Arcosanti Arcology

Paradise Valley, Arizona

I was first introduced to Arcosanti by my Jerome neighbors, Abby and Rodderick Wilde, and mutual friend, Mike Warner. The three of them worked, taught and lived there off and on over many decades. Mike is still there, although he spends his summers in Port Townsend, Washington. Rodderick was also the founder and now ex-CEO of the National Electric Hotrod Association. He built and raced an old 80s Mazda RX-7, which may seem peculiar but when I watched his car on the race track against a new Dodge Viper, I had a change of heart. There was no competition between an internal combustion engine and the electric car, the RX-7 was off and gone just as the Viper was getting off the starting line.

I lived right next door to the brilliant and beautiful Wildes, and visited constantly with them and Mike listening to stories but I never once went to Arcosanti. Before leaving Chico, the thought crossed my mind to go and check it out but that was about it. The other day, the catalyst for my involvement with Earthship, Beau – whom I have known for 20 years, sent me a text suggesting a visit to Arcosanti if I had the time. Later that day he followed up with a phone call urging me to go. I went the next day.

Arcosanti is the outcome of Paolo Soleri’s exploration in theoretical architecture. Soleri saw suburbs as being symptomatic of urban decay, including social alienation and greater environmental degradation, all a consequence of post World War II. With cities sprawling out instead of building up humans become even more dependent upon cars with the increased distance between residential, commercial and industrial areas. Soleri won a fellowship to study with Frank Lloyd Wright in Arizona in the late 1940s, where he was exposed to working cooperatively and collectively. This is where he shifted from a desire to design and build a structure to designing and building a city.

Arcosanti Visitor's Center

The classic Arcosanti bells became the means with which allowed him financially to begin exploring theoretical architecture and urban planning at Cosanti, located in Scottsdale, which was the birthplace of arcology. An arcology is a blend of architecture and ecology that addresses social and environmental sustainability, “with community at the core;” therefore it is also a philosophy. It encompasses the complexity and miniaturization of urban life and maximizes it while minimizing the impacts on the environment, and minimizes the waste of resources. An arcology provides an urban life, an urban experience where the primary method of mobility is escalators, elevators and moving walkways. The original ideal of Arcosanti is to have a concentration of 5,000 people, various shops, libraries, and places of commerce located on 15 acres within their 4,060 acre preserve.

Ceramic studio. Second apse. Arches poured into sand and then erected. Water runs off the roof and into cisterns for watering inedible landscape.

Currently, Arcosanti is home to roughly 100 residents, employees and interns with constant flux. My guide said there’s between 70-80 full time residents. People teaching and or working all make minimum wage and pay the same rent of $175, which includes utilities. I did a tour with two couples in their eighties. One gentleman shared with me his enjoyment of the compound, but disappointment in it not being “handicap friendly”.  They came to investigate Arcosanti as being a potential place to retire. Soleri’s utopian schematics are beautiful, very sci-fi and futuristic, complex and intricate. The primary mode of mobility from a theoretical and schematic standpoint – if you recall – is eleators, escalators and moving walkways, which in reality are non-existent. Perhaps in the future?

Top of apse. This was the second apse constructed. Top of ceramic studio.

The tour ended in the cafeteria, two floors below the gallery within the visitor’s center building. I felt compelled to purchase a couple post cards and a very simple bronze Arcosanti bell. I’ve wanted a sound-maker of some sort outside my window for some time, it seemed the perfect opportunity. I mention this because in paying for these items, the cards were rung up on one register, and the bell on the other. After chatting with the folks in the gallery, I realized they run a non-profit and a for-profit business, which is interesting because our guide mentioned that everything at Arcosanti is privately funded.

Residential and rental suite. This is where bands like to stay. Notice all the stairs.

About a year ago, a few of us from the G.R.U.B. Cooperative’s Land Visioning Committee, took a field trip to the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) in Sebastopol, California. We toured the facility and then had a private and consolidated meeting with one of the OAEC founders to learn about organizational structure and how they went about buying land collectively while having businesses and non-profits. We at G.R.U.B. have been feeling our way through things, and with the conversation becoming very real about buying land together, we needed to tap into some mentor resources to protect ourselves financially, legally, and individually without reinventing the wheel.

Residental dwellings behind amphitheater.

What we learned there was our own organizational structure, as well as how the OAEC bought land collectively. The OAEC is a 501(c)3 – a non-profit -  which rents facilities from the Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) they created, called the Sewing Circle. The LLC purchased the land, everyone is legally and financially protected, and the board of directors is the inner decision-making circle of ultimate decisions that need to be made. These are the owners. The 501(c)3 generates money and jobs for residents, and it rents the LLC’s facilities. The LLC can then right off any losses when it comes to tax time. This is the most logical and sustainable way to run and finance a non-profit.

First apse. Commons and Meeting area. Apartments above. Track equinoxes and solstices here.

This ties back into Arocosanti. The guide refused to give me any specific details other than they have the non-profit foundation and the for-profit business. Something else I found strange, is when I inquired about how decisions are made and who gets to participate (he was talking about their daily meetings), his response was that both Arcosanti and Cosanti are run like businesses. They have managers, committees, and a board of directors. I was curious about participation, agency and the structure of power (that’s how my brain works) and was a little taken aback when he said, “Enough politics.” Maybe he was defensive. Maybe I recoiled with his response. I live in intentional community and these are fundamental systems of human and social capital so I think it was a fair question. I find it somewhat revealing coming from a man who has lived there for 8 years.

Beneath first constructed apse. Six concrete panels were poured into the sand before they were erected into their current placement. Welding studio straight ahead. My favorite spot!

I’m so glad I finally made it to Arcosanti and for the encouragement from Beau to go. I enjoyed the breeze ways, large round windows, European feel of the apses, massive amounts of natural light, how open the outdoor studios are and its placement in the canyon, as well as the post-atomic, post-modern architectural designs. I saw my first diamond back rattlesnake as I walked toward the visitor’s center, and the biggest raven I’ve ever seen near the ceramic studio. Obvious signs I need to ponder, incorporate and practice. Paolo Soleri’s schematics are stunning. I’m lamenting a bit that I did not purchase one of his books simply for the graphics. But now as I process this with you all, I see within myself that I am appreciative and respectful for and of Soleri’s life work. Too, I see that I did not choose to study with Paolo Soleri at Arcosanti.

Bronze Studio. My second favorite place!

I have been and continue to study Biotecture, not Arcology. Since last summer I have been studying the Earthship website. I created a user name so I could read and learn about what Earthship is doing around the world, what people involved are doing and saying, and to become a part of the conversation. Furthermore, my friends Sammey Zangrilli and Lisa Kieran hooked me up with the Earthship books to study. These will become references and guides during my academic studies in Taos and thereafter. I also keep returning to Beau Meek, who has become a mentor for me in this process. Introducing me to Biotecutre, showing me how it has influenced his building techniques and creative outlets at his home, and to share with me places around the country he has visited to prepare and educate him in creating the home he wants to create. His suggestion that I take a field trip to Arcosanti to check out the concept, philosophy, history and lifestyle of Arcology, has been poignant in contrasting it to Biotecture.

Bronze bell casting studio.

I am still holding back, I can’t say that I’m fully on board with Mike Reynolds, Earthships and Biotecture because I haven’t experienced it yet. I have a lot of questions. The poignant visit to Arcosanti has really solidified my confidence in my choice of building methods, concepts, lifestyle and philosophy in my journey in Taos. It is more in line with my personal philosophy and lifestyle. I’m already living it minus building the structure and then living in it, although that is all about to change. In admiring Soleri’s work, it’s not something I’m on board with and that’s okay.

Looking into Bronze prep studio.

I’ve been calling my experience at G.R.U.B graduate school, gaining communication and social skills and tools for community agrarian living. My time at Ralph’s Greenhouse in the Skagit Valley was a graduate school for large scale organic vegetable production, managing people and plants, agrarian activism on a grassroots and legislative level working on an inter-institutional level, and being directly exposed to and involved with immigration flows and the reality thereof. Burning Man and the Chico Urban Artists Collective have been another grad school, this one of human evolution within the artistic, social, emotional, intellectual and spiritual realm. Now, I head to the heart of the desert, the heart of sacred places, the heart of the sustainability movement – from Chico to Taos – to learn basic needs skills. I will learn how to build structures and provide water and food for people, and lead people to construct these structures potentially in a time of crisis, and in a time when people are ready to build a living home.

Bronze cutting and detailing studio.

I have no idea how this journey to Taos will impact my life and change it. I am diving into the Unknown of the Void, the Great Mystery. I think the snake and raven that met me at Arcosanti are messengers. Raven bringing magic and messages from the Void, and snake telling me I must transmute something, let something slough off away from me . . . allow the skin I have outgrown to peel away to reveal the new skin I am to wear. Figuratively or literally these concepts are my guides on my way to Taos. 

Cafeteria. Second floor of the Visitor's Center.

From the islands of the great Puget Sound, down the Cascades to the confluence of the Sierra Nevadas, is the sacred watershed of Mount Shasta where Chico is nestled, and onto the sacred heart of the Four Corners. The spiritual vortices of Sedona and Taos. I just learned we are in the area of Chiron, once the wounded healer, now the Master Healer. What lays before me? 

Thank you for sharing my journey with me.