[LINK] "The city that science fiction forgot"

[rfmcdonald]

I have written about arcologies before, mostly in connection to the Yorkdale Mall, a self-contained construction of the 1960s that never quite took off. Arcologies are defined by Wikipedia as products of "a set of architectural design principles aimed toward the design of enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density. These largely hypothetical structures would contain a variety of residential and commercial facilities and minimize individual human environmental impact. They are often portrayed as self-contained or economically self-sufficient." The prototype arcology was Arcosanti, a prototype built in the Arizona desert also in the 1960s in response to the urban and environmental crises of the period. The model never took off for any number of reasons, but the prototype still exists as sbisson documented in a photoblog. The photos are great, his analysis just as much so.

Deep in the Arizona desert, down a two mile dirt track, sits the nascent arcology. Arcosanti is a slow burn, with parts over 40 years old, and others raised just last month. It's a new cathedral, built by volunteers and a small group of residents. Concrete slabs are cast in silt, and raised up to create human-scale structures that blend into the earth and take advantage of the passive warming and cooling effects of sun and wind. Designed to be a town for thousands, it's a village for a hundred, reliant on the volunteers who pay for month-long courses on Soleri's ideas, on the passing tourist trade and the sale of Soleri's bronze and ceramic bells.

[. . .]

The society that's grown up around Arcosanti reminds me of the guilds that built the great cathedrals of Europe. It's not difficult to see the arcology as a secular cathedral, a project that will take generations to complete and that will never be what Soleri dreamt all those years ago. Perhaps that's not a bad thing.

One thing did seem clear: it's in the wrong place. If arcologies are to replace the urban sprawl of a city with a new, intentional community on a human scale, then the desert (as beautiful as it is) is the wrong place for Arcosanti. It should be in a city, in a Detroit, a LA, a New York, a London, a Moscow, a Hong Kong. It shouldn't be isolated, a new Taliesin for Soleri's architectural disciples. It should be a visible sign of a different way to live, of a new city. Make it La Sagrada Familia, big, vibrant and reaching in the heart of Barcelona, not a hermitage in the desert.

Go, read and see.