Soleri: Architecture as Human Ecology 
asked by imtheboss on November 10, 2006 8:25 AM
As much visionary as architect, Paolo Soleri, born in Turin in 1919, worked with Frank Lloyd Wright in the late 1940s and went on to develop his own organically expressive architecture. Since 1935, he has been involved almost exclusively with the design of alternative urban planning models. By 1970 he had designed thirty "Arcologies," his term for a series of high-density, fantastically unreal megastructures for up to six million inhabitants. This comprehensive monograph, the first on Soleri to be published in the United States, follows his career through a presentation of drawings, sketches, and built work. Since settling in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1956, Soleri has made a lifelong commitment to research and experimentation in urban planning, establising the Cosanti Foundation.
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Paolo Soleri, an octogenarian architect from Turin, has spent the past half-century in the Arizona desert struggling (with unpaid help from willing disciples) to realize Arcosanti, a prototype settlement for 7000 people. Its ponderous concrete vaults and boxy volumes already resemble an unsightly ruin: the product of an ageing hippy with little to say to the present or future. For the rest, there is a mass of visionary drawings, impassioned polemics, and the ubiquitous sand-cast bells, which are sold alongside beads and hash pipes in "craft" stores. For Soleri's loyal fans, here is a massive, reverent, plentifully illustrated account by a starry-eyed admirer from Palermo. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)
reviewed by mags on November 17, 2006 3:21 AM
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Paolo Soleri has been an important urban theorist for 30 years and a creative architect for over 55 years. This monograph is a long-overdue and well deserved examination of his career and ideas. The text is thorough and interesting. The book's only failing is in it's photography. The author apparently took many of the Arcosanti photos...and it shows. Some of the images are not sharp; others are poorly lit; some are ill-chosen views. Approx. a dozen reveal the long shadow of the photographer! I could not find photos of the Glendale amphitheater or of the Scottsdale bridge models. The photo of the chapel at the Arizona Cancer Center was quite small. However, I am thankful that a book of this scope and ambition (though flawed) has documented the fascinating career of Paolo Soleri.
reviewed by axelrose on November 26, 2006 5:27 PM