Paolo Soleri (1919-2013) was as much a philosopher as an architect.

“the most famous architect who never built anything” (according to his critics)

In the 3-dimensional city, man defines a human ecology and he becomes a country dweller and a metropolitan man at the same time.   By it, the inner and the outer are at “skin” distance – he has made the city in his own image.   “Arcology: The City in the Image of Man” (MIT 1969)

Arcology recognizes the necessity of the radical reorganization of the sprawling urban landscape into dense, integrated, three-dimensional cities in order to support the complex activities that sustain human culture. The city is the necessary instrument for the evolution of humankind.”

The cities we build should be like pianos, and their inhabitants the musicians.  But we need good musicians, or the pianos are wasted                                      

The landscape has become a gigantic domain of the car and this dictates how we behave.    

“We have become hyper consumers possessed by materialism, buying our happiness,”  

“Materialism is, by definition, the antithesis of green.”     

Consumer confidence is inversely proportional to waste reduction

Excessive consumption, per se, is no more than a hindrance.    But multiply that hindrance by billions, and you’ve got catastrophe.  

‘Developer: it starts with ‘D,’ like ‘devil’ and ‘demon,’   

“If someone had said fifty years ago that I would finance the building of Arcosanti from the proceeds of windbell sales, I would told them they are crazy.” 

“Arcosanti’s residences are tiny as monks cells and almost as frugal”  – reporter for Australia’s “Beyond 2000” (1980’s)