Radical Architectures: The Relevance of “Arcology: The City in the Image of Man” to the Climate Crisis

In the public eye, the success of architects is inextricably connected to the scale and number of buildings they have erected. Monumental architectures are the most obvious kind of legacy. However, in the fight against climate change and ecological devastation, theoretical plans for the future have often contributed more than immediately attainable ones. Paolo Soleri’s 1969 book, “Arcology: The City in the Image of Man”  is filled with incredibly complex plans for buildings that were never built. Despite this, Soleri significantly contributed to the world of climate change design by expanding the public consciousness, demonstrating the importance of architectural storytelling when advocating for a greener future. Climate change media is often judged by its relevance to the modern day. Yet, the transformative societal shifts that must happen in order to prevent climate disaster necessitate a lack of “practicality” when imagining climate solutions.

Solari himself saw only one path toward salvation from ecological disaster— miniaturization. Taking cues from larger cosmological patterns, he imagined a society where humanity is condensed into dense nodes, leaving the rest of the Earth to wilderness. This unusual perspective likely stems in part from his exceptional education- he trained at Taliesin under famed modern architect Frank Lloyd Wright before leaving to pursue his own, alternative practice. ( Paolo Soleri, brittanica.com) His book, “Arcology: The City in the Image of Man '' is part portfolio and part manifesto. It is also notable for its size. It is two feet by one foot when closed, and the drawings inside are incredibly intricate. This gives the book a sense of monumentality, exacerbated by the massive scale of the architectural plans inside. The book is divided into sections- one filled with abstract and complex diagrams that illustrate Soleri’s ideas regarding urban planning, philosophy, and architecture. The second section consists of detailed architectural plans of thirty “arcologies”, Soleri’s portmanteau used to describe his designs. Arcologies are a combination of ecology and architecture at a massive scale- so large, in fact, that people are too small to appear, and the only scale is given by a building in the corner meant to be the height of three empire state buildings.

Figure 1: Paolo Soleri, page from “Arcology, the City in the Image of Man”

The scale of Soleri’s city-architectures led to one of the first critiques of his work- that it is out of proportion with the human experience and resultantly, too abstract. In a review by Galen Cranz of the Illinois Institute of Technology, he says, 

“Much of the technology for the thirty arcologies in this book does not yet exist, so it cannot be criticized. Yet certain problems are clear from the outset. For instance, once an arcology is built it cannot be expanded for population increases... The fact of change itself cannot be a criticism of arcology. The appropriate question is whether the changes are worth the costs, material and psychic. Through his consistent failure to explore the ramifications of the physical forms for social and individual life, Soleri makes it difficult for the citizen to evaluate the worthiness of his proposals.” 

This critique is important, because it highlights all the ways Soleri’s work does not conform to current ideas of what ecologically minded media should be. Modern belief dictates that climate change media should highlight the impact of environmental disaster at a human level. It should offer solutions that can exist in our current world. “Arcology: The City in the Image of Man” does neither. However, one could argue, it isn’t necessarily trying to. Though Soleri’s work utilizes the form of architectural plans, describing it as a proposal is a bit of a misnomer. Stripped of the details that tie architecture to reality, Soleri’s work can be described more accurately as storytelling.

The communication of such stories about the future can be a powerful and transformative tool. The book “Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities” by Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Jill Didur, and Anthony Carrigan states that narrative is  “vital to imagining and articulating our future.”  The book’s introduction explains how our interpretation of statistics is dramatically shaped by our preexisting societal frameworks. However, as the essay goes on to state, “...this  does  not  mean  that  we  are  limited  by  pre-existing  cultural frames, rather it brings up the imperative to invent them in order to create new circuits of thought.” Storytelling can bridge the gap between the world we live in and the world we want to live in. When exponential pollution or temperature graphs display how humanity is hurtling toward disaster, it often prompts the obvious reaction-- to wish that the graphs could stabilize, that the red lines could simply flatten out. Yet, it is hard to imagine a culture where that could be reality. Soleri’s designs visualize this world- a place where every resource is generated through centralized, renewable energy, and then distributed neatly across a dense and intricate society. By utilizing the familiar format of architectural plans in a completely new way, Soleri seamlessly connects our current system to a completely new one.  

Stories are often associated with the written word. Yet, for many societies, architecture predates writing as a method of passing down ideas and stories. In his 1901 essay, “The Art and Craft of the Machine”, Frank Lloyd Wright describes what he calls the “death of the edifice”. He explains how, up until the popularization of the printing press, architecture was the “universal writing of humanity” , an early example of  “...human thought… perpetuating itself”. Gothic cathedral carvings and ancient Greek friezes were upheld as narrative mediums used to convey stories beyond one’s generation. Architecture was also seen as a way to tell stories about aspirational worlds beyond our own, that followed perfect geometries or were flooded with jeweled light. Frank Lloyd Wright viewed the proliferation of writing as resulting in the loss of the art of architectural narrative. Today, the dominance of print writing is so absolute that these other, older modes of storytelling are increasingly forgotten. Yet, as Soleri’s arcologies demonstrate, architecture has immense potential to communicate meaning. Situated alongside text, yet vastly dominating the page, the arcologies (figure 1) create a new mythology for humanity, one which prioritizes reformulating ourselves into larger, unified entities through architecture. Though often overlooked in the modern day, architecture as a narrative tool has long been part of our history, and can become part of our future.

Real world evidence highlights the impact of architectural storytelling. “Arcology: the City in the Image of Man” has had an incredible and persisting influence on both popular culture and the design world. Most immediately, the ideas of arcology gave direction to people who were searching for new ideas about how to live. In the political and cultural instability of the late sixties and early seventies, many saw the social turmoil as evidence that the suburban fantasy long sold to Americans had failed. Soleri’s ideas suited this radical culture. Archived newsletters and zines from the time display how Arcology put a visual design language to the discontent that many were feeling. Arcosanti, the name of the commune established in 1970 by Soleri, stems from the words anti-cosa, or anti-thing (triennale.org). This reflects the rejection of architectural form as a commodity or something to own. Arcosanti was constructed not by developers but by over 8000 students and volunteers, following Soleri’s detailed plans. (arcosanti.com) The thousands of visitors and volunteers attracted to this remote commune deep in the Arizona desert speaks to the power of radical architectural vision. 

Figure 2: Arcosanti, © RS Ingenieure, http://www.rs-ingenieure.de/

Yet, the impact of these ideas would only spread further-- into popular culture, and consequently, into the larger cultural design language. Years after its construction, director George Lucas visited Arcosanti, searching for unusual and futuristic architectural forms as design inspiration for his latest project, Star Wars (triennale.org). The sand-colored domes rising dramatically from the stark desert directly inspired the first and arguably most important setting in the entire series--  Tatooine. Through the massive popularity of the Star Wars franchise, new ideas about what architecture could be were conveyed to millions. This is important, because what the public thinks about the built environment inevitably influences it. The vast majority of those who commission buildings do not have extensive knowledge of the design world. They are developers, company owners, or prospective homeowners. The role of the architect is to take their aesthetic and functional desires and synthesize an ideal space for all those who will use it. Most buildings constructed today are based on precedents, or pre-existing buildings, provided to the architect from the client. This can lead to unfortunate consequences. The proliferation of identical, pastel houses across suburbia is one of the modern phenomena that Soleri seeks to correct. Consequently, imaginative and futuristic architectural form is essential to challenging this status quo. In order to reject the oppressive and ecologically disastrous monotony of the built environment, the public must be able to see that an alternative exists. When a new design language seeps into the popular culture, it often has a ripple effect that impacts the way people see the built environment. Star Wars positioned two architectural styles in direct conflict-- the stark mechanical modernism of the evil Empire against the biophilic, Arcology-inspired structures of the heroic rebels. The subtext was clear- this is the radical design language of those who care deeply about the natural world. 

Figure 1: Bjarke Ingels Group, OCEANIX floating city

Figure 2: Paolo Soleri, page from “Arcology, the City in the Image of Man”

Soleri’s ideas, diffused into the cultural consciousness, persist to this day.  The direct impact of Arcology can be seen in the way that modern imaginings of the future continue to incorporate arcological ideas. The architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group, for example, is currently partnering with the United Nations to build a floating city off the coast of Busan, South Korea. Like Soleri’s concept for a similar floating city, this proposed design will integrate zero net energy and circular resource use systems. It was designed in response to the sea level rise that is an existential threat to Busan, and it models a new, post-climate catastrophe way of life. As seen in the images above, though the two concepts were created almost fifty years apart, they share many functional and aesthetic characteristics. They both feature a centralized, flower-like design, formed by many small, circular units connected by narrow bridges. Given the prevalence of Soleri’s ideas within the architectural niche, it is likely that his designs were part of the precedents for the Bjarke Ingels Group project. While Soleri’s design imagined a massive floating “ark” in an unspecified ocean, the Busan floating city applies the ideas and aesthetics of Soleri’s design to a real life context. In this case, the lack of concrete details in Soleri’s work is beneficial. By excluding elements like a specified setting or material, Soleri’s arcologies become timeless, endlessly applicable to countless different contexts. This highlights the direct link between a lack of realism in futuristic design and the continued relevance of these ideas. 

The images of both the Busan floating city and Soleri’s arcologies also suggest something notable about architectural storytelling. Namely, that architectural depictions of ecological futures are not simply able to tell narratives about climate change, but are in fact uniquely suited to do so. Climate change is, primarily, a result of the failures of the built environment. Atmospheric CO2 stems largely from the burning of fossil fuels that transport people and objects from city to city, the clearing of land, and from the production of cement and metal that form massive towers in the sky (usgs.gov). Since the ecological issues of today are so directly caused by modern urbanism, it follows that these issues can only be adequately addressed through a complete overhaul of the way we think about the built environment. Soleri’s ideas are not realistic to the world we live in. But the world we live in cannot continue to exist. The perpetuation of American urbanism is a logical and statistical impossibility. It is also  important to remember that our current forms of American urbanism are themselves the result of many complete overhauls of our built environment. The current model of decentralized highway systems and superstore-lined four-lane roads is a fairly modern invention. Many climate activists have employed mediums like film and writing to condemn the destructive nature of urbanism as it exists today. Yet, without visible alternatives and radical precedents, the current built environment will continue to fail us and our planet. A new, fundamentally different form of urbanism can only arise through the use of architectural narratives freed from the constraints of the current systems. By challenging the idea that the human habitat is distinct from the ecological world, radical architectures have the power to transform the  built environment and establish a new status quo.

Ultimately, every modern system that humanity has established must be reconsidered in the face of the global devastation facing us. Climate activists have long debated the political, economic, and philosophical failings that have led to the climate crisis. Every medium and format from statistics to film to art installations has been employed to grapple with the failure of our current systems. Over the years, a judgment of what makes “good climate change media” has emerged. “Arcology: the City in the Image of Man” does not align with most of these standards. Rather than zooming in on details like the day-to-day life of individuals within his designs or focusing on realistic, immediately applicable solutions, Soleri focuses primarily on the massive scale and radical urbanism of his work.  However, Soleri’s unusual and “impractical” approach to these futuristic architectural forms allowed his design ideology to take on a life of its own, diffusing into the public consciousness through popular media and inspiring revolutionary architectural concepts to this day. “Arcology: the City in the Image of Man” understands the ecological crises facing our world as stemming from disorder in the built environment. Therefore, Soleri refuses to work within the constraints of this system, which he perceives as fundamentally broken. Through this rebellion, Soleri’s work makes the case for “impractical” climate solutions; it will never be practical to overthrow the oppressive systems of urbanism that perpetuate ecological devastation. But it is necessary.