very, very uh immature or annoying or ignorant. But you 00:06:12.889 --> 00:06:18.259 were expecting, you know, you come to America and all of a sudden freedom. 00:06:18.278 --> 00:06:20.278 What happened that all of a sudden I must bring in Ellis Island. 00:06:23.069 --> 00:06:28.197 So my 1st 35 days were were in prison in America. So I threw some cold 00:06:28.230 --> 00:06:32.166 water on the whole idea. Yeah, because I couldn't understand why. I mean, 00:06:32.199 --> 00:06:37.127 if somebody told me why, then I could try to reason I was 26 billion. So I 00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:43.156 could reason but I was not told why did you speak English? But I think 00:06:43.189 --> 00:06:45.995 that was the main reason because they, they, they used lawyers, you know, 00:06:46.028 --> 00:06:49.336 people that talked Italian, 00:06:49.369 --> 00:06:52.507 I just need to say, do you want a lawyer? 00:06:52.540 --> 00:06:56.406 And that I didn't know that lawyers were useful for anything at the time. 00:06:56.439 --> 00:07:02.955 What should I have with a lawyer? And Emma Emma told me you are here 00:07:02.988 --> 00:07:04.967 because 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:13.000 up to this day, I had to guess he came to Arizona and to Taliesin West 00:07:13.220 --> 00:07:21.220 when Taliesin was at its peak, the old man was in his, in his seventies, 00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:27.325 but he was hitting his stride in terms of influence and creativity. Uh And 00:07:27.358 --> 00:07:33.637 Taliesin West was less than 10 years old and it was in its early maturity. 00:07:33.670 --> 00:07:38.166 Paulo doesn't remember much of what he worked at while he was at Taliesin 00:07:38.199 --> 00:07:43.656 West. Uh but he did participate in the fellowship in the way in which it 00:07:43.689 --> 00:07:51.416 was organized then and still is. And that is that your time was subdivided 00:07:51.449 --> 00:07:57.346 into three parts. A third of your time is spent learning uh the 00:07:57.379 --> 00:08:05.379 practicalities of living, baking bread, doing housekeeping chores. Um When 00:08:05.399 --> 00:08:09.055 they were in the North, uh looking after the livestock, the chickens 00:08:09.088 --> 00:08:15.515 cultivating the fields, uh life support. In other words, then a 2nd 3rd of 00:08:15.548 --> 00:08:20.676 your time is spent actively learning construction, getting the feel of 00:08:20.709 --> 00:08:25.265 materials with your own hands, swinging a hammer uh running wheelbarrow 00:08:25.298 --> 00:08:30.495 through uh uh full of concrete. And then the last third of your time is 00:08:30.528 --> 00:08:36.566 spent in the design studio under the armpit of the master working on the 00:08:36.599 --> 00:08:44.599 drawing board. Uh So that an apprenticeship with uh Mr Wright was a very 00:08:45.349 --> 00:08:52.096 balanced, very organized kind of structure. It's difficult to pinpoint 00:08:52.129 --> 00:08:57.505 whether flank or light. I um probably was very much influenced by the fact 00:08:57.538 --> 00:09:01.836 of being there and fundamentally not by his presence, but the presence of 00:09:01.869 --> 00:09:09.236 him through his, through his work, through uh the environment both in, in 00:09:09.269 --> 00:09:14.206 East and West Wisconsin and Arizona. They were both very exciting 00:09:14.239 --> 00:09:21.255 environments in a very uh physical way, physical in the sense that you, 00:09:21.288 --> 00:09:29.025 you, you felt yourself acting and, and being uh part of it and enjoying it. 00:09:29.058 --> 00:09:35.196 Now, this is one of Powell's designs while he was at Taliesin 00:09:35.229 --> 00:09:42.645 Paula was invited by Elizabeth Mock who was doing a book and an exhibition 00:09:42.678 --> 00:09:47.096 for the Museum of Modern Art on the architecture of bridges. He was an 00:09:47.129 --> 00:09:52.667 apprentice there and she took the liberty of inviting him to do a design 00:09:52.700 --> 00:10:00.700 for this exhibition and book. And so in 1948 Carlo uh designed the beast 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:09.557 bridges are are in inviting as well as to think of them and designing them 00:10:09.590 --> 00:10:13.356 because that they give possibilities for exciting structures. And at the 00:10:13.389 --> 00:10:18.326 advantage of being very functionally, very simple, you just want to take 00:10:18.359 --> 00:10:22.576 things from one side of a of an obstacle to the side of an obstacle. So 00:10:22.609 --> 00:10:28.417 it's a very elementally functional here to, to deal with and cater to. So 00:10:28.450 --> 00:10:34.986 that makes for um in a way pure solutions Powers Beast is a long open 00:10:35.019 --> 00:10:42.586 highway of reinforced concrete in which the undulating slab flies 00:10:42.619 --> 00:10:48.755 successively over and underneath to support the road bed. It is a 00:10:48.788 --> 00:10:55.255 completely unified proposal in which one can't separate the various parts 00:10:55.288 --> 00:11:01.765 , the columns, the beams, the arches are a complete flow in the beast. 00:11:01.798 --> 00:11:07.217 They are absorbed in part of the totality of the whole thing. Frank Lloyd 00:11:07.250 --> 00:11:11.436 Wright is known for his architecture in which structures blend with and 00:11:11.469 --> 00:11:17.125 into the natural. Paulo comments on this theoretically, it writes that way. 00:11:17.158 --> 00:11:22.717 But then he does also different things including the high of my needle or 00:11:22.750 --> 00:11:29.255 the you know, the towers or the Gona Museum. There were many projects that 00:11:29.288 --> 00:11:33.797 were not executed which were not blending at all. They were very strong 00:11:33.830 --> 00:11:39.996 statements where all the buildings they live for cities in. So we 00:11:40.029 --> 00:11:48.029 shouldn't stigmatize, right? With only 111 stigma which stigma in a good 00:11:48.500 --> 00:11:55.057 sense in blending or being part of the landscape because uh there would be 00:11:55.090 --> 00:11:59.816 a limitation of his, of his work. 00:11:59.849 --> 00:12:04.297 How about your own position of man's man making a statement in nature? Oh 00:12:04.330 --> 00:12:09.696 , I feel more strongly than ever did to nature has its own power and it's 00:12:09.729 --> 00:12:14.066 we are lucky that it has this power and man is developing a different 00:12:14.099 --> 00:12:17.486 power or a power, a modification of the power and they should state it, it 00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:23.326 shouldn't be timid or cowardly about it. I think when, when I left I was 00:12:23.359 --> 00:12:27.917 working in the idea that, that we are somehow oriented or the blending 00:12:27.950 --> 00:12:32.657 with nature or the idea of, you know, flowing into nature and so on. And 00:12:32.690 --> 00:12:39.606 some of that might have been left in me, but uh I soon changed my mind and 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:46.206 not necessarily consciously and in one stroke, things had to remain what 00:12:46.239 --> 00:12:53.515 they are in, in fundamental instruments for, for something higher. 00:12:53.548 --> 00:12:58.726 So in that sense that your stewardship is, it's right. I think, I don't 00:12:58.759 --> 00:13:04.736 think it's right when it's taken uh as the some kind of a total acceptance 00:13:04.769 --> 00:13:10.746 of a certain condition uh as uh this sacred God given condition and the 00:13:10.779 --> 00:13:15.125 rejection of, of the influence of the transformation of this condition by 00:13:15.158 --> 00:13:20.836 mankind, which is where I, I don't go with the, with the conservationists. 00:13:20.869 --> 00:13:26.765 Many conservationists say there is something there, it's uh it's sacred, 00:13:26.798 --> 00:13:31.696 it's beautiful, it's balanced, it's perfect, we should not touch it. We 00:13:31.729 --> 00:13:37.635 just happened that that thing that wasn't existing 100,000 years ago and 00:13:37.668 --> 00:13:40.717 uh many millions of years ago, not only it wasn't existing, but it was 00:13:40.750 --> 00:13:45.336 even the beginning of life in this sacred thing. So that, which is sacred 00:13:45.369 --> 00:13:48.417 today is not going to be sacred tomorrow or it's going to be sacred 00:13:48.450 --> 00:13:51.885 tomorrow because it's going to be altered. And we are the, the altering 00:13:51.918 --> 00:13:57.765 elements fundamentally at this point of it. So this necessity of 00:13:57.798 --> 00:14:04.135 alteration is part of the, of the sacredness of that condition. So to be a 00:14:04.168 --> 00:14:11.525 steward of something, it's the the maintenance aspect of the relationship 00:14:11.558 --> 00:14:15.086 between me and the thing I'm taking care of. But then there is the other 00:14:15.119 --> 00:14:18.826 aspect which is even more fundamental. What, what I do with that thing 00:14:18.859 --> 00:14:23.846 there, what we do together, which is the creation of the future. If I have 00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:29.005 reverence for that, I have to transform that. Otherwise, my evidence is 00:14:29.038 --> 00:14:34.635 dwindles down into, into indifference. Sooner or later, Paul only stayed 00:14:34.668 --> 00:14:40.236 with Taliesin for 16 or 18 months. He left in the middle of the summer 00:14:40.269 --> 00:14:44.717 with a friend by the name of Mark Mills. They left that institutional 00:14:44.750 --> 00:14:52.157 security for nothing. They had no particular program except that they were 00:14:52.190 --> 00:14:56.316 ready to leave. It was, 00:14:56.349 --> 00:15:00.417 what were you hoping to do then? How do you know it took a long time for 00:15:00.450 --> 00:15:04.236 me to find out what the aim was 00:15:04.269 --> 00:15:10.706 much longer than many of you people. Um When we left, we were camping on 00:15:10.739 --> 00:15:14.135 the wrong side of the mountain alongside of our mother because it was the 00:15:14.168 --> 00:15:20.025 north side and we spent a winter there and it was cold and we, well, we 00:15:20.058 --> 00:15:24.336 didn't, we, we had a tent which was full, was full of, uh We didn't use a 00:15:24.369 --> 00:15:29.515 tent. It was a storage tent. So we lived outside, 00:15:29.548 --> 00:15:36.135 but it was good to learn about the climate of the area. After a year, the 00:15:36.168 --> 00:15:41.797 fairy godmother arrived, her name was Mrs Woods from Pittsburgh who had 00:15:41.830 --> 00:15:48.025 come to Arizona with her daughter who had just graduated from college. And 00:15:48.058 --> 00:15:52.836 these two rather delicate ladies wanted to build a house in the desert 00:15:52.869 --> 00:15:56.706 with their own hands and they went around to the local architects. Some of 00:15:56.739 --> 00:16:02.047 them were rude, some of them were polite but they didn't get any plans. 00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:06.606 And then they heard about these two rebels living out in the desert and 00:16:06.639 --> 00:16:09.515 then we built a little house and 00:16:09.548 --> 00:16:14.076 it was a good experience. It was small carry carry over of the experience 00:16:14.109 --> 00:16:16.657 on the physical experience, the manual experience that we had in two years 00:16:16.690 --> 00:16:19.476 never had in two years, 00:16:19.509 --> 00:16:23.836 learn a little more of a construction. And the result was also uh that uh 00:16:23.869 --> 00:16:29.686 Mrs Woods became Paula's mother-in-law and uh the daughter became a 00:16:29.719 --> 00:16:37.606 Sicilian. The dome house is a kind of uh variation on the theme of 00:16:37.639 --> 00:16:44.846 Taliesin West. On the one hand, you get this brutally strong base of 00:16:44.879 --> 00:16:52.456 desert masonry, great boulders rolled up into a plum cake kind of masonry 00:16:52.489 --> 00:16:59.167 and then rising out of that is this delicate tent like shape the dome of 00:16:59.200 --> 00:17:04.406 glass. Now, the interior is really splendid because when you rise up into 00:17:04.439 --> 00:17:09.176 the dome, you're in this lovely space which has a wallpaper of real 00:17:09.209 --> 00:17:15.075 mountains that go 360 degrees around and you sit up there and your head is 00:17:15.108 --> 00:17:19.397 above the roof. So you're looking at that marvelous. It's a beautiful 00:17:19.430 --> 00:17:25.456 desert, very rich with vegetation. And then as the sun sets, the whole 00:17:25.489 --> 00:17:30.656 interior becomes transformed and you find you're like the inside of a 00:17:30.689 --> 00:17:36.166 spider and you get all of these multiple visions, multiple reflections. 00:17:36.199 --> 00:17:41.426 It's like being inside of a kaleidoscope. And uh that's the stair on the 00:17:41.459 --> 00:17:46.585 left that rises up into the dome. You'll notice these ridges back behind 00:17:46.618 --> 00:17:54.618 the stairs which are um um grooves uh and up at the top, uh there's a 00:17:55.430 --> 00:17:59.486 little fountain. Uh the water was supposed to overflow from the fountain 00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:05.065 and run down the, the uh behind the stairs and then collect underneath the 00:18:05.098 --> 00:18:11.367 stairs and run along this way and then water these plants. Um It's a very 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:17.285 pretty idea. The intent was to cool the inside by the presence of 00:18:17.318 --> 00:18:24.347 fountains of humidity. Uh It has never worked and then this is the floor 00:18:24.380 --> 00:18:32.305 which is very nice. Um The uh uh uh concrete was poured and while it was 00:18:32.338 --> 00:18:39.416 still wet, uh very rich designs were cut into it and then uh cement color 00:18:39.449 --> 00:18:44.436 was worked into those designs and the whole thing was smoothed over after 00:18:44.469 --> 00:18:51.555 the floor had set up. Uh then the floor was ground uh to reveal these 00:18:51.588 --> 00:18:58.117 designs and their colors so that you have a kind of inal uh oriental 00:18:58.150 --> 00:19:03.075 carpet effect on the floor. This is how the Dome house was originally 00:19:03.108 --> 00:19:08.377 published in the early fifties and there weren't many post war buildings. 00:19:08.410 --> 00:19:11.456 The building building in the United States only gathered force in the 00:19:11.489 --> 00:19:16.526 late fifties and this building was published very widely and gave Paulo a 00:19:16.559 --> 00:19:19.867 lot of pr 00:19:19.900 --> 00:19:25.956 uh here, you can best understand how the thing was supposed to work. You 00:19:25.989 --> 00:19:29.597 can see how the thing is snuggled into the side of the hill. Cook further 00:19:29.630 --> 00:19:33.467 stated that the building was published as an anticipation of that 00:19:33.500 --> 00:19:37.196 sensitive new architecture that was supposed to flood the country, but 00:19:37.229 --> 00:19:42.825 which never came after building the dome house, the Salis moved to Italy. 00:19:42.858 --> 00:19:48.107 And here he had the opportunity to design and build a ceramics factory 00:19:48.140 --> 00:19:55.746 for a family and home industry. It was the first such factory in this town 00:19:55.779 --> 00:20:02.107 of Vieri Somare and yet the making of ceramics is a traditional occupation 00:20:02.140 --> 00:20:08.285 which goes back to Roman days. Now, what Paulo did then was take the 00:20:08.318 --> 00:20:13.627 ceramics process, which is purely a lineal process and he wound it around 00:20:13.660 --> 00:20:18.526 itself into a sort of Helix to use in a way, a gravity flow, a continuous 00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:23.226 gravity flow in the cycle of the of the making of the pots. You start with 00:20:23.259 --> 00:20:26.506 the raw material. And then in the way you let the raw material transform 00:20:26.539 --> 00:20:31.647 into a finished product through phases which are lower and lower in the 00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:37.666 building. So if you have a gravity floor that continues. 00:20:37.699 --> 00:20:43.476 The building is composed of a series of pot like shapes and each pot like 00:20:43.509 --> 00:20:51.217 shape is built up out of pots. The kid who threw all the pots was 16 years 00:20:51.250 --> 00:20:56.611 old when he started and 18 years old when he finished, that was 20 6000 00:20:56.644 --> 00:21:01.791 pots. Later, some of the pots are glazed and some are bisque fired. Each 00:21:01.824 --> 00:21:07.420 pot has a kind of narrow neck and on the inside, they're plastered over so 00:21:07.453 --> 00:21:12.901 that the airspace is captive and contributes to the thermal stability of 00:21:12.934 --> 00:21:15.377 the wall. 00:21:15.410 --> 00:21:20.906 So the exterior of the building is extremely expressionistic. It expresses 00:21:20.939 --> 00:21:26.726 the function of the building in two different scales. Has the building 00:21:26.759 --> 00:21:30.545 been a success, a great success, I think, I mean, they, they did very, 00:21:30.578 --> 00:21:36.256 very well and it became quite normal and they had uh people getting 00:21:36.289 --> 00:21:40.156 married there and paying lots of money to get married there. And so on, 00:21:40.189 --> 00:21:44.117 the Soliris returned to the United States for personal reasons and because 00:21:44.150 --> 00:21:48.717 the village where we were living in was flooded was destroyed, puzzle 00:21:48.750 --> 00:21:53.117 destroyed. And for eight months, we couldn't get water, we couldn't get 00:21:53.150 --> 00:21:59.617 electricity and we in a way we couldn't operate. So after eight months, oh 00:21:59.650 --> 00:22:04.075 , I'm decision maker. So I will come back after several months in New 00:22:04.108 --> 00:22:08.847 Mexico, the Soleri settled on a five acre site in Scottsdale. A few miles 00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:13.956 from Taliesin West. The site is called Co Santi, which is Italian, meaning 00:22:13.989 --> 00:22:18.526 against things against matter in the sense that life is in a constant 00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:23.967 battle to exude itself from matter. During the next 15 years, salary built 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:29.325 workshops for making bells, studios, living space and a swimming pool. 00:22:29.358 --> 00:22:34.285 Ivan Pintar, a long time assistant to Soleri describes Kanti, the 00:22:34.318 --> 00:22:39.575 buildings here have been built with the soil and then the soil has been 00:22:39.608 --> 00:22:44.016 sort of built up around over the buildings and sort of terrains. It was 00:22:44.049 --> 00:22:49.315 just a flat piece of desert here and all this play of the the shapes of 00:22:49.348 --> 00:22:55.776 the walls and things were cut in and sort of played with, with the soil as 00:22:55.809 --> 00:23:00.486 it was dug out and dug into, to shape little areas for collecting the 00:23:00.519 --> 00:23:07.916 rainwater and also to sort of make sheltered work spaces from the desert 00:23:07.949 --> 00:23:11.776 winds that sometimes whip up and also just kind of funnel the winds. So 00:23:11.809 --> 00:23:16.986 really this area right through here uh makes a excellent wind trap that 00:23:17.019 --> 00:23:21.137 comes right flowing through here, sort of a testing grounds for the bells. 00:23:21.170 --> 00:23:26.847 In fact, uh sometimes power will come out and stuff a rag of some, some 00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:32.825 bells really are located right in an area where they ring just constantly 00:23:32.858 --> 00:23:38.936 like a little slip streamer. This is the earth house over here and it was 00:23:38.969 --> 00:23:44.467 built right at desert level, mounted arched up a little bit just for 00:23:44.500 --> 00:23:51.545 strength. This building was built in 56 and the concrete rim there as you 00:23:51.578 --> 00:23:55.416 sat, you see at the roof line is not that thick, but it turns up the whole 00:23:55.449 --> 00:23:59.147 soil on the top. So actually you get sort of a mound in the soil right 00:23:59.180 --> 00:24:07.180 across the roof there. Uh I had uh about four months ago, about five 00:24:07.989 --> 00:24:12.717 o'clock in the morning, a horse galloped over the roof and then the dogs 00:24:12.750 --> 00:24:16.847 chased it and gulped over the other side of the road. So I'd like you to 00:24:16.880 --> 00:24:22.246 come in and see the house. Uh The bathroom section is uh right here in the 00:24:22.279 --> 00:24:28.967 front part which has uh two sinks and sort of a nice sculpted shower. The 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:35.266 house was original designed. Uh Paul had it in mind for his family, but 00:24:35.299 --> 00:24:40.117 he's never moved in here and sort of taken over by people like myself for 00:24:40.150 --> 00:24:44.857 the longest time, it remained almost like a concrete sculpture before it 00:24:44.890 --> 00:24:49.325 was blazing was put out in cabinetry in the kitchen. Many of the 00:24:49.358 --> 00:24:53.367 structures were built with a technique called silt casting. Adapted by 00:24:53.400 --> 00:24:58.075 sole from the process. He used to make ceramic bells. The process involves 00:24:58.108 --> 00:25:02.357 the shaping of silt that is fine sand to make a form over which concrete 00:25:02.390 --> 00:25:07.226 is poured. The work was done by students from Arizona State University who 00:25:07.259 --> 00:25:10.976 participated in summer workshops, the soil was shaped and then the 00:25:11.009 --> 00:25:15.776 concrete was poured over it and then dug out. Now, this was the first one 00:25:15.809 --> 00:25:22.075 that followed dead. Some almost described this as doing a giant bell and 00:25:22.108 --> 00:25:27.916 Paulo particularly likes casting concrete. There's certain integrity about 00:25:27.949 --> 00:25:34.565 a concrete building than a wood. He sort of has a certain vernacular and 00:25:34.598 --> 00:25:39.347 working with concrete. It's personal preference and also the materials 00:25:39.380 --> 00:25:44.397 lend itself better to the desert in this particular climate. Woods, unless 00:25:44.430 --> 00:25:50.055 there are certain kinds of woods can very easily dry up and disintegrate. 00:25:50.088 --> 00:25:56.496 There's no drapes on this house because the, the, the patio and the walls 00:25:56.529 --> 00:26:02.506 around here form a unique enclosure that you don't isolate your house with 00:26:02.539 --> 00:26:09.236 drapes and things. You let the sun play on this house. That wall is 00:26:09.269 --> 00:26:13.647 immediately joining the shower wall on the other side, it's a very thin 00:26:13.680 --> 00:26:18.367 concrete. So after you have a nice fire in there, you take a shower in 00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:23.107 there, it's like an oriental steamy shower. I even describes the kitchen 00:26:23.140 --> 00:26:30.617 living room. You don't articulate the kitchen from the living room. And in 00:26:30.650 --> 00:26:35.575 fact, this whole kitchen area here, once you're cooking the meal, you can 00:26:35.608 --> 00:26:41.545 sit around here and convince your chef no way. Is this a subterranean 00:26:41.578 --> 00:26:46.756 piece of architecture? Both the north and the south walls are almost 00:26:46.789 --> 00:26:51.176 totally glass. So from the interior of this thing, you're constantly in 00:26:51.209 --> 00:26:56.426 contact with the outdoors, the neighbors cannot see the earth house and 00:26:56.459 --> 00:27:00.555 the earth house cannot see its neighbors. But from the earth house, you 00:27:00.588 --> 00:27:04.795 can see the distant horizon, you can see the mountains. Uh you can 00:27:04.828 --> 00:27:11.246 completely enjoy an enriched desert environment. This house demonstrated 00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:17.926 how to build in the desert, how men could live here and not violate the 00:27:17.959 --> 00:27:25.959 visual totality of what the desert means. Pao has always earned his living 00:27:26.598 --> 00:27:31.236 his livelihood. He has raised a family and supported his enterprise 00:27:31.269 --> 00:27:37.045 through the use of his hands. Handwork, not brain work has been the basis 00:27:37.078 --> 00:27:43.127 of his existence. So that bells which are the primary product of his hands 00:27:43.160 --> 00:27:49.976 are an elementary form of his thought pattern. His sculptural way with 00:27:50.009 --> 00:27:55.986 materials is developed over many years in his handling of the play. Of 00:27:56.019 --> 00:28:01.835 course, one has to point out that bells are in fact simply upside down 00:28:01.868 --> 00:28:07.897 pots. And one of the books that Carlo read a long time ago and is still on 00:28:07.930 --> 00:28:13.597 his bookshelf is Mumford the city in history. And in the opening 00:28:13.630 --> 00:28:20.026 paragraphs, he talks about the city as a container, the city is a pot and 00:28:20.059 --> 00:28:25.676 of course hollow cities are containers, they are pots. There is of course 00:28:25.709 --> 00:28:29.746 also the great importance of 00:28:29.779 --> 00:28:37.516 Kant as not just a workshop of building techniques but as a place where 00:28:37.549 --> 00:28:44.972 ideas have brought fruit. The handcraft process is the casual intimate, 00:28:45.005 --> 00:28:51.381 personal kind of experience on these five acres, perhaps anticipate the 00:28:51.414 --> 00:28:55.920 richness of intimate and personal experience that one would ultimately 00:28:55.953 --> 00:29:03.953 experience in these almost megalomaniac structures of giant Arcos 00:29:05.279 --> 00:29:09.147 Tao, put together some ideas that he'd had earlier and put together a 00:29:09.180 --> 00:29:15.666 sketchbook called the Cosmic Potentials where being in a Sunni country and 00:29:15.699 --> 00:29:21.795 being very uh having a propensity for the outdoor. Made me think that uh 00:29:21.828 --> 00:29:28.506 the sun should be used even more than what I, I was using it. And that 00:29:28.539 --> 00:29:31.305 should have anything of the sun and the automatic, anything of the wind 00:29:31.338 --> 00:29:37.147 and the water and the tides and the moon and the energy it's available. So 00:29:37.180 --> 00:29:42.006 I began to try to think what would happen if you, if you could come up 00:29:42.039 --> 00:29:46.506 with, with structures shaped in such a way as to be able to capture those 00:29:46.539 --> 00:29:53.166 energies. One of these sketches, 1950 it's a, a building that shaped 00:29:53.199 --> 00:29:58.016 something like a catcher's mitt which would face the sun balconies, then 00:29:58.049 --> 00:30:04.118 would catch the sun's energy and transform it into something usable.