COLLECTION NAME:
Archivision Base to Module 9
Record
Preferred Title:
Cosanti
Image View:
Path that leads between the Cat Cast House apse and the Drafting Studio, looking east
Creator:
Paolo Soleri (American architect, born 1919)
Location:
site: Cosanti (Paradise Valley, Arizona, United States)
Location Note:
6433 E Doubletree Ranch Rd
GPS:
+33.566791-111.941925
Date:
begun 1956 (creation)
Cultural Context:
American
Style Period:
Twentieth century
Work Type 1:
housing project
Work Type 2:
ideal city
Work Type 3:
inhabited place
Classification:
architecture
Material:
cast reinforced concrete
Technique:
construction (assembling)
Subjects:
architecture; contemporary (1960 to present); landscape; Architecture and energy conservation; green architecture; planned communities; terraced landscaping; experimental earth-formed concrete; passive solar
Description:
Soleri returned to Arizona in 1955. He and his wife opened a new crafts workshop, first producing ceramic wind bells and later cast bronze and aluminium bells. The family industry that evolved from these provided the major source of income for Soleri?s building projects. He established his Cosanti Foundation, dedicated to creating plans for alternative urban environments, on a dry, flat five-acre site in Paradise Valley. The first building there, the ?Earth House? (1956), was constructed of concrete reinforced with wire mesh, poured on a form made directly from the sandy soil of the site. The first modest Cosanti structures sought a full integration of land, climate, craft and livability. Soleri called this design approach ?biotechnic? for its concern for solving human biological and spiritual needs through an integrated imaginative technology. "Cosanti" fuses two Italian words, "cosa" (which means "things") and "anti" ("against"). (Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/)
Collection:
Archivision Addition Module Five
Identifier:
1A1-SP-C-L3
Rights:
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.
Cosanti
