Soleri, Paolo

Soleri, Paolo, 1919–, Italian-American architect. He studied architecture in Turin (Ph.D., 1946). Soleri's works have been influenced by both Frank Lloyd Wright, with whom he worked, and Antonio Gaudí. He developed an architecture that expresses a functional and organic way of life. Soleri has produced extraordinary designs for vast, high-density, self-sufficient, and multilevel communities built in the desert. These, which he terms arcologies, are proposed alternatives and responses to the increased problems of overpopulation and urban sprawl and decay. Soleri and his students and assistants have been building an arcology, Arcosanti, north of Phoenix, Ariz. since 1970. It was conceived as a prototype to show how cities might be updated, minimizing energy and transportation use while promoting human interaction. Soleri is the author of Arcology: The City in the Image of Man (1969).

Bibliography

See his Sketchbooks (1971); J. Strohmeier, ed., The Urban Ideal: Conversations with Paolo Soleri (2000); D. Wall, Visionary Cities: The Arcology of Paolo Soleri (1970); A. I. Lima, Paolo Soleri: Architecture, or Human Ecology (2000, tr. 2001).

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Soleri, Paolo

(born June 21, 1919, Turin, Italy) Italian-born U.S. architect. After receiving a doctorate from Turin Polytechnic, he worked under Frank Lloyd Wright in Arizona (1947–49). In 1959 he began to draw up plans for a series of compact urban centres that would extend vertically into space rather than horizontally along the ground. These megastructures were designed to conserve energy and resources (partly through reliance on solar energy and elimination of automobile use within the city), preserve natural surroundings, and condense human activities within integrated total environments. Soleri coined the term arcology (from “architecture” and “ecology”) to describe his utopian constructions, which he delineated in drawings of great beauty and imagination. In 1970 he began constructing a prototype town called Arcosanti, for a population of 5,000, between Phoenix and Flagstaff, Ariz. The work, by students and volunteers, is still in progress.