WEBVTT 00:00:03.008 --> 00:00:05.008 where, uh, in the College of Architecture at Arizona State University in 00:00:08.409 --> 00:00:16.409 Tempe. Uh, and, uh, it's 27th of June, and we have now had two weeks of 00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:22.515 temperatures over 100 and 10 degrees. And Paolo Soleri, I want to know why 00:00:22.548 --> 00:00:26.387 you live here. 00:00:26.420 --> 00:00:31.675 Uh, I'm one of the lunatics. 00:00:31.708 --> 00:00:38.656 Well, uh, lunatic implies you're in love with the moon, Not the sun. 00:00:38.689 --> 00:00:42.237 I'm stuck. 00:00:42.270 --> 00:00:48.976 Well, it it seems like it's, um uh, an important part of your idea of how 00:00:49.009 --> 00:00:51.835 man ought to live in this earth. Uh, that he ought to live, uh, 00:00:51.868 --> 00:00:57.546 sympathetic with nature. Uh, and it seems, uh, increasingly that, um, 00:00:57.579 --> 00:01:05.456 Phoenix, uh, in the middle of the summer is not just a place to do it. 00:01:05.489 --> 00:01:10.587 Well, you can do it if you do it in the right way. And this room, it's one 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:15.727 way of doing it. I don't know if it's going to be proved as the right way 00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:18.376 this building. 00:01:18.409 --> 00:01:22.885 I would agree, but I wonder whether you could point to any examples here 00:01:22.918 --> 00:01:27.977 in Phoenix that, uh, you would find appropriate 00:01:28.010 --> 00:01:33.096 that are presently existing? Probably not. 00:01:33.129 --> 00:01:39.326 Do you think that there is that possibility? You better be 00:01:39.359 --> 00:01:43.406 well, one. I mean, for instance, one solution could be that we could live 00:01:43.439 --> 00:01:47.995 here for the eight months that it's really, uh, beautiful and, uh, move to 00:01:48.028 --> 00:01:56.028 the beach. Uh, the other employees and, uh, a degree of affluence. Which 00:01:58.079 --> 00:02:06.079 my question mark on our real And yet the economic factor may be more 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:11.737 modest to move the population than to keep it here. 00:02:11.770 --> 00:02:15.505 Under the present conditions that they might be right under ideal 00:02:15.538 --> 00:02:23.538 conditions, they might not be right. 00:02:29.618 --> 00:02:33.346 Thank goodness you can erase it. 00:02:33.379 --> 00:02:39.696 Erase the blanks. How? How do you respond to the concepts of mobility 00:02:39.729 --> 00:02:46.085 which have been advocated by certain recent, uh, thinkers and groups who 00:02:46.118 --> 00:02:54.118 are quite influential in terms of architectural and urban ideas? 00:02:56.028 --> 00:03:00.666 Well, I don't know. I don't know if you are talking about, um, unlimited 00:03:00.699 --> 00:03:04.835 mobility or if you're talking about migrations. The order you were, you 00:03:04.868 --> 00:03:08.876 are suggesting that you are in a certain climate and you try to avoid the 00:03:08.909 --> 00:03:13.696 the peaks, the bad peaks and the climate by migrating so that this would 00:03:13.729 --> 00:03:16.827 be a cyclical migration. 00:03:16.860 --> 00:03:21.876 And then maybe if we organise society on those terms, that and be making 00:03:21.909 --> 00:03:25.577 sense, even 00:03:25.610 --> 00:03:32.116 if we extend this process to the whole of mankind, the whole mankind 00:03:32.149 --> 00:03:36.636 migrating, unruly. 00:03:36.669 --> 00:03:44.077 I don't think it's something that we might want to, uh, get into him. We 00:03:44.110 --> 00:03:48.116 are not ready for that anyhow. It would be tremendously cost. Cost wise 00:03:48.149 --> 00:03:53.177 would be would be a bankruptcy, I think, 00:03:53.210 --> 00:04:01.210 uh, to be more specific, your own, uh, proposals, uh, to date have tended 00:04:01.610 --> 00:04:07.077 to be rather hard environments in the sense that they're fixed. Uh, and 00:04:07.110 --> 00:04:12.297 they tend to suggest a rather permanent, uh, and stable focus for 00:04:12.330 --> 00:04:19.656 settlement. Uh, have you, uh uh, have you abandoned or have you ever 00:04:19.689 --> 00:04:27.455 considered, uh, the ideas of a more flexible and dia, Let's say, kind of 00:04:27.488 --> 00:04:32.426 of, uh, settlement and closure. Um, let's say throwaway architecture or 00:04:32.459 --> 00:04:34.916 movable, 00:04:34.949 --> 00:04:38.026 I don't know what that happens that that thing might be. It seems to me it 00:04:38.059 --> 00:04:44.757 tends to pile up gigantic waste heaps in all corners of the universe. So 00:04:44.790 --> 00:04:49.377 the diphone might be It might be more, uh, illusion. Illusory than, uh 00:04:49.410 --> 00:04:55.825 than real. If if we move from the from the possibility of having people 00:04:55.858 --> 00:05:00.586 moving with a with a little bag or a little suitcase to people moving with 00:05:00.619 --> 00:05:06.007 their own houses. We can see immediately the the amount of, uh, or 00:05:06.040 --> 00:05:12.166 materials hardware, energy that are needed for this process. So I think in 00:05:12.199 --> 00:05:16.526 a way it was more progressive when people would be moving with their own 00:05:16.559 --> 00:05:22.856 suitcases to the vacation, the houses 00:05:22.889 --> 00:05:28.387 in the countryside, then now buying, having a house and buying a mobile 00:05:28.420 --> 00:05:33.086 home and moving your home with yourself. I think this is a very good 00:05:33.119 --> 00:05:41.055 indication of what Pop is. And yet we have seen some demonstrations in the 00:05:41.088 --> 00:05:47.805 use of pneumatic buildings where, indeed one could get a building inside a 00:05:47.838 --> 00:05:54.055 suitcase. Are those areas that that you've thought about again? I think we 00:05:54.088 --> 00:06:01.156 are. We are talking about a more of a of A, an abstraction and a reality, 00:06:01.189 --> 00:06:06.116 because example, you can put your your house that this skin into your 00:06:06.149 --> 00:06:11.366 suitcase, but you cannot put the services for this skin, so to have to 00:06:11.399 --> 00:06:14.817 have something that shelters you from the rain or the wind. It's one thing 00:06:14.850 --> 00:06:19.217 to have something that serves you on your daily activities or something 00:06:19.250 --> 00:06:23.387 else, and you cannot put that in a suitcase. 00:06:23.420 --> 00:06:29.055 Uh, you've really identified there, uh, one of the key architectural and 00:06:29.088 --> 00:06:35.245 urban problems. Uh uh. A single person by himself, uh, will seldom foul 00:06:35.278 --> 00:06:40.467 foul his own nest. But, uh, when we have conurbations of a million people 00:06:40.500 --> 00:06:47.846 , uh, we seem to be wallowing in our own excretions. Um, how do you feel 00:06:47.879 --> 00:06:54.007 that your approach is different from anybody else's? In terms of handling 00:06:54.040 --> 00:06:58.856 this problem of service 00:06:58.889 --> 00:07:04.656 I, I don't think the problem, uh, murder probably is not put rightly, 00:07:04.689 --> 00:07:08.976 because if there is something which is very clearly indicated by 00:07:09.009 --> 00:07:17.009 experience is that, um that you can obtain efficiency when you are able to 00:07:17.670 --> 00:07:24.406 have a multiplicity of things going on together. So the more you isolate 00:07:24.439 --> 00:07:30.757 any kind of, um, system, the more you tend to make this system, uh, 00:07:30.790 --> 00:07:34.205 wasteful. 00:07:34.238 --> 00:07:39.866 So you're suggesting that the critical factor is the integration of these 00:07:39.899 --> 00:07:45.726 various systems of service. 00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:52.765 Integration comes from integrity and integrity. Is the ability to to take 00:07:52.798 --> 00:07:59.106 the many digits or the many aspects of a very sizable question or problem 00:07:59.139 --> 00:08:03.546 and see how they can interact in the best way possible at a certain 00:08:03.579 --> 00:08:06.296 historical moment? 00:08:06.329 --> 00:08:10.205 And if you go the other way, which is the isolation of the individual, the 00:08:10.238 --> 00:08:14.846 individual. Evidently somewhere you are breaking down the integrity of the 00:08:14.879 --> 00:08:19.586 system. 00:08:19.619 --> 00:08:26.377 Um, earlier in your career, you used a term bio technic, which was a way, 00:08:26.410 --> 00:08:31.926 uh, perhaps of expressing, uh uh, uh, A sympathetic relationship of 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:38.265 biological needs. Uh, with, uh, technical means. Uh, I notice you don't 00:08:38.298 --> 00:08:43.096 use that term anymore, but it seems as though the idea is still very 00:08:43.129 --> 00:08:46.395 prominent in your attitude. 00:08:46.428 --> 00:08:51.726 I'm glad you talked about my career. 00:08:51.759 --> 00:08:55.025 Well, I I had one. 00:08:55.058 --> 00:08:59.196 Why? Why have you dropped the word? Why? Why don't you use that 00:08:59.229 --> 00:09:04.586 terminology? The bias? I'm not using the word I'm. I'm using very much the 00:09:04.619 --> 00:09:10.427 the the concept. Because when I when I'm suggesting that technology comes 00:09:10.460 --> 00:09:18.460 before science, what comes before? Anything else? I'm saying that 00:09:18.570 --> 00:09:24.936 that the instrument T is that which are fostering lives in a way preceding 00:09:24.969 --> 00:09:30.586 even life itself. So the biotechnology it's a technology that comes before 00:09:30.619 --> 00:09:36.566 man invented the machine or the tool. 00:09:36.599 --> 00:09:39.265 In other words, the 00:09:39.298 --> 00:09:42.816 all of the evolutionary process that came before man was a 00:09:42.849 --> 00:09:45.946 biotechnological process. 00:09:45.979 --> 00:09:52.467 All the problem that came after the man appeared on earth was a about a, 00:09:52.500 --> 00:09:59.116 um a process which involved biotechnology and the technological hardware, 00:09:59.149 --> 00:10:02.476 as we do not know. 00:10:02.509 --> 00:10:10.177 And the more we can integrate the the biological aspects, which includes 00:10:10.210 --> 00:10:16.057 the phys, the psychological aspects with the hardware technology, the more 00:10:16.090 --> 00:10:21.326 we are able to stay away from the biggest mistakes. 00:10:21.359 --> 00:10:26.066 Um, just following that line of thought, I think some people may assume 00:10:26.099 --> 00:10:32.436 that in your case, by advocating the plumbing first that you are perhaps 00:10:32.469 --> 00:10:37.946 bringing up man after, um 00:10:37.979 --> 00:10:43.246 uh, I. I suppose that in the integration of of these problems, uh, it's 00:10:43.279 --> 00:10:49.467 difficult to put one thing first, but, uh, in fact, are you not, uh, a 00:10:49.500 --> 00:10:56.346 very strong advocate, uh, of, uh, identifying the technical framework 00:10:56.379 --> 00:11:04.379 first and then attempting to, uh, bring in man as an interacting agent? 00:11:05.500 --> 00:11:13.500 Yeah, if by technical we understand what we are. What do we mean? Uh, the 00:11:13.950 --> 00:11:19.226 the technical medias you can say are the the regional particles. How how 00:11:19.259 --> 00:11:24.986 many are there and what kind they are. Everybody knows better than I do. 00:11:25.019 --> 00:11:29.996 So those were those were the building blocks that we were presented with 00:11:30.029 --> 00:11:34.667 from the beginning. What? What would you use? Atomic articles and 00:11:34.700 --> 00:11:40.395 particles that are making for the atomic and then the molecular and so on. 00:11:40.428 --> 00:11:46.255 So if those are the technical means, definitely. I put those ahead. All 00:11:46.288 --> 00:11:53.307 the of, um of, uh, the mental process that will organise those those 00:11:53.340 --> 00:11:57.717 elements. And naturally, that goes against the religious idea that God is 00:11:57.750 --> 00:12:03.967 first. And then from God comes everything else. I said God is last, and, 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:10.907 uh, we we move toward God by the manipulation of those particles. 00:12:10.940 --> 00:12:16.557 And this is this philosophically is how you identify with the Tar de 00:12:16.590 --> 00:12:24.590 Chardin concept of Omega. No, because he he's a he's a Catholic, 00:12:26.678 --> 00:12:32.927 and he definitely states that he 00:12:32.960 --> 00:12:39.736 conceptual work does not infringe in the beliefs of the of the Catholic 00:12:39.769 --> 00:12:45.625 Church in the existence of God. 00:12:45.658 --> 00:12:50.875 So you're saying that that that one of the differences is that he believes 00:12:50.908 --> 00:12:56.576 that God is is preexistence, whereas in your case, you see that as an 00:12:56.609 --> 00:13:01.956 ultimate goal? Yeah, 00:13:01.989 --> 00:13:09.157 uh, to, uh, to return to this, uh, idea of the relationship of technical 00:13:09.190 --> 00:13:15.606 means to B biological needs. Uh, 00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:19.246 it it could almost be suggested that you're putting yourself in a godlike 00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:26.066 role in the kind of approach that you're advocating. Yeah. Any any 00:13:26.099 --> 00:13:31.057 particle that has become has achieved some kind of consciousness. He is a 00:13:31.090 --> 00:13:37.816 gun maker. So it's not that I'm I'm the gunmaker. And you are not. You are. 00:13:37.849 --> 00:13:44.696 And, uh, the the worm is and the trees and so on. There are degrees 00:13:44.729 --> 00:13:50.635 degrees by which you you make God. So each of us shares, uh, some 00:13:50.668 --> 00:13:58.668 fragmentary potential, uh, in godlike directions. 00:13:59.219 --> 00:14:05.395 And you see this as part of the vector system of humanity 00:14:05.428 --> 00:14:13.145 of life in general? Yeah. 00:14:13.178 --> 00:14:19.787 Where did you, um, first become conscious of, uh, Tar de Chardin in in his 00:14:19.820 --> 00:14:25.696 ideas? When I read somewhere that he died, and I didn't know he existed. 00:14:25.729 --> 00:14:29.275 And, uh, when we were told that he died, we were told that he was a great 00:14:29.308 --> 00:14:35.025 thinker and there was some articles written on him. So it was his obituary 00:14:35.058 --> 00:14:40.025 that, uh, gave you gave you the first attention, which was in the, uh I 00:14:40.058 --> 00:14:47.606 think I got it from Time magazine. Oh, bless them. I know, 00:14:47.639 --> 00:14:52.645 uh, and then you, uh, you began to read. You did read some of his original 00:14:52.678 --> 00:14:57.967 work. Yeah, I got I got everything I could get in the French version, 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:00.895 which was the 00:15:00.928 --> 00:15:05.946 You were surprised. I dare say at the congruence between some of your 00:15:05.979 --> 00:15:12.047 ideas. I was elated, elated, elated. 00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:18.875 Um, still, uh, you personally have not associated with any of the Chardin 00:15:18.908 --> 00:15:26.908 groups, Uh, which have, uh, formed throughout the world. You have? Yes. 00:15:27.210 --> 00:15:35.210 They asked me to be a What is it, saint? Not not a trusty 00:15:36.389 --> 00:15:40.635 a consultant. 00:15:40.668 --> 00:15:45.706 The part of the organisation which, uh, which this is the one in New York. 00:15:45.739 --> 00:15:53.297 The teller. The Sheldon. Um what is it? Foundation? Uh hm. I think it's 00:15:53.330 --> 00:15:59.025 the only one existing. Well, there's There do seem to be, uh, colonies and 00:15:59.058 --> 00:16:02.895 groups scattered throughout the country and elsewhere. Uh, I'm not sure 00:16:02.928 --> 00:16:09.956 that I'm not sure that they're all directly associated with each other. 00:16:09.989 --> 00:16:13.076 What do you think your contribution 00:16:13.109 --> 00:16:18.586 might be? Well, I sent them a number of papers about theology because I 00:16:18.619 --> 00:16:21.537 told them that maybe they changed their mind when, uh, when they read 00:16:21.570 --> 00:16:28.157 those things and they didn't, they still had to me as a consultant. 00:16:28.190 --> 00:16:30.956 No, 00:16:30.989 --> 00:16:38.989 um, your interest in theology is relatively recent. Um uh, as a boy, or as 00:16:40.109 --> 00:16:44.956 a young man, you managed fairly successfully to, uh, avoid the established 00:16:44.989 --> 00:16:52.989 church. No, until, uh, until about 18 or so. I used to go to church every 00:16:53.129 --> 00:17:01.129 Sunday. Were you a choir boy? Uh, in elementary school And what happened 00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:08.526 at the age of 18? Oh, no. Long before that I I was going to church because 00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:15.676 I enjoyed the the experience, experiences and the experience was, uh, both 00:17:15.709 --> 00:17:22.436 aesthetic and ritualistic and social and social, uh, as well as was there 00:17:22.469 --> 00:17:28.906 any theological component? Oh, that there was, uh, some kind of, um 00:17:28.939 --> 00:17:36.939 emotional, I guess. Uh, yeah, aspects 00:17:37.229 --> 00:17:41.906 in the sense that it was pleasant to get into this building or when any 00:17:41.939 --> 00:17:46.976 one of the buildings that any one of the churches and, uh, spend half an 00:17:47.009 --> 00:17:49.835 hour there. 00:17:49.868 --> 00:17:57.186 Uh, and then, um, what came? What came about around the age of 18? As I 00:17:57.219 --> 00:18:05.219 was saying, by by then I I couldn't really see myself as a devout Catholic. 00:18:06.410 --> 00:18:08.410 I mean, I was out of the church, but you you were not willing to take 00:18:11.170 --> 00:18:16.166 those parts that you could still take you. 00:18:16.199 --> 00:18:24.156 You left everything? Yeah, but there was no no traumatic moment. What has 00:18:24.189 --> 00:18:31.897 brought you back into, uh, a stream of of appreciation of the theological 00:18:31.930 --> 00:18:35.156 problem? 00:18:35.189 --> 00:18:42.276 Well, the certain point you are presented with the with the question of 00:18:42.309 --> 00:18:44.815 the 00:18:44.848 --> 00:18:48.295 what? What do you make 00:18:48.328 --> 00:18:56.328 of ecological evolution? For instance, what is it? Well, and after turning 00:18:56.670 --> 00:19:00.206 that thing over and over yuan by seeing that the ecological evolution is a 00:19:00.239 --> 00:19:06.357 theological evolution, it's a process of making, uh, uh the physical into 00:19:06.390 --> 00:19:08.926 the metaphysical. 00:19:08.959 --> 00:19:15.825 How long ago did this, uh, sort of reveal itself to you? 00:19:15.858 --> 00:19:20.717 Well, again, it wasn't a revelation. It was a slow, you know, putting a 00:19:20.750 --> 00:19:24.746 little thing there, a little thing there and then more or less suddenly 00:19:24.779 --> 00:19:29.266 decided that that's the time when you have to do something about it. But 00:19:29.299 --> 00:19:35.347 it's happened. What about Only within the last 10 or 15 years? Yeah. Oh, 00:19:35.380 --> 00:19:40.406 not much later. The the triggering thing was when I when suddenly I felt 00:19:40.439 --> 00:19:46.446 that I could take the the word simulation and what it implies 00:19:46.479 --> 00:19:54.315 and somehow finding out that the religion is simulation religion as an 00:19:54.348 --> 00:20:02.348 established set of, um, or revolutions or rules or dogmas and so on. 00:20:06.259 --> 00:20:11.357 And it it sounds very blasphemous. It sounds very, you know, uh, nasty, 00:20:11.390 --> 00:20:15.585 but, uh, it's not intended at all that way. 00:20:15.618 --> 00:20:22.857 How How do you define your use of the word simulation Breath temp 00:20:22.890 --> 00:20:30.890 to, uh, to make something real before this reality has happened To 00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:37.607 anticipate this failure? Um, well, whether that's an art or science, in 00:20:37.640 --> 00:20:44.045 any case, it's anticipatory. It's a very peculiar Capac. Ability of 00:20:44.078 --> 00:20:48.956 mankind is distinguished from the other animals. 00:20:48.989 --> 00:20:54.305 So it's very natural that the region came with mankind because it if it 00:20:54.338 --> 00:20:58.746 didn't come, something would have been missing in the in the mind and in 00:20:58.779 --> 00:21:06.779 the in the structure of mankind. It had to come because, uh, man had to 00:21:06.838 --> 00:21:13.726 decide sooner or later what the meaning of of him of himself was and what 00:21:13.759 --> 00:21:18.206 the meaning of life was. So the best thing he could do was to come into 00:21:18.239 --> 00:21:23.967 this process of anticipation. 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:29.496 How do you This may be very personal, but how do you feel in your own life 00:21:29.529 --> 00:21:33.746 ? Uh uh, 00:21:33.779 --> 00:21:40.496 in particular that you are practising this anticipatory, 00:21:40.529 --> 00:21:42.956 uh, 00:21:42.989 --> 00:21:47.276 idea? 00:21:47.309 --> 00:21:53.137 Well, we are all practising with some participatory idea. At least in our 00:21:53.170 --> 00:21:58.467 best moments, we say that we are not as good as we should be. So we make 00:21:58.500 --> 00:22:04.597 another little effort to become slightly better. 00:22:04.630 --> 00:22:11.075 And this effort makes puts in a particle of 00:22:11.108 --> 00:22:16.456 of, uh, divinity into the the process of the Rio. 00:22:16.489 --> 00:22:22.186 Uh, it it seems to me that from one point of view, um, that approach, uh, 00:22:22.219 --> 00:22:28.857 may encourage a certain, uh, fantasising, which, uh, separates us from 00:22:28.890 --> 00:22:31.357 reality. 00:22:31.390 --> 00:22:34.446 He said, definitely. 00:22:34.479 --> 00:22:39.785 Uh, so, in effect, you're fantasising. 00:22:39.818 --> 00:22:47.156 No, I don't. Well, yes, I'm fantasising. Everybody does. 00:22:47.189 --> 00:22:50.426 Yeah. You get up in the morning, I you decide. Now I'm going to fantasise 00:22:50.459 --> 00:22:56.406 for two hours. But then Good. 00:22:56.439 --> 00:23:00.426 No, no, you're not fantasising in a in A in a sense, that you state very 00:23:00.459 --> 00:23:05.097 clearly that unless you do it, there is nothing else that is going to do 00:23:05.130 --> 00:23:09.736 it because God doesn't doesn't exist. I am responsible for the making of 00:23:09.769 --> 00:23:12.726 God. 00:23:12.759 --> 00:23:18.696 So if I If I keep repeating that to myself, evidently I just waste my time 00:23:18.729 --> 00:23:26.176 in your time and everybody's time. If I attempt somehow to, uh, to 00:23:26.209 --> 00:23:30.127 understand what that might imply within my capacities, then I might 00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:35.825 attempt to do a little effort to do something in order to to get this 00:23:35.858 --> 00:23:40.387 thing going, if it was even for an instant. So I would say that 00:23:40.420 --> 00:23:48.420 fantasising is when you say? Um, I am good. I'm bad. I do this and do that. 00:23:48.650 --> 00:23:52.397 But no matter what happens, God is there, and he's going to take care of 00:23:52.430 --> 00:23:57.766 me and my Children and and my brothers and so on. But if I if I tell 00:23:57.799 --> 00:24:01.897 myself that there is not such a thing, that can take care of anything, but 00:24:01.930 --> 00:24:08.065 I am responsible for the care of for everything. Then, uh, I better get 00:24:08.098 --> 00:24:13.986 down to to something of substance, 00:24:14.019 --> 00:24:19.696 uh, to relate that approach to what your experience was early in life. Um 00:24:19.729 --> 00:24:25.967 , do you practise any outward ritual, or is this mostly, uh, the mental 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:32.555 and spiritual process? Uh, I have rituals, but they are very, very down to 00:24:32.588 --> 00:24:37.795 earth rituals. I have routines. You have routines, but they're not, uh, 00:24:37.828 --> 00:24:41.877 they're not religious rituals. I mean, when you when you water the olive 00:24:41.910 --> 00:24:49.035 tree, Uh, that's that's that's a daily, uh yet in an in Well, what I 00:24:49.068 --> 00:24:53.825 wonder is, to what extent is that a direct religious experience for you? 00:24:53.858 --> 00:24:57.847 Well, any anything that you do 00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:02.986 being part of this attempt to build, 00:25:03.019 --> 00:25:07.986 uh, the sacred it's part of the experience, 00:25:08.019 --> 00:25:13.416 but naturally this this is almost automatic in in any one of us. So it's 00:25:13.449 --> 00:25:17.097 not that every time you start doing something you say Now I'm going to do 00:25:17.130 --> 00:25:23.236 another divine act. You are just very humbly carrying on your business of 00:25:23.269 --> 00:25:29.026 living. And if the whole thing comes to be together into the art of living 00:25:29.059 --> 00:25:32.726 , then you got something going. 00:25:32.759 --> 00:25:39.377 So you see, uh, construction. Really? Uh uh, as a as a potential sacred 00:25:39.410 --> 00:25:45.906 ritual, like like anything else? Yeah. No, there are. There must be some 00:25:45.939 --> 00:25:49.416 activities which couldn't be considered, 00:25:49.449 --> 00:25:54.676 uh, would say as having sacred potential 00:25:54.709 --> 00:26:00.597 that those have to be, uh, the discrimination has to come from, um from 00:26:00.630 --> 00:26:04.496 your inside. 00:26:04.529 --> 00:26:08.196 I mean, it would I think it would be difficult, for instance, to identify 00:26:08.229 --> 00:26:16.229 some of the Adolf Hitler's activities with, uh with the sense that we're 00:26:16.568 --> 00:26:19.016 talking now. 00:26:19.049 --> 00:26:25.926 But at the same time, you could say with a certain certainty that the 00:26:25.959 --> 00:26:31.785 phenomenon of the forties, with all its ugliness, was already something 00:26:31.818 --> 00:26:39.818 far higher in the making of something metaphysical than the phenomenon 40 00:26:41.420 --> 00:26:45.147 millions of years before. 00:26:45.180 --> 00:26:50.137 So you're suggesting that even in its blackest moments, uh, things were at 00:26:50.170 --> 00:26:56.406 a higher level than once. Mhm, if nothing else. Because those blackest 00:26:56.439 --> 00:27:04.439 moments are are, uh, triggering things which are incredibly, uh, um, 00:27:05.309 --> 00:27:08.026 what do you call it? 00:27:08.059 --> 00:27:12.416 So which you have to have a great evidence things happened during during 00:27:12.449 --> 00:27:20.449 those those years that they they were of a great asset for mankind. 00:27:22.039 --> 00:27:27.717 Uh, one of the phenomena of, uh, uh, religious people, at least in the 00:27:27.750 --> 00:27:34.196 Western world, seems to be, uh, their, uh, attempt to become, uh, 00:27:34.229 --> 00:27:39.476 evangelical about their experience and, uh, to become missionaries of the 00:27:39.509 --> 00:27:47.509 faith. Um, how have you become a missionary of your faith? 00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:54.206 That's a very tricky I said 00:27:54.239 --> 00:28:02.239 yes. Um, if we believe that we we really stand for, uh, for some kind of a 00:28:03.420 --> 00:28:10.815 reverential condition, some kind of, uh, sacred phenomenon. Then we cannot 00:28:10.848 --> 00:28:18.065 , uh, give up proselytising. We have to extend this phenomenon as as much 00:28:18.098 --> 00:28:23.726 as we can. So one of one of the one of the tasks of life is to to make 00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:29.476 more life. They make more life, which is more sensitive to to what 00:28:29.509 --> 00:28:36.397 surrounds it. So in a way, if you don't seize, you are, um you are not 00:28:36.430 --> 00:28:39.555 doing what you are supposed to be doing at the same time as you were 00:28:39.588 --> 00:28:46.486 saying, Travers very often becomes a a distortion of, uh, just about 00:28:46.519 --> 00:28:54.519 anything good or, uh or just or compassion. So there is a great amount of 00:28:56.689 --> 00:29:03.825 danger in becoming an evangelist. 00:29:03.858 --> 00:29:10.565 You're You're conscious of that dangerous or 00:29:10.598 --> 00:29:15.347 and I suppose, 00:29:15.380 --> 00:29:23.325 Well, how would you identify? Uh, the way in which you are, uh, extending 00:29:23.358 --> 00:29:26.887 your beliefs? 00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:31.756 Ho. How do you How do you feel your your 00:29:31.789 --> 00:29:36.916 well being? Most effective. Well, I'm just beginning now, uh, for in the 00:29:36.949 --> 00:29:43.795 papers that have not been published mhm and writing papers, You you feel 00:29:43.828 --> 00:29:48.127 it. It's going to be primarily through writing. 00:29:48.160 --> 00:29:53.107 Well, I, I can lie there and I can speak. I I'm sure dog, not Not 00:29:53.140 --> 00:29:57.897 everybody thinks the same way. But, uh 00:29:57.930 --> 00:30:04.717 uh, But you I mean, you you have made no attempts to, um uh to build a 00:30:04.750 --> 00:30:10.607 public it right or to to preach or to, uh, to insist that your, uh, 00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:12.887 apprentices 00:30:12.920 --> 00:30:16.897 should follow in your footsteps. 00:30:16.930 --> 00:30:24.930 Not yet. That's coming. I don't know. We'll see. OK, going forward, 00:30:25.279 --> 00:30:30.107 falling in in your footsteps. It might not be the best way of putting 00:30:30.140 --> 00:30:37.035 because I might be a devil. You know, I might be a very I'm very, Um I 00:30:37.068 --> 00:30:44.236 might say, do this, but don't Don't do what I do as most of us do, 00:30:44.269 --> 00:30:50.717 but I might try to present a certain, um, line of thought and then say if 00:30:50.750 --> 00:30:58.256 you feel that there's something to it, see what you can do about it. 00:30:58.289 --> 00:31:03.526 Uh, but certainly, uh, the direction that you've taken, uh, does not lend 00:31:03.559 --> 00:31:08.456 itself to the sort of, uh, religious organisation that most of us are 00:31:08.489 --> 00:31:15.377 familiar with. Stylized ritual. Uh uh uh, encapsulation, 00:31:15.410 --> 00:31:19.315 uh, in fairly rigid forms. 00:31:19.348 --> 00:31:23.877 Well, one reason is because what I'm advocating is the reverse of of the 00:31:23.910 --> 00:31:31.696 religious frame of reference By saying that you are You are not working 00:31:31.729 --> 00:31:37.176 according to a certain, uh, demands put up by your father, your divine 00:31:37.209 --> 00:31:42.996 father, by by saying that we are the maker of the sun God, evidently, you 00:31:43.029 --> 00:31:47.226 are. You are. You are turning over the whole the whole, uh, theological, 00:31:47.259 --> 00:31:52.835 um, the way of thinking. 00:31:52.868 --> 00:31:57.585 So therefore, we shouldn't expect, uh, conventional theological 00:31:57.618 --> 00:32:02.696 expressions. Not necessarily because this doesn't mean that you are 00:32:02.729 --> 00:32:08.006 rejecting all forms of, uh of Orthodox religions or any form of existing 00:32:08.039 --> 00:32:12.236 religions. What you are suggesting is that we have to be careful when we 00:32:12.269 --> 00:32:18.166 are when we feel like when we say I'm a Catholic or I am a Protestant or a 00:32:18.199 --> 00:32:24.406 Buddhist and so on and that by saying this we are also clear in in the 00:32:24.439 --> 00:32:29.867 understanding that ideally we are seeking something and we are seeking 00:32:29.900 --> 00:32:34.906 something that we are the maker of. So we are responsible for this future 00:32:34.939 --> 00:32:41.825 Catholic God. We don't we are. We are not responsible to to the father God 00:32:41.858 --> 00:32:47.117 that that the church tells me exist. They are waiting for me responsible 00:32:47.150 --> 00:32:51.575 for the making of a sun God of which I am the father You ever thought of 00:32:51.608 --> 00:32:57.236 it? So when you use the word sun God, you spell it SON. 00:32:57.269 --> 00:33:01.256 Well, then we can go into the 00:33:01.289 --> 00:33:05.426 well that that is a play on words because you you have also tended to 00:33:05.459 --> 00:33:10.305 focus on the sun as a kind of symbol. That's the That's the father God, 00:33:10.338 --> 00:33:18.016 the son suns. Yes, and as a father of God, it's a very you know, it's a 00:33:18.049 --> 00:33:20.825 it's a firmness. 00:33:20.858 --> 00:33:23.406 So you have to be careful when you when you look at a firmness and saying 00:33:23.439 --> 00:33:26.446 , Well, this is a God 00:33:26.479 --> 00:33:31.387 and this son, Father, this F 00:33:31.420 --> 00:33:36.335 in the process of time has has allowed consciousness to develop, and this 00:33:36.368 --> 00:33:42.496 consciousness is going to Is the maker of the sun 00:33:42.529 --> 00:33:48.387 the tragedy? 00:33:48.420 --> 00:33:56.420 Uh, by identifying the S the sun, you, uh, identify very clearly that 00:33:56.430 --> 00:34:01.357 human life is terminal, that it will have an end to the same extent that 00:34:01.390 --> 00:34:06.305 the sun is going to burn out. 00:34:06.338 --> 00:34:10.845 But there again, it's, um 00:34:10.878 --> 00:34:17.267 you can just, uh I apologise. But, um, 00:34:17.300 --> 00:34:22.017 if the if the trans the transformation that we have been witnessing of, uh 00:34:22.050 --> 00:34:27.606 mass energy into something more subtle can be made universal, let's say 00:34:27.639 --> 00:34:31.686 then it's not necessarily true that with the end of the physical universe 00:34:31.719 --> 00:34:37.726 or the end of a solar system, consciousness ends. 00:34:37.759 --> 00:34:41.555 In fact, this this idea of complex demilitarisation, which was the one 00:34:41.588 --> 00:34:46.876 that really pushed me into this theological problem, would tend to say, If 00:34:46.909 --> 00:34:50.365 you push it to the limit, then the moment comes when everything is 00:34:50.398 --> 00:34:53.026 containing nothing, 00:34:53.059 --> 00:34:57.747 the utter miniaturisation of everything. And at that point, you realise 00:34:57.780 --> 00:35:00.416 you only my good God 00:35:00.449 --> 00:35:05.936 so that that means the the reversal again of the idea of the Big Bang 00:35:05.969 --> 00:35:11.595 where you have a a one big atom, and from this big atom, you get the 00:35:11.628 --> 00:35:17.787 universe. It's the opposite from the universe. You get a big atom, which 00:35:17.820 --> 00:35:21.316 possibly it's it's a divinity, 00:35:21.349 --> 00:35:27.467 all conscious, all powerful, all in all in kind compassion and so on. Uh, 00:35:27.500 --> 00:35:34.086 so on on that end of it, when you use the term so SOM, uh, as the ultimate 00:35:34.119 --> 00:35:41.276 progeny, it is It is that final unity that approaches nothing. 00:35:41.309 --> 00:35:48.557 Well, nothing. Nothing in size. Everything. Uh, yeah. So it's the media 00:35:48.590 --> 00:35:54.666 has become the message you be. You begin with the media with no message. 00:35:54.699 --> 00:35:59.267 And you can say that this media is made of, um, almost an infinite number 00:35:59.300 --> 00:36:04.296 of little gods All the particles, the physical particles totally 00:36:04.329 --> 00:36:11.276 segregated, connected only by few physical mm forces or whatever you wanna 00:36:11.309 --> 00:36:15.526 call them. And then slowly from this, uh, total scattering this polytheism 00:36:15.559 --> 00:36:23.559 , which is a total polyta, you build more and more, uh, centred god or sub 00:36:25.489 --> 00:36:31.967 God, with the tendency of coming out with the mono monotheistic final 00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:37.595 expression, which is the Omega Point. 00:36:37.628 --> 00:36:41.876 So then again, it's a reversal of the process so that we tend to attribute 00:36:41.909 --> 00:36:48.026 to God, uh, at at the beginning was the logos was the word. Well, at the 00:36:48.059 --> 00:36:53.695 end is the world, uh, from my point of view at the beginning, it's, uh, is 00:36:53.728 --> 00:36:59.876 the universe of mass energy with its own statistical loss. 00:36:59.909 --> 00:37:03.967 How do theologians react to having an architect messing in their field? I 00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:09.296 ? I don't know. I didn't understand. I 00:37:09.329 --> 00:37:17.329 How, uh, how do these thoughts relate to, uh, architecture? 00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:31.236 Well, as I was saying, part of this process came out because I had to to 00:37:31.269 --> 00:37:36.385 see what the logical consequence of complexity miniaturisation would bring 00:37:36.418 --> 00:37:38.695 in. 00:37:38.728 --> 00:37:45.316 So in this process of going from total polis to monotheism, use TO on on 00:37:45.349 --> 00:37:49.267 the city in the city 00:37:49.300 --> 00:37:56.316 and yet to stumble in the city because the city is a, um it's a larger 00:37:56.349 --> 00:38:04.186 in a way, a larger reality of the single, um dwelling. 00:38:04.219 --> 00:38:11.956 And it's more central to this gathering and to this desegregation to this 00:38:11.989 --> 00:38:18.477 , uh, integration or things 00:38:18.510 --> 00:38:23.566 in. In that sense, I tend to, you know, to introduce the of the other day 00:38:23.599 --> 00:38:28.396 that the city of God, because you are really dealing with one of the most 00:38:28.429 --> 00:38:34.606 powerful instruments. We have to, uh, divinity 00:38:34.639 --> 00:38:41.236 and the misuse of it. It's a it's a crime. 00:38:41.269 --> 00:38:47.586 You you you see the city as, uh, the ultimate artefact of humanity. 00:38:47.619 --> 00:38:53.885 Not not ultimate, but it definitely a, um, one of the most, um, desirable 00:38:53.918 --> 00:39:01.595 and the most profitable instruments for the making of, uh 00:39:01.628 --> 00:39:04.316 oh, good. 00:39:04.349 --> 00:39:10.986 You mentioned the term, uh, Civitas day. Uh, this, uh, suggests a rather 00:39:11.019 --> 00:39:16.166 strong association with certain mediaeval thought, 00:39:16.199 --> 00:39:24.199 uh, as a boy, Uh, I assume that you studied 00:39:24.679 --> 00:39:28.236 well, I didn't study. I read, but, uh, unfortunately, I seem to be 00:39:28.269 --> 00:39:31.517 forgetting what I read 00:39:31.550 --> 00:39:34.416 after. 00:39:34.449 --> 00:39:41.425 So presumably it's in there somewhere. Oh, can you remember who you read? 00:39:41.458 --> 00:39:47.856 So at some, some Saint Augustine I read, um, 00:39:47.889 --> 00:39:53.206 some of the Greek thinkers, some of the German thinkers, 00:39:53.239 --> 00:39:59.057 some of the most mm mm, contemporary French thinkers. 00:39:59.090 --> 00:40:07.090 But, uh, I I'm not I'm not a scholar by far. I mean, I I wish I would have 00:40:08.938 --> 00:40:16.938 Did, uh did you ever read, um, Thomas Moore's Utopia? I. I only got into 00:40:17.599 --> 00:40:20.586 the the English language 00:40:20.619 --> 00:40:27.436 by default by default. I'm still trying to forget it. I'm not trying too 00:40:27.469 --> 00:40:33.956 hard. 00:40:33.989 --> 00:40:41.989 So, uh, you see, um, your particular involvement in the city, uh, as as 00:40:43.438 --> 00:40:49.956 part of this, uh, if you like divine responsibility of man. 00:40:49.989 --> 00:40:55.436 Yeah, I felt much more. Um, sure, 00:40:55.469 --> 00:41:00.526 in my drive, uh, in what I call the theology, because you need some kind 00:41:00.559 --> 00:41:06.925 of a name when I when I was able to to tie this within a larger frame of 00:41:06.958 --> 00:41:12.978 reference, which I tend to call a theological reference frame of reference. 00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:23.360 Um, 00:41:27.239 --> 00:41:31.635 the term archology 00:41:31.668 --> 00:41:39.586 is probably, uh, of all of the words that you've invented. The one the one 00:41:39.619 --> 00:41:45.206 that may stick. Um, 00:41:45.239 --> 00:41:50.077 can can you explain what it means and how you got there? 00:41:50.110 --> 00:41:57.816 Ok, uh, I'm always been a little, um, put off or put out by the by the 00:41:57.849 --> 00:42:05.276 profession. You mean the architecture, That question? Because I felt that 00:42:05.309 --> 00:42:10.646 there again, you need to have, uh, a final reference, which is as some 00:42:10.679 --> 00:42:15.497 substance in order to be able to act. And the frame of reference of 00:42:15.530 --> 00:42:18.566 architecture is environment 00:42:18.599 --> 00:42:23.856 evidently, and the physical environment, specifically not not only the 00:42:23.889 --> 00:42:28.017 physical, but evidently the physical environment. It's basic to the 00:42:28.050 --> 00:42:32.486 professional architecture. So what? What to do to express, maybe in 00:42:32.519 --> 00:42:38.445 polemic terms or in, uh, in, uh, strong terms, this thing in one word 00:42:38.478 --> 00:42:46.478 where you say architecture is an ecological cancer, 00:42:46.969 --> 00:42:50.376 naturally. And then you have to specify that the ecology doesn't belong 00:42:50.409 --> 00:42:56.655 just to the lizard or to the to the forest. Ecology is the reality 00:42:56.688 --> 00:43:00.945 in a certain corner of the universe, and this reality includes all the 00:43:00.978 --> 00:43:05.365 existing creatures in this corner of the universe. So ecology includes, 00:43:05.398 --> 00:43:13.398 man includes the mind of man, includes the drives of man and so on. 00:43:14.219 --> 00:43:18.445 Oh, so architectural and ecology, 00:43:18.478 --> 00:43:22.316 Uh, you're implying that that this relationship doesn't have to 00:43:22.349 --> 00:43:29.827 necessarily take place on a vast, gigantic scale. It can just a very 00:43:29.860 --> 00:43:34.876 modest, intimate kind of situation. 00:43:34.909 --> 00:43:42.909 He was that they the tenets or the methodology is the rejection of the 00:43:44.389 --> 00:43:47.017 gigantic 00:43:47.050 --> 00:43:51.336 and the gigantic is, um 00:43:51.369 --> 00:43:56.267 uh, is the the pathological 00:43:56.300 --> 00:44:02.247 uh, it It seems as though that the word archology has tended to be 00:44:02.280 --> 00:44:07.577 associated with some of the gigantic proposals that you have made, uh, 00:44:07.610 --> 00:44:13.836 missing this kind of of meaning. 00:44:13.869 --> 00:44:19.166 Well, if, uh if the person that, uh 00:44:19.199 --> 00:44:23.787 believe is in a certain context, let's say Phoenix doesn't realise that 00:44:23.820 --> 00:44:31.820 this contest, you gigantic, then this person has to do some homework. 00:44:31.829 --> 00:44:36.546 It's gigantic because it doesn't relate what to what we call the human 00:44:36.579 --> 00:44:39.557 scale 00:44:39.590 --> 00:44:45.175 relate so little with the human scale that Phoenix practically It's a 00:44:45.208 --> 00:44:52.477 sequence of isolation booths that you are trying to bridge between each 00:44:52.510 --> 00:44:58.227 other as quickly as you can in order to not to be fried on the on the 00:44:58.260 --> 00:45:03.106 pavement or 00:45:03.139 --> 00:45:08.227 but it. But in effect, the term archology could apply to a very modest one 00:45:08.260 --> 00:45:14.135 family house, uh, which was in a sympathetic relationship to its 00:45:14.168 --> 00:45:16.526 surroundings. 00:45:16.559 --> 00:45:21.376 But we, uh, 00:45:21.409 --> 00:45:28.909 we are on this planet with its own limitations, and we multiply ourselves. 00:45:29.139 --> 00:45:31.139 So when when you introduce the NUM the element of number 00:45:34.610 --> 00:45:37.079 in, uhin