Word: arcosanti
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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When seen from the exit leading off Interstate 17, 73 miles north of Phoenix, it shimmers in the summer heat, a mirage-like vision that somewhat resembles parts of battlestar Galactica crash-landed in the desert. Arcosanti. The name alone suggests hallucination. It is derived from arcology (architecture concerned with ecology) and cosanti (Italian for "thing before"). An engineer showing off the unfinished structure's apses and arches proudly describes it as "the city of the future taking shape in the state of the past...
...idea behind Arcosanti is beguilingly simple: since cities shape society, they should be constructed in ways that accelerate human development. "We can't go back to nature," says Paolo Soleri, 61, the Italian-born architect who is Arcosanti's prime mover and chief guru, by way of exhorting the band of vagrants, zealots and children of the '60s who have followed him into the desert. The city, Soleri argues, is a necessary tool for nudging the human spirit toward the "omega point," a state of highly evolved consciousness. Humanity's enemy is urban sprawl. The Soleri...