Cosanti by Paolo Soleri from Phoenix Stories
Posted on 16-03-2023 01:01 AM
Cosanti by Paolo Soleri from Phoenix Stories
PHX Stories: Paolo Soleri's Cosanti
Cosanti
An artsy college boyfriend insisted I see Cosanti, in what was then an undeveloped area of Paradise Valley, when Bebe Rebozo was a household name. As a child and adult raised in a quiet Midwest suburb, I took some time to process the five acres of mesquite trees and creosote plants. As I gazed at a phantasmagorical mashup reminiscent of Tolkien's world,
You can get a glimpse of Flintstones cave dwellings, a Star Wars space colony, a hippie commune and gigantic ceramic pots bedecked with primitive imagery and dangling windbells. It seemed that there were giant apes where ceramics were fired and bronze bells cast, undulating roof structures that housed workspaces, barrel-vaulted cubes that housed studios, and an incredible concrete canopy that sheltered a freeform swimming pool that was affixed to telephone poles. My eyes wandered around for quite some time as I tried to comprehend what I was looking at.
He lived and worked here. Cosanti was the home of architect, artist and urban theorist Paolo Soleri, whose work pushed the boundaries of architecture, art and urban planning by using Cosanti as a living laboratory, from which he plotted and launched his well-known Arcosanti experimental city on a desert mesa north of Phoenix. Despite Soleris' death at age 94 in 2013, Cosanti remains a living architecture laboratory, an art studio, and a tourist attraction. It is true that the bronze and ceramic bells for which he became famous still dangle attractively.
In 1970, Roger Tomalty, who began working with Soleri in Turin, Italy, began the road from Turin to Phoenix desert and Cosanti. Currently, he serves as co-president of the nonprofit Cosanti Foundation and holds several positions at Cosanti and Arcosanti. In 1946, Paolo Soleri apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West after completing his architectural studies in Italy. In Wright's studio, apprentices were given hands-on experience, which attracted him to the Sonoran Desert. Although Wright disagreed with his architectural principles, he did not disagree with his methods.
Soleri advocated dense urbanization and preserving outlying lands for wilderness experiences while Wright favored single-family homes and suburban development. Wright and Soleri did not agree, and the young Italian soon found himself without immediate prospects, living on the side of Camelback Mountain alongside a fellow Taliesin apprentice who was also destitute.
The Soleri family purchased Paradise Valley for $12000 in 1953, and the old ranch house on the property was their home for many years. His name was Cosanti, which was a combination of two Italian words that mean "against things.". As a way to reject materialism artistically, he did this.
In his signature microshorts and flip-flops, Soleri made his living by casting ceramic wind bells, pots, platters, light fixtures, and more into the silty ground on his property, selling them to shops on Fifth Avenue and galleries in downtown Scottsdale where tourists clamored for them. He also experimented with bronze bells, adding a foundry near his ceramics kiln. In comparison with midcentury designs favored at the time, his designs are futuristic, sculptural, and flowing. By night, Soleri was unable to completely abandon his architectural studies in Phoenix. With his sketches, he conjured up images of futuristic buildings, bridges, and cities.
Soleri built his first structure on the property in 1956, dubbed Earth House, using a similar process to make his ceramics. By creating a rounded pile of earth, carving design elements into it, covering it with concrete, and excavating it, he was able to create a living space on top of it. Buildings for the drafting studio and ceramics studio also used earth-casting techniques in 1958.
According to Tomalty, as soon as Paolo started Arcosanti, he pretty much stopped building at Cosanti. That was his focus. In reality, he never lived up there. In Cosanti, where he could work in peace, he would spend a night or two a week. It was here where he was able to express his creativity.
His last architectural project, the Soleri Bridge and Plaza commissioned by Scottsdale Public Art for the Arizona Canal in downtown Scottsdale, took place in 2010, as Soleri worked at Cosanti until his death. Soleri wrote, lectured, organized exhibitions, and occasionally took on architectural projects.
In the years since Soleris' passing, Cosanti has not become a mothballed museum, according to Tomalty. Renovations and improvements are in progress. Regularly scheduled guided tours are also available by appointment. Those wanting hands-on experience with Soleris philosophy can still enroll in workshops at both Cosanti and Arcosanti. A tour of the Cosantis bronze foundry and ceramics studio is also available, and a gallery sells the iconic bells, which range in size from 22 inches to two stories tall. The gallery has added a line of silver jewelry, silk scarves, and ceramic vessels based on Soleri's original designs to its collection of bells and books. Soleris imagery is incorporated into the jewelry, Tomalty says, and his sketches are used for the scarves.
As for me, I live less than a mile from Cosanti, and I still enjoy visiting occasionally, especially when I have out-of-town guests. In these days, I am less interested in the bells and structures, and get my enjoyment from watching my visitors' expressions as they attempt to grasp the genius of Soleri and the Cosanti architecture.
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