Introductions

So… I'm here.

I got into Arcosanti today, and was greeted by springtime in Arizona—which is not that different than springtime in Maryland. But I hear that in the space of few days that will change quickly and radically.

I will not waste your time with pictures. I would not have known I was in Arizona—it was more like Seattle. The skies were overcast towards the evening and it was drizzly. Of course, this is quite unusual for Arizona, but for the international visitors who are in the Arcosanti workshop, they were expecting hot desert, and despite the fact that all the locals are saying it will get hot, they're shivering and wondering if they hadn't been duped and were instead in Alaska (it did get quite chilly during the night).

I got to meet a few of the workshop participants, and to say that it is international is an understatement, really. There are seventeen total, but only around eight or so have arrived. Of those eight, there are:

• Me (US/Canadian)
• Marco (Italian, from Sardinia)
• Gen (Japan)
• Elia and Gigure (unconfirmed on the name spelling—a young couple from Kazhakstan)
• A Frenchman whose name escapes me that just happens to be doing a documentary on Arcosanti and specifically the Arcosanti workshop—it just happened to be this one that he's filming. So I'll probably end up on French TV.
• A Swiss, who is my roommate, but I have not met yet (he skipped dinner and went straight to bed).
• Two guys from Korea (I think it's Korea), who are being referred to by their last names, Park and Song—mostly because that's easier.

And, as they say, "we're just getting started." I always feel guilty when I meet foreigners who speak perfect English. It always makes me think that we Americans should at least learn French, or Spanish, or Italian—anything really—fluently, so we don't always have to force others to speak or language—even our version of it (hurrah Britons!). But I'm thankful that there are no grudges held on their side.

That said, Gigure (pronounced Jee—as if the J was French—Gair) speaks English very well, but Elia, his wife, barely does any. Marco also has great English, but Gen doesn't. The Koreans, so far, haven't said much, and Edward (the Swiss) is asleep, so we don't know about them. But everyone gets along quite well. Dinnertime is a lovely mix of languages, and while playing cards I couldn't help but laugh at a Gen at a loss for English words being coaxed along by Marco, I, and Gigure, with Gigure translating whatever we could make out of Gen into Russian for his wife Elia—all just to explain the Eastern equivalent of Slapjack.

Card games and socializing aside, the built Arcosanti landscape is a familiar one for me. It seems almost like I am home, if that makes any sense. In a way, it does—as even from the age of twelve I was so taken with the architecture it would force me to come back a good nine years later. And once I had the ability to understand the theories behind it even more—well, I was probably hooked for life. The theory of Arcosanti was not simply to make beautiful buildings, or even ones that were on the cutting edge of being ecologically efficient (for the sixties at least)—it was to create a constructed environment that purposefully encouraged human interaction and community.

That, it does. Muti-tiered structures allow one to peer over gallery balconies into cafeteria dining rooms. Archway plazas that make for a temporary basketball court spill into Cyprus gardens on the Arizona bluffs, making for great reading spots. Whatever is a floor or a sidewalk here is not surprisingly the ceiling to someone's living room over there.

Of course… there is the rustic aspect. The shower curtain in my dorm-style apartment is held up by a piece of two-by-four. Un-drywalled walls show their plywood foundations, and cracks in concrete ceilings slowly drip with rainwater. Arcosanti is forty years old, and it is something of a sad story of what happens to great ideas that are consistently underfunded—they never reach their potential. The residents are acutely aware of this, I'm sure, as it is their home. But I realized very quickly that they will never abandon the place because of the amount of time and effort already invested in it. There is an innate optimism about the place that is part of its lifeblood. And while the buildings may be old, most of the people living in them are not. The place has a young, hip feeling about it, and all age groups are represented—least of all the founder himself, Soleri, who will be 90 in a month or two.

Being here, compared to where I was… feels something like having the blood running back into your fingers after being constricted for a long time. I am not the same person I was when I was twelve, fifteen, sixteen, or even nineteen. Religiously, I would probably be categorized now as an agnostic or even atheist, yet philosophically I am deeply interested in this distinctly Utopian dream of human communities that forge a new future under the vision of a sustainable, life giving environment. Arcosanti is not a religious place by any means. Soleri himself is a declared atheist. Yet his theories, and his architecture, do not just beg for the coming of something sacred—they exude it.

I look forward to soaking that in.