Soleri: Architecture As Human Ecology

Rating:
Summary: A very good, but flawed, monograph
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Soleri: Architecture as Human Ecology
Review: 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.)