in the in the equation. Then you have to be very careful not to become a
utopian in this attempt to be ecologically fitting and the single house is
becoming more and more utopian.
Could you explain what you mean by utopia? You're using the dictionary
definition of it. Well, the, uh I think that one of the solution is to be
a known place. Yes, that's what I tend to use more of the most of the time.
Well, it seemed that when we build a single house with its own little
hospital ground, unconsciously, we we say that the Earth is maybe 20 times
as big as it is. Well, this is not true. The Earth has its own size, and
the demands that we are putting on the Earth are becoming greater and
greater. So to say that I like the single house. So I'm going to define an
environment which satisfies me. It's not sufficient. I have to say no
combat. Everybody else wants what I want. Does this make sense? Then
immediately, I find out that this doesn't make sense. We cannot have the
five or 6 million so billions of people, the three or four billions of
families, dwellings, single dwellings. We need many hearts for that.
But that means that the the the the most cogent reason why the single
house might not be the answer. The reason is that the single house cannot
is not conducive to that kind of of, uh, environment with that kind of
pressure and that kind of tensions and that kind of of, uh, of intensity
that will foster, uh, the metaphysical,
the making of God
following that that line of thought. There's the implication that, uh,
proliferate proliferation of, uh, one family houses is a he, uh
it's the work of the devil. I was gonna say,
Well, the devil is not is not something
a monster.
The devil is, uh it's a very quiet process.
You speak with some authority,
you think we maybe need some devils.
We need to understand that there's a demonic element in life. This demonic
element is, um, I think is there by necessity because we are dealing with
, uh, with an inner mystery and an outer mystery. The inner mystery is
what is inside of us, and we don't know what it is exactly. If
physiologically psychologically
and so on. And the outer mystery is what, uh, what surrounds this inner
mystery? So we cannot escape,
uh, the indeterminate,
then unexplainable.
And, uh, the necessity of jumping,
no leaping into into what, as yet is not proven or as yet is not uh uh,
guaranteed.
I mean, there's more to it. The this double mystery goes for evidently,
for what I call AAA substantial element of anguish.
And this is inescapable. We can. We can fool ourselves into this idea of
the pursuit of happiness and into this idea that we can ensure ourselves
physically enough with abundance of hardware and and holdings. We might
get away from this language. We are not going to get away. We're going to
get deeper and deeper in it because the resolution of this anguish it's
not in physical terms. But it's in, um,
in sacramental terms, what you want to call it.
That's why religion is so important. But I think we should take a religion
not by the detail, but by not not in in reverse, but in in What I see is
the in in the right sequence
at the beginning is mass energy. At the end is God
Is there any way one can?
I guess I'm speaking as an architect. Uh ho. How do you relate concepts
such as anguish with, uh, architectural manifestation?
11 little corner of my theory is that, uh, anguish can be conquered by an
act of creation.
In fact, the only way you can conquer anguish if not for forever but for a
for a moment is by creating by transforming this language into into an act
of creation. And for me, the the aesthetic is the true act of creation.
You're you're associating anguish and entropy.
Well, in a sense that, uh, that, uh, the reason for the existence of an is
that entropy is seems to be dragging everything in the in the opposite
direction of, uh, of sacredness, of the of consciousness.
This this, then, uh, is a way of understanding a term that you've used as
the agenesis.
Is that a word of your invention?
What is the genesis of this Deric?
Uh uh, you've You've ascribed more meaning to it than that, though.
You've identified it as a holy act. Yeah, I did that because I in a way, I
, um I resent
this, uh, popularisation
by which anybody in any kind of mood in any kind of, uh, of situation
creates something. Well,
you don't. You don't really believe in Sunday. Painters? Yes, I believe in
Sunday. Painters I. I believe that might be one of the recommended, uh,
commendable activities. But let's face it, uh, this this is something that
, uh, reveals and gives vent in a healthy way, maybe to idiosyncrasies,
which are very interesting to me. The person that paints, but very
relevant to you the person that the beholder
and, uh, the the genesis of the static needs two elements the personal and
the universal. And if I come up only with the personal, that's my my bag.
But, uh, I, I shouldn't import tune or or, uh, brag or scream about my my
bag. My bag is my bag.
And that's why most of what we call art is it's, um
it's a, uh, a moral play
or a psychological
exercise.
VA therapeutic exercise, which are all very, very important. Very
necessary. But, uh, we are still not touching on, uh, on a creation
creative act.
Uh, still, uh, there are very few people who are architects and even fewer
architects have the opportunity to exercise their art, tended to try to
look at things from a more universal. This is not peculiar to the
architect, though it's peculiar to life.
So what? Where does the ordinary person fit in this whole scheme? Well,
there there are no ordinary persons. In one sense, we are all
extraordinary because ordinary tends tends to be fundamentally non life.
But in our extra extraordinary characters are contained within certain
limits, which are the limits of the person. So I think mediocrity is not
inborn in any one. Mediocrity is the choice that any one person can make
when I it acquis acre acquis
to, uh, two limits, which are inferior to the limits that this person can
define for itself. Um,
take music. We, most of us enjoy music might be good, bad, so, so
indifferent. But very few of us are composers.
So to say that because we cannot be composed, we cannot enjoy music
doesn't make sense.
There is the composer, which originates a specific set of sounds with the
the performer, which is able to give to those sounds a certain substance
and sometimes even add a little or subtract a little. And then there is
the listener, which, uh, vicariously
enjoys the creative act. And I think this is true for any any other field
of like, vend des. Very few people are composers. A number of people are
are are performers. Most of us are the beholders,
um, vicarious creators and so on.
Well, it's easy to understand how singing in the shower can be pretty
healthy for, uh, almost everybody and everything. But to be creative about
one's environment, uh, seems to be, uh, uh fraught with, uh, all kinds of
, uh, global dangers. And so, from that point of view, uh, comparing let's
say music with architecture seems to be a bit dangerous.
How does quote the extraordinary person, uh, involve himself creatively in
in his environment?
You know, he argues that, really, uh, the self destruction of Phoenix is
is simply at the hands of of these what I would call ordinary and what
you'd call extraordinary people.
Well, first of all, the analogies are always have to be taken as an
analogy. So you're right in saying that, uh, you cannot pick up the the
musical field and then put it into the the environmental field. But I, I
still think that it's quite appropriate to try to illustrate what
generally happens by taking music as as an example.
And I think it should be clear also, that the more
the more you have something to say or you think you have something to say
, the more you become responsible. So the more you live dangerously and
the more you you you put danger in in what you make. But this is, uh, this
is inherent To what, um, life is the the least dangerous thing is to be,
uh, uh, an atom of hydrogen or something like that. I mean, because you
know that you'll be there forever, forever and ever. Well, you'll be be
part of me, part of the the the carpet part of that in different times,
and you can be sure of your internal existence. And the more you move into
complexity, the more you live dangerously you are you're dealing with not
the FES, but highly unstable and highly special kind of condition. So you
move further and further into almost into the hypothetical.
But that's really the the the the stuff life can escape that,
uh, well certainly in terms of complexity, uh, being involved in the
design of the environment, Uh, is, uh, uh a much more demanding activity,
Let's say, than than music yes or no? A divine piece of music is as
difficult to to to be composed as any divine building or as any divine
city. I think at a certain point, uh, the measurement is only, uh, how
much power emanate radiate from this object, which might be a notes on a
piece of paper or a or a city
Still, I, I keep thinking, uh, comparing, uh, the musician with the
architect that, uh, the musicians wears are, uh certainly, uh, more
innocent, uh, in their impact on this earth, uh, than some of the things
that builders are doing. Mhm.
Well, I understand of the earthquake can do more than, uh, then I the most
beautiful piano piece.
But, uh, the earthquake stands for, uh, philanthropy.
Piano stands for that.
How can uh um, Well, how can everyone become a responsible architect?
What might be a responsible man
and then finding out if, if it's, uh, inclination is to be involved with
environmental problems, because you you can be the mostly Constable man,
and decide that architecture is not what I what I should be responsible
for.
But one can avoid music. One can avoid the environment that he's living in.
Uh, so to that extent, it is even more a universal responsibility.
Yeah, it involves, uh, in a way, survival. And, um well, being survival in
the most base terms.
What do you see? The role of the architect, then? Uh, if this is an
understanding of the importance of environment,
presumably architect should be in some sort of leadership role.
But what should they be doing?
Well, we we we tend we say that democracy is to serve is to serve the
people. So the arch should do what the people ask for I If that's
democracy, I I'm out absolutely out.
First of all, I don't think that any one of us knows exactly what what we
want. Second, I think that most of us tend to want things which we really
would not want if we if we tried, if we made a little greater effort to
understand ourselves. So to say that there is a market and I have to
satisfy the market, I think it's it's an responsible act.
So as you were saying, the act has to be a leader like any. Any person has
to be a leader.
Well, particularly if he possesses expertise in his field. Uh, he has some
larger responsibilities that are well outside of himself. Yeah, there has
to be a sense of responsibility, for one thing, and then, uh, try to go on
from there and the sense of responsibility. My my godfather is making this
person decided that's not the field he should be in because she's been
still it. Well, it it it seems as though we we have some very large
problems in relating what architects can do to the larger social
responsibility.
Well, yeah, we have poems
about since I know the thing and and perhaps you know it also, from the
architect's point of view, Uh, I wonder if if there's any way to think
about it from the other point of view from the non architect's point of
view, maybe Maybe there, um, that's a way to be. That's another way to get
into the problem and try to understand what's possible.
Well, yeah, if if you study yourselves in a in a corner and say that there
is a There is the populace there, there, mankind and I It's me here, and
I'm going to be to dictate to this Massed,
uh, what's good for the mass is evidently, uh, we are off.
So you try to be to be, uh, human and, uh, understand that you belong to
the system and to the group and to humanity, and then try to understand
what those needs the needs of this humanity at the present might be and
then try to do your best to to co with those needs.
And most of the time, uh, it seems to me the accurate doesn't do that.
The arch events ideas
about single problems and then when it when it gets down to to a certain
contest, tends to forget those
breast problems.
Uh, that came up yesterday, I think, in the ala casan in the discussion.
And, um,
I said something about to this girl that was asking me, Keep in mind,
there's a building in the back of you and the bell says energy segregation
,
uh, pollution,
my conservation
complexity.
Yeah, And those rs You should keep bringing, because if you If you forget
one of them, then evidently you're You're forgetting something very
substantial.
And only only when when those they are ringing tells you that you are
conscious of them. And you are trying to work with them together. You
possibly you might come up with, uh, with at least a partial answer.
OK, that's that's a tough one. Maybe we should take a break here, or are
you just warmed up?
How are they supposed to end? What time is it? Oh, we haven't gotten into
your personal life yet.
Uh, could we quiet down, please?
Um, in this conversation with, uh, Paolo Soleri, Uh, I'd like to try to
review, um, some of the events in your life if you're ready for history.
Uh, and, uh, maybe we could begin by looking at your monogram.
And I wonder if you could explain what this symbol is supposed to mean.
First to be remembering. What does it mean? Well, it's on your letterhead
that's going to disappear in the next edition.
Um,
I think I had, um,
that represented the foundation work and those who were representing, uh,
some kind of a collaboration or help coming from different institutions
that, uh, what those were? I don't remember. I remember that this school
was one. So that, in effect, this was a a stylized diagram of all certain
co cooperating effort. They would have some kind of a centre in the
foundation and try to grow into something. And and this was something that
you designed in the mid sixties when you started to focus on the the Kani
Foundation. Uh, you you say you're going to discontinue using it? Yeah. P
time has been meaningless to me. Have you? Have you designed a new
monogram? We have one for the Alco Zant, which is which is a little
similar to the KANTI symbol, But yeah, we might use that.
Can can you explain why you're in Arizona?
I mean, is it is it an accident is an act. Is it an act of
fate for a faith?
FA ITH? Yeah, it's a combination of accidents and interests and so on. The
main thing was that Frank O Wright had its winter quarters here, which
means that I I happen to come here and get acquainted with this
environment because I came to to stay in the South Nation that is
foundation. But still, you must find Arizona very sympathetic to your
needs, or you wouldn't be here.
I tend to like the warm, warmish, warmer climates
I like very much the the landscape of the West.
You mean the openness, the tender and the strength and the the frugality
of the of the landscape.
Uh, I'm a little bit surprised that you're not more, uh, intrigued with
oceans. Maybe it's the fact that you weren't born on an ocean. No, I'm in
the ocean, but we are waiting for, uh, for California to sink in just to
fall off. So we are building boats, the backyard.
But you you have not. Uh well, you did live, uh, in Italy and, uh, VA tree
, Uh, for three or four years on the sea.
Well, my greatest greatest experience in of the sea was not when we move
we When I when I start bicycling throughout Italy and, uh, I was 18 or so
, and suddenly there was the sea when I had seen the sea Only when I was
four or five and we couldn't afford it because we were too poor to get to
the sea. So that was the great moment for me to to get acquainted with the
sea. Uh, around 18, when I got there by bicycling from, uh, from the
inland and to it. Where did you see it first, then at Genoa, Or it wasn't
, uh, it wasn't Genoa, but it was not south in Genoa.
Uh, you mentioned, uh, seeing Italy, Uh, by bicycle at the age of 18. How
was that? Just a summer, or did you spend a longer time? Was summer summer
tips
And you kept? Yeah, I can. Was picked. I was picked up by, um, by a naval
outfit,
and I had sketches, so they decided I was a spy.
This was the beginning of the war
to the eighties. I was You know that? 29 30 39. So you were 20 years old.
Uh, Did they lock you up? Yep. In one of the one of the oldest fortresses
, Uh, prison fortresses. And, uh, where was that? South China. Not far
from, uh, from, uh,
zero AJ. Oh, yes.
But they let you out five or six days. Enjoy my my FA. Five or six days.
It was a nice was an experience because you were. You were in with the
very old, uh, people. You know, where you were. People that loved you
picked up three apples because they were hungry or it was quite an
experience. So So, Well, you weren't in with political prisoners you were
in with, uh, uh, petty criminals. Uh, how did how did they clear you? Oh,
they finally got some information from my family and so on. Ah, but I know
I got my sketches back.
Well, also, during the war, you spent some time in France at Grenoble?
No, I spent that time before the war. And I know that was before the war.
I was 13 or 15. Did you go to school in France? Yeah. Seven or eight
months.
No longer than a year.
Uh, you you knew France from your, uh, Italian school background or you
just picked it up. Called the language. Yes, I learned when I was in
school.
Uh, you once mentioned uh, a little story about, uh how you evaded the
draught. I never evaded that. I was I. I refused to become a lieutenant,
but you were in uniform. Oh, yes. And how do you avoid being promoted. I
had I had What? No,
I had what you call, uh, in Italian a Punta, which means, uh, at the
beginning of an. So in order to become a, uh, a lieutenant, you have to
operate. You couldn't be a new lieutenant with an army.
So, uh, I never I never enjoyed the idea of of commanding people
and definitely not commanding people in a on a battlefield, so I decided I
would I would remain, Uh, What do you call it? A private private.
So it was How did you accomplish that? I. I didn't I didn't get my earlier
off. Uh
uh. I've never quite understood how you could continue your architectural
education during the war. Uh, the school the the Polytechnic kept open. Oh
, yeah,
I in the last two years, I. I couldn't do exams because I was a known
person because I didn't register with the with the fascist republic,
But, uh, I was very lucky. I never had Well, I was picked up once, but
luckily it was picked up by by the by the, uh, Italian army, not by the by
the German army. So after all, after being told that I was a trade or X
they they kicked me out, and but, fundamentally, you were going to school
full time.
No, I don't remember ever going to school full time, but, uh, I I was
going enough to to have to be able to follow the classes, but I couldn't.
I couldn't go through with the exams until the end of the war. So, uh,
then at the end of the war, uh, you could take the final examinations in
the school, complete the exams that I I didn't have before and then finish
,
Do you think? Well, I'm sure that the war had a lot of effect on you. How
can you relate how it might have directed your ideas?
Well, I'm sure everybody was affected. Uh, what surprises me is the
dullness and the the
I want to call it the lack of of, uh, understanding of really what? What's
happening? Based on my part at that time, You mean you really didn't have
a comprehensive idea of what it was all about? I mean, supposedly I had it
in the senate that, you know, you listened to the London clandestine news
and, uh, I I happen to be in touch with few elements that were quite in.
But the more I look back, the more I feel that, uh, there was a a great
amount of responsibility in my part, Due to just, you know, you live day
by day and, uh, you hear about things and you go on in your own.
In other words, you're surprised at at how normal your life was during the
war.
Well, I was saying I I had I had got great luck because I could have been
deported many times. I could have ended up in, uh, anywhere in Russia or
well, in a consultation camp, who knows what And I wasn't,
uh, so living. Do you think that living through the war affected, uh, any
of your ideas of social responsibility? Well, a post when you when you
start to when the thing starts to, uh, uh, leak into you I mean, uh, begin
to penetrate into you, then Then you begin to realise what happened. But
it took years to realise what's happening. You you're still educating
yourself that way. Oh, yeah. In fact, there is. There is almost a
what do you call it? A um,
anything that refers to those those times, it's it's not very important to
me any documentary, any anything that relates to those years. It's very,
very important. You feel that you have to catch up with with what happened.
In a sense, yes, and and you had to gear your behaviour now to your
behaviour, then somehow
that's interesting, because if if I could make an observation, I'm not
sure that you're particularly historically minded,
but that that event you feel some special responsibility about,
well, historically minded you mean in general or you mean, uh your history
? I mean it both ways. Well, what what belongs to your own history? I
think it's, uh it's very much present in everyone.
But some people live in the past, and some people, uh uh, tend to avoid
the past. Yeah, but that war is very pleasant. It's very pleasant. Not
just to me, to everyone, even if you don't know it. It was a a tonne of
gigantic proportions.
Yes, we're still much still very much in it.
So,
I, I think one of the interesting aspects of of your history has been this
, uh, combination of Italian and American experiences
and the manner in which you maybe, uh, have synthesised, uh, two cultures
that aren't totally identical. How do you look on yourself as an American
?
I realise you don't carry a passport. But you, uh
really Do you have You're certainly at home here, and you have very much
identified yourself with American issues. Uh, is that did that come
difficult with some difficulty?
Well, uh, I identify with American issues when I see them as universal
issues as a world issues, I'd I'm pretty much uninterested in American as
such as I am an audience to be in Italy as such,
uh, I wish I could lose my citizenship, any kind of citizenship, because,
I, I don't believe in in citizenship.
At the same time, I'm not making an effort to, you know, to proselytise
the universal, the universal citizenship or anything like that. I haven't
known anything about it, but but in effect, your concept of citizenship is
a very strong one. It simply has has universal boundaries and not national.
Yeah, well, then, then you know your season of the of the world, but I
mean, yeah,
um but when you got married, you, uh rather deliberately returned to Italy.
Uh, presumably you hope to be able to live there. Yeah, well, for one
thing, uh uh, Carly was very eager to find out what what Italy was. So we
But also, you had come to this country, uh, to learn, not necessarily to
settle. So, uh, so you returned to Torino.
Um, and then you left it. You went south. You went south. Was it the
coldness or what were the factors that, uh, uh made you leave the place
that you were brought up?
Well, the idea of going back was to try to begin a process which maybe was
similar to to the front or right situation where you have your family
within a larger group. Yes. Maybe it was a tribal thing. I don't know. So
that was the intention. So we attempted to to develop that at a certain
point, we started. We We are we at the beginning of that, we are to one or
two person that were willing to to try this. This was in Torino. Yeah. So
we decided we would We would do some travelling find out
through the travelling through the experience that we might get what kind
of activities would would be able to support us outside of architecture.
Because personally, I thought that I couldn't make it as an architect, as
a professional, well or alternatively, that you would sacrifice your
integrity if you did. That's what I meant. I. I couldn't fit myself in the
in in the profession as I knew all of them. So I was trying to find a
source of, um, of income that would allow me to to have some free time to
develop
whatever it was at that point that I had vaguely in mind.
So you did identify activities to support yourselves. Those activities
were were in the field of class, possibly because I was interested in in
and using my hands somehow. And they were, and that was successful. I
guess so. I mean, it's very awful. Now, you you Well, you kept yourself
alive. But then why did you leave the North?
Well, it just happened that we one thing was I wanted to to know a little
more about Italy. I knew better all about it, and, uh, and calling you or
nothing. Then there was the fact of the climate the appeal of the sea and
so on.
So but still you You rejected Torino.
Yeah.
You didn't feel it was a
compatible place for key ideas. Especially when you're young, you always
feel that maybe the next place it's really what you are going to find
something. So So you move it. Part of the migratory impulse that you have
when you are young.
And then you spent three years, uh, on the Amalfi Coast and we learned
something about ceramics, and we built a A little factory.
And then what was it that made you move on from there?
We have a We had a flood. And that Carly, this little town for over a year
, it was very damaging.
The power went off. Water was on for quite a while. And K was in this
country
at that time full of for a wedding for my sister. So after struggling for
about eight months there, I decided that I would come back here
and then when you returned to this country, you didn't come first to
Arizona. You spent a little time in New Mexico? Yeah. We spent us only in
Santa Fe. And why didn't you settle there very often. In the morning, my
pots were frozen. That was August. So I said, if August gives me that,
think of what December is going to bring. So it was the idea of working
outdoors
that brought you back to the Phoenix area
and and here you stay.
Um,
that's
well, you You returned to Phoenix where? Which is where you've been
introduced to the desert. Why did you leave? Uh, Taliesin after a
relatively short time. You nasty.
Next question.
That's always a question that's raised. It's the question is which is
rejected. I don't care. Um, when when you came to when you came back to
Phoenix. Uh, then you came to Doubletree Road and you you shared the house
that you're in now. And
gradually, uh, yeah. Bought that property.
Yeah, well, we bought the property with with somehow dating from Chloe's
father. Um, no I. I wondered in your choice of the property at Doubletree
Road whether that was quite accidental or whether there were some
deliberate reasons why you were why you were there. For instance, when one
looks at Taliesin, uh, one can understand, Uh, that Mr Wright was very
deliberate in choosing that particular place, and I'm wondering why or how
you chose the place that you are. Well, when Mr Wright chose, yes, he was
a famous man. He was an established architect, a great artist. And he was
in his sixties or so, Yes, when when we choose Double three, we were a
couple with one child, and, uh, we we we can afford very much. We needed
to be near the city because of of cost problems. So the the conditions
were totally different.
You're suggesting you didn't have much of a free choice? Well, well, our
ambitions were very limited because also because we didn't have very much
of a choice. And at that point, we we were not in, uh, again in the idea
of having a larger group. We were just trying to do good roots and, uh,
begin from there and not knowing where we would go from and alter. You
didn't know that you'd be there for a long time. No, I only knew that we
would not be there forever, but that was it. Uh well, that thought that
you wouldn't be there forever, I suppose was, uh, one of the generating
ideas. Uh, in the sixties, when you began to think about the Kazan
Foundation on another location. Yeah,
well, if you remember that we started looking around many years ago. Yes,
it was in the early sixties.
Um, one of the questions that's sometimes raised is has to do with the
sort of social organisation or the relationship between people in, uh in
such a larger community. Uh, in the, uh, in the first proposals for a new
Kani. Uh, it was very much the idea of an artist.