In
l996 Architect Paolo Soleri was commissioned by seventy-five Japanese
corporations to design a Hyper Building--a self-contained, three-dimensional
city for 100,000 people --one kilometer square by one kilometer high.
The Hyper Building is a new kind of city, an arcology (the fusion of
ecology and architecture) designed for a 1,000-year durability. In a
Japanese/English publication published by The Hyper Building Research
Committee lists Soleri’s concepts as:
| |
A
long-term, durable architecture and city |
| |
A
city that coexists harmoniously with nature |
| |
A
city system with efficient resources and energy use |
| |
An
autonomous and self-developing city space that can adapt itself
to social and economic changes |
When
Japan went into an economic recession, the research on hyperbuilding
design came to a halt. Dr. Paolo Soleri has been working for over 30
years trying to create a prototype arcology, which he calls Arcosanti
in the Arizona desert.
Posted
on one of the walls of the Arcosanti Café is a description of the Hyper
Building, an example of Paolo Soleri’s vision, which reads,
The
design finds analogy in eros. Throughout history, this constant drive
in our species has been described and inscribed through art and the
design of human habitat. Here the tower is the lingam, the male, while
two concentrie exedrae, semi-circular edifices, are the female womb.
Their interpenetration generates the fecundity of the city, its power
to germinate a richness of invention and complexity. Tower and exedrae
are inseparable.
When
I read the preceding passage describing the meaning of the design in
the poetic terms of fecundity, I wonder: is female/male interpenetration
essential to manifesting the energy/inspiration needed to make the blueprints
for Arcosanti 2000, the first prototype arcology, come alive? How important
to the project is eros? Should residents at Arcosanti, a community of
under 60 people ask: how is eros liberated or stifled at Arcosanti?
Could eros be the primary factor in achieving critical mass in a prototype
arcology? If so, what needs to happen in order for eros to be emancipated
at Arcosanti?
The
theme of the July 1999 issue of Shambhala Sun is sex. John Stevens
has a relevant article, “Cosmic Embrace: Seeing Sex as Sacred: The Cosmic
Yoni and the Universal Lingam”:
The
Two-as-One co-creators are also worshipped as separate entities, the
cosmic yoni (female matrix) and the universal lingum (male creator.)
These two principles are the signature of life, the marks of being,
and symbols of the yoni (vulva) and the lingam (phallus) are found
in every culture, sometimes
up front and right on the surface, sometimes sublimated and deeply hidden
away.
The
nurturing yoni symbol predominates in the earliest examples of cave
painting and ancient carving uncovered so far. Later on in human history,
representations of the lingam become more pronounced. The reasons for
this change are not clear, but it may be that, in certain areas, men
became more aggressive and thus assertive with their “weapon.” Many
later paintings depict warriors engaged in battle in a state of sexual
excitement.
Over
the centuries the mother principled has ruled some societies, while
the father principle has dominated others. We are now rediscovering
that, for human life to flourish, the cosmic yoni and the universal
lingam must be given equal veneration and then conjoined harmoniously.
The
way I interpret the symbolism of the Hyper Building is that the two-as-one
world principle is
the core philosophy in an arcology.
As Saraha taught,
From
the union of male and female a pure knowledge arises, a knowledge that
explains the nature of all things.
Could
it be that this “pure knowledge” is vital to finding the resources,
the power, the wisdom, and the unity to build Arcosanti? Or is it enough
to have only architectural structures that act as symbolic representations
of the interpenetration of the yoni and the lingum? In order to cause
a paradigm shift in architectural design saving us from urban sprawl,
must the symbolism be actually experienced in the flesh of true lovers
of philosophic Eros, and I would add, philosophic Aphrodite (the Goddess
of Love)?
When
I write about “philosophic Aphrodite and Eros,” I am writing about a
creative drive that has made art, culture, philosophy and religion occur
throughout the ages. One could call it the truthmaking or mythmaking
process. From my research in the nature of genius, I have found that
this is the only kind eroticism capable of truly fulfilling humanity’s
most creative artists. So, the offspring of this loving pair are not
necessarily biological offspring, so much as they are birthing new ideas
and concepts into our human existence. Could the Hyper Building be a
project able to come to life only through the joining together of philosophic
Eros and Aphrodite? In Arcosanti: an urban laboratory? Soleri writes:
Looking
at the human population problem, we see what is critical to our survival.
It’s not more children whom we cannot take care of now, but a new architectural
structure that exists in balance with nature. So, if this thesis is
indeed correct, then the union of Eros and Aphrodite, the two-as-one
world principle, is crucial to our next phase of human evolution. Perhaps
it is the magnetism of true lovers which creates the fusion of architecture
and ecology—arcology--necessary to move us towards the original meaning
of the word religion: “re-ligio,” to bind together again. Could it be
that through this metaphysical sexual union, a network of arcologies
is born?
The
Hyper Building forms a center point city that allows information integration
from all over the world. The Hyper Building is a highly concentrated
place where people can easily interact and communicate. As more people
interact and communicate, the next generation high-tech industry, life-style
and culture will be created. The Hyper Building is an information-based
city for the world. It creates an information space that is truly a
sophisticated 21st Century information society.
Arcology,
then, would be the magnificent offspring of lovers of Aphrodite and
Eros! Maybe by re-discovering
this kind of sacred union, as well as finding the method for the community
to nourish such relationships, we will discover the key to global transformation
- away from our current forms of development that have resulted in the
domination hierarchies between the sexes, which have built a culture
occupied with nuclear weapons and automobiles.
In
Neutopian Arcology Theory, this cosmic union between the sexes creates
a holocracy, (governance by whole system within whole systems, ie. female/male
union) a social architecture based on healthy “interpenetration,” or
sacred union between the sexes. In this context, the two-as-one world
principle creates the ruling metaphor necessary to make arcology a social
reality. Thus, there is no way around the Love Project, united through
a “hieros gamos” (sacred marriage), and to discover the invisible architecture
needed to complete the construction of Arcosanti and to begin the citymaking
of the Hyper Building. As the wisdom of the ages has stated over and
over again: with love all things revolve and fall into place. But without
love, nothing meaningful can grow, especially not an arcology designed
with the union of the lingum and the yoni at the root of its design
principle!
Arcology,
then, is a romantic rebellion against the forms of development that
suffocate erotic love and the health of the ecology needed to maintain
life. Hence, arcology and the poetics of love are intertwined. Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin writes in The Phenomenon of Man, “Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each
other so that the world may come to being. This is no metaphor; and
it is much more than poetry.”
Hyper Building and the Silicon Revolution
In
Dr. Soleri’s paper entitled, “Hyper-Building Interim Synopsis” of June
1996, he writes:
Presented with the possibility that the carbon cycle (which has demonstrated its excellence in a history of about 3.5 eons long), might be challenged by the silicon cycle, and being engaged in the Hyper-Building project means that I have to trust that for at least a millennia, the carbon cycle and mankind in it will still be the main actor in the evolutionary development. That is, even though we are opening our minds to the possible obsolescence of the flesh we consciously subscribe to its central task in the evolution of life for at least another 1000 years.
What
concerns Soleri is that our advanced technologies are constructing a
silicon consciousness, which makes carbon beings such as our selves
inferior. Perhaps, he speculates, “Homo Carbonis might be engaged in
self-extinction via the Homo Siliconis he is inventing.” He sees the
possibility of the raising of two distinct lineages, “one estranged
from the other.” He writes, “One frightening prospect is the emergence
of the master race, the silicon race operating in the arid darkness
of its genius.”
What
Soleri refers to in the above sentences is that since the silicon race’s
presence is housed in a computer, then not only is sunlight unnecessary,
but neither is sex or death. The
master race never dies. Asexual reproduction ruled Planet Earth for
billions of years before eukaryotic life evolved through sexual reproduction.
And now we are on the verge of a return to sexless reproduction through
genetic engineering and the possibility of human cloning. With the death
of sexual reproduction and the rise of the silicon master race, not
only is sunlight and erotic love unnecessary, but so is a healthy biosphere,
including trees, living oceans, lakes, rivers or streams. So what if
ozone depletion and green house gases destroy the biosphere, when the
silicon master race does not require oxygen to breathe? Silicon presence,
just like prokaryotic life forms, could survive a nuclear holocaust,
biological warfare or any kind of ecocide.
But there is grave doubt as to whether or not human beings or
plants could endure.
There
seems to be an urgent need to reunite Eros and Aphrodite. Isn’t this
our ultimate purpose: to save the beautiful, meaningful, rich, and cosmic
phenomena of true love?
Perhaps
our problem is that we have failed to discover the quality of love relationships
that is necessary for the “lovolution” (the evolution of revolution,
a worldwide non-violent cultural transformation; an epic movement towards
the building of a network of arcologies) to become a global phenomenon.
Just think of what kind of heroic love would be required to break through
the mass consciousness in order to influence change and save erotic
love from being terminated by the Silicon materialist mentality. The
primary goal of the lovolution is to create the Hyper Building as an
example of a balance between silicon and carbon life forms. Soleri writes,
The
large dark Hyper-Building’s lower volume, capable of constant metamorphosis
in high-tech in simulations and in games parks with more emphasis in
pedagogy and learning while playing, could raise those occasions to
levels where Hyper-Building would want to be: an inticing and powerful
teaching “machine.”
The Music and the Instrument are One
One
of Paolo’s preferred metaphors to describe the Arcosanti project is
building a piano, an instrument. Once the project is completed, he feels
it will be up to other social forces to play the music. But, he says,
until the tool has enough strings to play the music, community builders
will not have what they need to make a successful society. In Soleri’s
scheme, current Arcosanti workers/residents become “sacrifical lambs,”
giving up the present for the sake of the future, even though he points
out the “future” does not exist.
Cox
writes in the Introduction of Soleri’s book, The Omega Seed,
Soleri recognizes the dangers of sacrificing the present for the sake of the future, but his theology nevertheless calls for this. This sacrificing the present is a healthy and needed antidote to preoccuptation within instant ratification. Further, it is clear that in fact there is much immediacy of enjoyment among those who accept the harsh disciplines of living and working at Arcosanti. A holy spirit pervades the community.
What
I am suggesting in this essay is that erotic love is the “music” to
make the prototype arcology not only become a social reality for the
critical mass, but a revolutionary force in the evolution of architecture.
The purpose of a prototype is to change the social pattern, to transform
from the status quo to create a new pattern of sustainable development.
Soleri
sees his role as the master architect of Arcosanti, not as a social
architect, even though arcology is an attempt to plan a society that
not only exists in harmony with the natural environment, but is also
an attempt to end various other social problems. Other stated goals
of arcology are to end social isolation through the “urban effect” and
to end “hyperconsumerism” through developing what he calls the “Lean
Society.” Even though rhetorically on one level, Soleri claims that
he is not playing the music, when in fact he is through legislation
by design. Contradiction manifests confusion, so we are left with people
who have become cynical about what they see and what they hear at Arcosanti.
Francis
Frick is one critic of Paolo’s dualistic way of thinking, which divides
the social space from the physical space, as he expressed in a correspondence
with Tomiaki Tamura, the Onsite Arcosanti Coordinator, May 31, 1999:
“What
else, except a personal need to control, justifies an experiment designed
along Newtonian machine-lines—which assumes people are isolated from
the total system? … I use the words ‘COMPLETE’ and ‘TOTAL’ here to emphasize
what seems to be a polarity: all or nothing. Arcology wants to be COMPLETELY
predesigned in physical terms—and (by default?) COMPLETELY UNDESIGNED
IN SOCIAL TERMS (at least when Arcology is first occupied). The experiment
itself seems constructed on very coarse Newtonian mechanical lines:
Black and White.”
What
Frick refers to here is Soleri’s insistence that Arcosanti is a construction
site, not an intentional community. Since it is only 2% completed, Soleri
says the instrument is like a bow with only a few strings. No maestro
would be able to play beautiful, complex music with such an instrument.
But such music is being played at Arcosanti, even though Arcosanti’s
founder cannot hear it!
What
Soleri fails to understand is that the embodiment of Aphrodite and Eros
is the reason for building the instrument! As Shakespeare wrote in Coriolanus, “What is the city but people?” Without sacred union, the metaphors needed
to complete the prototype arcology will not be found! Because of Soleri’s
oversight, his designs lack essential elements to making Arcosanti a
place where love relationships and their offspring have the means to
grow.
For
example, childcare has not been a high priority at Arcosanti. No early
childhood education program has been developed during the 30 years in
which the urban laboratory has been in effect. Such an educational program
would have made it possible for children to be raised, not only surrounded
by the physical structure of arcology, but with access to the psychological
and philosophical foundation in which arcology is essential to the future
of our species. For any social experiment in community living not to
factor in the child element is a grave oversight, unless of course,
with his neomonastic vision, Soleri is unconsciously trying to do away
with children born from two people who love one another in Cosmic Reality.
Such
an experiment in arcological childrearing could have led to a greater
understanding of how to raise children capable of living in the collectivist
environment of arcology. Soleri says he frowns on children because they
get in the way of the construction activities and take up housing. But,
without raising a generation of arcological thinkers, his project does
not have what it needs most: people who have mutated from the status
quo and possess the psychological foundation to inhabit an arcology
of love!
He
needs a subsequent generation to become the leaders and teachers of
arcology if he wants the project to carry on. If the Arcosanti project
dies due to of lack of people, then the idea loses the power of a living
philosophy. It becomes a footnote in urban history. Perhaps Arcosanti
will sell out and become an amusement park for the Disney Corporation
or a country club for green, capitalist golfers. But only a living philosophy
within Arcosanti has the potential to become a prototype needed to revolutionize-evolutionize-lovolutionize
the world!
One
reason for this oversight could be that Soleri has yet to discover the
alchemical union needed to balance out his social theory. I’ve heard
from alumni who knew Colly Soleri, Paolo’s deceased wife, that she complimented
his personality (he admits to being anti-social) with concern for community
issues. The Colly Soleri concert series is dedicated to her, but did
they have a co-creative partnership within the Arcosanti/Arcology movement?
Was she allowed any input into the arcological philosophies he was developing
or was she his helpmate slaved to traditional nuclear family roles?
Perhaps we will never know since there is no Colly Soleri archive in
the Paolo Soleri archive. The only memories left behind are his,
not hers! Feminists have pointed out over and over again
that history fails to acknowledge or record women’s roles in social
movements.
In
Neutopian Arcological Theory, male leaders alone do not possess the
symbolic power to birth into existence the love consciousness necessary
to further the cause of building a network of arcologies. To do this
requires male leaders working in intellectual collaboration with their
female counterparts. Between the couple, cosmic love energy is produced,
able to arrive at wise decisions for the good of all people.
At
Arcosanti, unable to find this co-creative coupling to break out of
patriarchal rule, the ruler has become a kind of despot. And so we witness
another in a millennium of despots who have not found the wisdom through
connecting with their female counterparts to move us beyond the terror,
genocide, war, and environmental destruction of “civilization” to build
a network of sustainable arcologies. Without this prototypical sexual
model of equity, the two-as-one world philosophy would be unable to
penetrate into the hearts and minds of women and men. And so, alas,
the Hyper Building would be lost!
Today,
in Dr. Soleri’s office, Beethoven’s “9th Symphony” was playing
over the speakers. The choir sang the Ode to Joy. How I wanted to feel
the joy of true love at Arcosanti! Then Soleri walked into the room.
I told him I had written that, at the end of his life, he was like Beethoven
because he could not hear the music, even though the music was being
played. Soleri exclaimed, “how sad; I want to hear the music!”
So
do I! What poetic element is missing from his social vision? Will he
continue to be a philosopher-king like Plato, unable to see the value
of the poetic element in building Arcosanti, the erotic joy of the two-in-one
principle in action? How can we break free of dualistic thinking, which
stands in the way of the reality of one world interconnected through
this “interpenetration,” so that we can begin constructing the Hyper
Building, connected by mag-lev trains in different bioregions around
the planet? Can the union of true lovers show us the way out of the
false divisions that have divided our world into 160 nation-states of
sprawling post-modernist megalopolises?
The Omega Seed and the Alpha Ovum
In
Soleri’s eschatology, the Omega Seed is the perfect state of awareness
at the end of the Big Crunch, unlike the Alpha God in Christian theology,
which is at the beginning. In his hypothesis, we are part of an evolution
in which a disembodied perfect being is waiting for us billions of years
in the future. At the conclusion, we find that the Supreme Being is
a super computer allowing us to recall all collective memory. Humanity’s
great sufferings are released and we will finally reach a state of equity.
At this point in space, “pure knowledge” is found. There is total self-revelation.
We become one with the simulation. We become the soul of the machine:
an asexual cyborg that needs no water, oxygen or sunlight – or love
in order to survive. Do not forget, it can protect itself with lethal,
hi-tech forces within its microchips!
After
greatly admiring Soleri’s
work for more than a decade,
and after being in direct
contact with his ideas
for more than a year,
I feel that part of what
is holding back the Arcosanti
project is his belief
in the Omega Seed at the
end of space (he does
not believe in time).
Such a theology of the
future shifts one’s focus
and responsibility to
a space/time of total
recall where “pure knowledge”
is found, rather than
looking for the solution
in the here and now of
the present world. In
other words, the Omega
Seed becomes Dr. Soleri’s
opium, his utopian state
of consciousness, billions
of years from now when
the Big Crunch occurs.
In Soleri’s hypothesis,
the Love Project is an
evolutionary process that
happens at the Omega Point
of Resurrection. It cannot
happen before this point.
My
objection to such thinking is not only that it turns humans into machines
and enslaves them to the Omega Seed in the future, but it ignores the
potential guidance the two-as-one world philosophy has to offer the
world in the here and now. It denies the psychological element in life
that could create a prototypical community actually capable of fostering
the construction of Hyper Buildings.
In order to balance out Soleri’s eschatology, let me add a little bit of poetic justice to his hypothesis. What if the Big Crunch is really a Big Birth? Then what we need is not only an Omega Seed, but also an Alpha Ovum to create this state of “pure knowledge.” How we reach this state is not through waiting billions of years for evolution to take us there, but letting the embodiment of the love energy inside us to carry our dialogues to places where love for each other is so profound and meaningful that a new social and personal reality is born.
In Arcosanti: an Urban Laboratory? Soleri defines utopia as: “a naïve scenario for a perfect community. Our minds can accept only if it accepts a (simple-minded) model of reality in which goodness, love and beauty are there for the taking. Utopian is the purification of emptiness.”