Product Description

This edition contains all the text and illustrations found in the giant Arcology, photographically reduced somewhat to allow a lower price and enhanced handleability.

"In the three-dimensional city, man defines a human ecology. In it he is a country dweller and metropolitan man in one. By it the inner and the outer are at 'skin' distance. He has made the city in his own image. Arcology: the city in the image of man."
—Paolo Soleri

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1041301 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-29
• Released on: 2006-09-29
• Binding: Paperback
• 136 pages

Review
"...his philosophical and environmental perceptions offer a sudden, stunning pertinence for today. He does not need the current bandwagon of despair. He has been preaching environment and ecology for a long time. But his ecology deals with both the natural and man-made world, in a very special mutual relationship. By his definition, architecture and ecology are two parts of the same thing, inseparable in their effect on man. He calls it 'arcology.'"
—Ada Louise Huxtable, New York Times

"Essentially, there are three points that set Soleri apart from all other utopian planners groping for the next development in man. His arcologies are new communities, totally unrelated to the old urban centers—not plug-in renewals but revolutionary prototypes for a total break with existing planning patterns or theories.

"Secondly, Soleri postulates the supremacy of esthetics over structure and technology....

"And thirdly, Soleri bases his entire arcology neither on economic, social or industrial considerations but on a philosophical system. It is so all-embracing in its scope that it relates the arcological city units to the entire evolution of organic life, from the proto-biological Urschleim (primordial ooze) to an as yet unresolved Neo-Matter. This extremely ramified Biological Humanism, touching on every aspect of human existence, defies summation...."
—Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Architectural Forum

From the Publisher
Through his work as architect, urban designer, artist, craftsman and philosopher, Paolo Soleri has been exploring the countless possibilities of human aspiration. The envisioned future taking shape in his mind has been expressed in various media. One outstanding endeavor is Arcosanti, an urban laboratory, constructed in the high Arizona desert. It attempts to demonstrate an alternative human habitat much needed in this increasingly perplexing world. This project also exemplifies his steadfast devotion to creating an experiential space to "prototype" an environment in harmony with man. Through his articulated philosophy "Arcology (Architecture+Ecology)", Soleri formulates a path that may aid us on our evolutionary journey toward a state of aesthetic, equity and compassion. The half century work of his broad-ranging and coherent intellect (so scarce in the age of specialization) has influenced many in the field in search of a new paradigm for our built environment. ...Tomiaki Tamura

From the Author
Not really knowing if things get ready for a torrid planet or for a new Ice Age, the poor architects are faced by a habitat singularly off target. In either case the single home will be the wrong package. Tightly woven minimalist packages for entire communities will become mandatory.

Not to imitate the nano-biotechnology of organisms but put to use its teaching: self containment, miniaturization, complexity, automation under the tutelage of volition and religion. Volition is the (automated) inner drive of the living. Religion is the bonding (derived from religare in Latin) indispensable for the volitional sparks. Am I speaking arcology?!?! If so, this 37-year-old publication still resonates with my current thinking.

I am advocating a Lean Hypothesis about reality and a Lean Alternative to our materialistic culture. With the lean urban development I put tangibility to my conjecturing. Years ago I declared that Leanness is frugality fraught with sophistication. The gazelle is lean, i.e. frugality wrapped in grace.

Can anyone imagine a frozen tundra or a scorching Sahara colonized by millions of hermitages, single homes? A nightmarish American Dream incapable of supporting any kind of dignified life, let alone the evolution of a civilization. Is the exurban (ever-expanding suburban) metastasis a bejeweled dream? Of food and shelter, the two indispensable needs of life, shelter is the direct responsibility of planners; architects, urban planners, builders, developers, speculators, politicians, students ... time to wake up!

...Paolo Soleri, Arcosanti, Arizona

Customer Reviews

Imagine a complete city in one structure
If you can imagine a future where cities cover every bit of earth's available space (think LA everywhere), then you can also imagine an alternative. Whole cities inside massive structures of incredible design, leaving most of our precious land open for us to enjoy and treasure. Paolo Soleri envisioned such cities and his drawings will inspire you and spark your imagination of what could be. Imagine cities that float on the sea or stretch across canyons and you will get the idea. Architecture students or just about anyone with an imagination will be amazed by his designs. I hope to live long enough to see one of his massive structures built.

great book to inspire your young architect/planner
I saw this book in a store in the late seventies and bought it for myself. As a teenaged reader, I was very impressed with the art, and inspired by the text (nonsensical though some of it seemed). Clearly utopian and attractive, this book will inspire many a young artist or city planner. The fact that it is so far afield of the mainstream is only a plus: it will challenge and stimulate critical thinkers.

Note: with the high cost of building an arcology, and the need for (rather unamerican) centralized control, why haven't one of the arab states tried building one? UAE is certainly spending arcology-scale sums on the construction of the Burj Dubai complex...

Wonderful illustrations, but the text is mostly nonsensical drivel
This book contains amazing illustrations and is highly imaginative. However, I must give it a one-star review because its pretentious author would have readers believe that he singlehandedly divined a set of new-age principles (incomprehensible to any reader, since they're inadequately explained and loaded with neologistic jargon) that he calls arcology (a word that, as its ending -ogy should suggest to any English language speaker, refers to a "study" or set of principles - NOT to structures themselves, which are properly called "hyperstructures").

I have a master of urban and regional planning degree from an accredited program at a major (big 10) university, and please let me tell you that the text of this book is pure "pseudoscience." It is designed to impress people who don't know science, but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Soleri has some legitimate cultural and designs criticisms (after all, who doesn't?) but he tries to merge these with inscrutable mystical gibberish, and he delights in creating lots of impressive-sounding words as he pretends that these words actually connect with scientific concepts. They do not. If you don't believe me, then just try to find any textbook of psychology, sociology, ecology, biology, etc., etc. that actually fits with his ravings. You will be able to confirm for yourself that Soleri is writing from his own individual mental creation, and that his notions of an organic city are not grounded in any of the research that people have actually done - he's creating from his own mind a set of organic analogies that he imagines will tie into a unified, organic whole. That is all totally in isolation from practical, achievable planning, ecology, etc. and doesn't tie in with any actual research. This book is an exercise in science-fantasy by a wonderful illustrator (who put his architectural background to good use in the wonderful illustrations here). It must not, however, be mistaken for anything else. It is a new age vision, a work of science-fantasy. Apart from a few of the well-known environmental concerns it expresses, the text of the book is basically a work of total fiction, with almost no authentic theoretical grounding whatsoever. For more authentic writings on environmental and early urbanist planning and design, please refer to Ian McHarg's "Design With Nature," and writings/designs of LeCorbusier. Their ideas are actually practical, implementable (Brasilia's design came from LeCorbusier's ideas), and connected with the mainstream. Urban planning is still a pretty young profession and this book is an unfortunate example of pure hubris - although beautifully illustrated and imaginative, its text should be recognized as equivalent to the "circle-squarers" in math, or homeopathic herbal remedies, or any other false-"science" designed to fool and impress those who don't have the training and the guts to call label it publicly as the nonsense that it is. This book is the basis of a utopian cult, and has nothing at all to do with actual science. Soleri's writings should not be treated as those of a prophet. He is a wonderful artist but a highly confused thinker. But that's the sort of thing that a lot of people believe to be a normal part of religion, it seems, and so this book has attracted a religious type of following, in which it is either swallowed (or not) as a matter of faith rather than treated properly as a mere set of ambitious hypothesis to be tested and refined. Instead, many people tend to assume that something that sounds complicated actually makes sense, but then don't want to admit when they themselves can't really get a rational understanding of it (people are afraid to seem ignorant or incorrect) and so the result is that every now and then, someone churns out a bunch of half-baked ideas that people revere instead of question, and then a cult forms. There is definitely a small Soleri cult that has formed around this book. People should recognize that although Soleri was creative, he was also an ultimately irrational thinker. Either that, or, like L. Ron Hubbard, he decided that the way to promote cultural change was to form a new religion. This book clearly goes beyond ecological and design considerations and presents a lengthy statement of a religious perspective, as posited by Soleri in a form he felt could draw from and capitalize on existing cultural concepts (everything from the big bang to the second coming). It's statement of faith is to offer the achievement of utopias of his own design. The problem is, Soleri hasn't a clue about authentic SOCIAL organization and problems (as any authentic text on Urban Planning, Sociology, etc. will be able to point out), and instead he dishes out heaps of mystical, idealized jargon with the idea that it's somehow actually feasible simply because it expresses his own personal ideals. Meaning: he wants it to be true - it's his own personalized utopian vision - and as such it is irrelevant to him that he often employs purely mystical speech to indoctrinate readers into his artificial notions of an organic, holistic, grand unified theory of everything. In the process he redefines and adapts popular phrases from both science and Christianity and creates a boiling stew of visionary gibberish. The time to call this what it is is long overdue. Pretentious hubris. Creative and enjoyable, certainly, but unfortunately a form of narcotic that ensnares the gullible and confuses them about authentic principles of well-grounded authentic research and theory - and planning!