Chapter 3

My Second Arcosanti Workshop, Spring, 1976

The Return

Working at Arcosanti and then at the Grand Canyon in 1975 was so rewarding for me that I wanted to repeat the experience the following year. But I knew that skipping Spring Quarter again from the University of Cincinnati was not a great idea. So I determined to arrange for college credit for attending a spring, 1976 Arcosanti Workshop. Upon my return to UC Fall Quarter, 1975, I had requested college credit for my first Arcosanti Workshop. The Cosanti Foundation had written a letter outlining what I had done at Arcosanti in spring, 1975. But the chairman of the Sociology Department at UC could not give me any credit for the Workshop, since the things I had done at Arcosanti were not particularly academic, even though Paolo contends that the Arcosanti experience is intended as a hands-on alternative and compliment to the academic experience.

My favorite sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Paula J. Dubeck, suggested that I register for  a graduate-level Independent Study for Spring 1976, and I would have until the end of Winter Quarter, 1977 to fulfill requirements for the course. So I arranged to write an Independent Study paper about Arcosanti when I returned to UC in fall, 1976. Once again I signed up for the second Arcosanti Workshop of those scheduled for 1976, in April and May. In those days at Arcosanti, after completing one Workshop, in order to return as a volunteer, you had to have good construction skills and be wanted on the team by the crew leaders at Arcosanti. If this were not the case then you had to pay for another Workshop. The deal was, after completing one Workshop, tuition for successive Workshops would be half-price. This would have been fine, except the Cosanti Foundation had raised the Workshop fee so that, even paying half-price, I still paid about the same amount I had paid in 1975, around $365.

Also, I had arranged to work again for Grand Canyon National Park Lodges. The head of Human Resources there had visited University of Cincinnati’s career center to recruit summer employees. She was tall and pretty with long dark hair and wore a hishi necklace, very de rigure in Arizona at that time. She said I need only establish start and end dates for my job at the Grand Canyon; so I did that, for the summer of 1976, and I skipped Spring Quarter again at UC to return to Arcosanti. As per the custom, I was with our Workshop group first at Cosanti in Paradise Valley when I was greeted in the Metal Studio by Sue Bloker, the new Workshop Coordinator. Sue was blond, medium height, and friendly. She said Paolo had re-designed Arcosanti. I replied, “I know,” even though I didn’t really know what a radical change he had made in his design for the Arcosanti arcology. He had re-designed Arcosanti as one of his new “Two Suns Arcologies.”#

Surprisingly, Paolo was at Cosanti to greet the incoming Workshop group. We had a question-and-answer session with him in the back yard of the Cat Cast House, at the concrete stage near the pool. Paolo sat in a folding chair to address the group while we sat around him on the ground. Many questions were asked of Paolo about the construction of Arcosanti and his philosophy. I had been reading his books and was inspired to ask how he could say that agricultural land is a higher land use than natural forest, since the forest is a more complex ecosystem. Paolo replied that while that is true, agricultural land is part of a larger and more complex human ecology. When I had a chance at another question, I asked about the names scribbled next to the sketches at the bottom of some of the pages of Arcology: The City in the Image of Man (MIT Press, 1969). Paolo dismissed the question with a hand gesture. Someone next to me whispered, “He doesn’t want to answer that.” The spring, 1976 Workshop group did a few chores around Cosanti for a day before we were told we were needed up at the Arcosanti site.

Different Atmosphere at Arcosanti

The mood at Arcosanti was different in spring, 1976, from what it had been the previous year. There were fewer people in attendance and fewer activities. There was no heavy construction going on. The staff explained this was because the Cosanti Foundation was $50,000 “in the hole” from constructing the new Lab Building earlier that year. A small group of Workshoppers met informally with Naomi in the garden area at the center of Camp. She told us there had been conflict over the Lab Building between Paolo Soleri and the Arcosanti community, arguments in meetings with Paolo, who had insisted that Arcosanti needed an enclosed work space for the winter time when it is cold, and rains and snows at Arcosanti’s 3,750 foot elevation. The opposing argument, held by many in the community, was that the Crafts III building should be finished before a new one was begun. These heated arguments had created so much friction that some people had been asked to leave. Workshoppers and residents alike were consternated by the lack of large construction projects. These had been the life blood of Arcosanti in the past. Now things were too quiet.

The new “Lab Building” was so named because it was the center for construction of the “urban laboratory” that Arcosanti aspires to become. The Lab Building is rectangular, a rather uninspired structure at the north end of the Arcosanti Vaults. Above its main floor is a skylight that runs along the length of the building. There are bays on the second floor for studios and workshops. For a time, these were occupied as living spaces. In the 1980s an auxiliary structure was constructed behind it for use as a metal shed for the Metal Shop.

Taking Stock of Work at Arcosanti

By spring, 1976, the North Vault had been completed (it was finished in the summer of 1975) and it was beautiful. There had been significant progress made on the Crafts III building, where the new Café at Arcosanti had opened. West Housing was finished and occupied. In the South Vault, the Wood Shop occupied the west bay (a space which was eventually taken over by Arcomart) and the Metal Shop occupied the east one (that space became the Landscaping Shed). There are still marks on the east wall of the South Vault from the metal grinding that had taken place. Equipment and tables were strewn about the South Vault along with working materials and projects in-progress. Wood form-work was stacked against the west wall. The area looked busy, but it was, nonetheless, a mess.

Spring, 1976, was cold and rainy. We worked indoors, in the new Lab Building, finishing eight foot diameter circular window frames for apartments in the ground floor of Crafts III. We also made an effort to improve existing buildings, including weatherproofing – it was sorely needed. This was especially true for the structures in Camp. We worked there, as well, painting the Cubes.

Later during the Workshop, I worked with a crew on another renovation. We had to take the roof off East Housing, to prepare it for the extensive weather proofing it needed. At that time, a family lived in East Housing; the father, Ed Armijo, was foreman of the Arcosanti Foundry. The Armijo family wanted better waterproofing in their roof. (All Arcosanti buildings leak, it’s just a matter of how much.) A crew - male and female- was assigned the task of using sledgehammers to peel off the existing concrete layer to expose the old waterproofing. Pieces of broken concrete were thrown into a wheelbarrow that had to be wheeled down the steps and taken to a pile for disposal. This was one of my tasks. Very hard work, it was, and I struggled with it. When I was accused of neglecting my share of the work, I tried to work harder, but nevertheless someone intimated that I wouldn’t be invited for dinner with the Armijo family in East Housing when the project was completed. This proved to be untrue, but I still felt I was being ganged up on by the other Workshoppers: they had formed a clique and I was the outsider. At lunchtime, they danced on top of the South Vault to disco music from a boom-box; dancing was not ever my thing. Finally, though, we were rewarded for our hard work with an invitation from the Armijo family: a pleasant spaghetti and meatballs dinner in East Housing at which we all chatted comfortably together about nothing special.

The Arcosanti community hosted some small events just for residents and workshoppers. Easter, 1976, there was a party that over a dozen of us attended, in the Agua Fria river bed below Camp, under the Cottonwood trees. Tables were set up for food and drink, a barbeque lit to cook both meat and vegetarian shish-kebab. The crowd was small but not untypical people were from Canada and Europe as well as America. One, a young woman who played the violin and fiddle, classical as well as country-western, fiddled vigorously as we danced in the river bed. It was one of the more spontaneous events at Arcosanti.

The spring 1976 workshop was socially difficult for me. I didn’t make friends as I had in the previous year. I was never any sort of “social butterfly” and I am typically at least something of a loner. I attempted to get along with the other workshoppers but found that they had mostly formed cliques from which I was excluded. I wanted to hang out with them but I was unable to relate on their level or engage in light-hearted banter; their sole response was to reject me. I suppose I was too introverted, too strange or intellectual. In the odd social stratification of Arcosanti, they lived in Cubes; I lived in Plywood City. I went off, alone and by myself, to get high in Plywood City.

Some Spring, 1976, residents at Arcosanti stayed on through the late 1970s; providing an atypical continuity of community. (Although I believe that my 16 year commitment to the Arcosanti project also lent some continuity.) The five or six week workshop program has woven into the fabric of the Arcosanti project a continuous turnover in population that cannot be avoided. In fact, lack of funding and this high turnover can be blamed for many of Arcosanti’s problems.

Ferguson’s Discount Market

The early 1970s, that is, the Arcosanti community of the 1970s, established institutions and traditions that still exist there today. These include: Morning Meeting, the Arcosanti Café, Arcomart, Arcosanti Events, recycling, community celebrations. I had the privilege of witnessing the beginnings of one such institution, Ferguson’s Discount Market, which is actually a “free store.” “Ferguson’s,” as it is affectionately known, began originally in what had been a bunk room in Plywood City. This old bunk room had the grease pit from the adjoining Camp Kitchen under the floor; the room stank so much it had become unfit for human habitation.

For years, as part of Arcosanti’s recycling program, paper and plastic materials and other non-recyclable trash had been buried in a landfill west of the Octagon. This landfill was so full that trash was piling up around it. Also, there were discarded items around Camp. Russell Ferguson, a five-star Arcosanti worker, was annoyed at this and decided to clean things up a bit. Russell was tall and lanky, wore long brown shorts with suspenders and boots. His shock of brown hair was frequently in disarray. But Russell is very smart and talented. He decided to gather up re-usable items and put them in the unused bunk room. He made a big deal of it, running around and proclaiming his intent to anyone who would listen and even a few who didn’t want to. He painted a sign on a plank of wood in elegant red commercial-style lettering reading: “Ferguson’s Discount Market.” “Ferguson’s” still exists today, in neater form, in a new East Crescent room. People drop off things they do not want any more—clothes, and so on; and pick up things they do want. For free. This idea came from the old hippie/Diggers concept of the “Free Store.”#

Russell Ferguson was one of the long-term Arcosanti residents who stayed on until the early 1980s, until he became so unhappy with the lack of progress that he went back to the Midwest; many other early long-time Arcosanti residents had also drifted away by the end of the 1970s.

The Store

On the south side of Plywood City was a precursor to the modern-day Arcomart, a small part-time “store” selling beer, soda pop, snacks and sundries (such as tampons) out of an unoccupied bunk room. Residents and Workshoppers would take turns taking care of the store, especially on weekends. One weekend, Camp Coordinator Sue Bloker was going to be away from Arcosanti for a week and she asked me to be responsible for the store while she was away. That Saturday night, as usual at Arcosanti, a large party ensued throughout Camp, with people lined up at the store’s door to buy beer. Some people went off-site, to Cordes Junction or Mayer, to buy beer for the party. Everyone was drunk or high or both, including me, who was supposed to be responsible for the store!

At one point after dark, beer that had been purchased off-site ran out. One fellow, Ted Bissell, took it upon his drunken self to try to strong-arm me out of the way so he could steal beer from the store’s refrigerator. I was angry and confused. I tried to stop him from stealing beer by taking a swat at his back with a broom handle. Someone took the broom away from me and the lights were shut off just as I was about to do so. And the beer was stolen anyway. I yelled after him, shouting his name. Not only did I feel responsible, but with all the beer gone, the whole evening went further downhill. From then on, for almost a week, I refused to open the store, even though I had the key. Other people came up with a duplicate key. Fine with me. When Camp Coordinator Sue returned, I told her what had happened; she made sure someone paid up for the beer and other people approached me, reassured me that the beer had been paid for, that the whole thing hadn’t been my fault.

Paolo’s Meetings

Paolo visits the Arcosanti site weekly to talk to people in the various departments so he can check on progress, quality and adherence to his vision. In the 1970’s he would meet separately with Arcosanti staff and then with Workshoppers. One week during my second Workshop, he was holding a meeting with the staff in the Ceramics Apse area as I was walking by, so I sort of stumbled upon them. He was presenting his new designs for what he called the East Crescent, showing sketches he had done. This was a major break with the prior plan for Arcosanti. I stopped and stood there, listening. Paolo stopped talking, looked at me and said I shouldn’t be there as he was presenting restricted information. As I looked around, I noticed a young woman, Lili, who had just arrived and begun working. I had assumed she was a new addition to the Workshop team so I said, “But she’s here,” pointing her out. I was told Lili was a returning resident and therefore deserved to be at the meeting. This whole situation seemed patently unfair to me and I spat out, “Fascist!” Everyone but Paolo gasped in horror; he just looked sad! I stalked off. (I think I got away with this major infraction because Paolo considered me to be “young and naïve.”)

But that is an example of the hierarchy at Arcosanti and the elitism of the administration. Paolo is Philosopher King, his lieutenants and staff below him. Workshoppers and other volunteers are at the bottom of the heap. Unspoken and unwritten rules prevail regarding “restricted information,” including details of Paolo’s work and personal life. Back in the 1970’s, when there were more Workshoppers at Arcosanti than there are today, there was a clearer demarcation between Workshoppers and Residents in terms of the information they were presented with. Today, with fewer Workshoppers in attendance, with weekly School of Thought discussions the general public (site visitors) can attend, regular All-Site Meetings and Arcosanti Seminar Week, more information is shared equitably by all.

In the mid-1970’s, Paolo met separately with the Workshoppers on a weekly basis. At a Spring, 1976, question and answer session help atop the rocks opposite the top of the site, he handed out copies of a paper he had written, The Theology of the Sun, which later appeared as a chapter in his book, The Omega Seed: An Eschatological Hypothesis.# Paolo briefly described what the paper said and we discussed it.

A diagram was drawn in the upper right corner of the monograph. It was a double-lined arrow spiraling out of itself, with another single-line arrow spiraling around the first. Paolo explained that the first arrow represented the forward momentum of life; the second arrow was a “maintenance loop.” Paolo alluded to the Arcosanti Foundry we could see across the canyon from where we were sitting. His said the Foundry was a maintenance loop for Arcosanti—it maintains Arcosanti.

Paolo’s presentation was a foreshadowing of his growing concern with the philosophical side of his work. In the 1990s, he made it clear that he felt his philosophical writing were more important than his drawings. He tried to communicate his point with drawings, he said, but that was to no avail, so he became more involved with writing. This is evident in his work today. Personally, I think people relate better to his drawings, even if they are put off by the denseness of his arcology designs. For myself, although I worked closely with him on his writings in the 1990s, it is his sensuous drawings that have fascinated me.

I do believe Paolo became more involved with his writing partly to change and improve it. He was roundly criticized for his writing in the Arcology book, as well as in The Bridge Between Matter and Spirit is Matter Becoming Spirit. The word used by critics and reviewers and critics to describe the writing in those books was “impenetrable.” He was criticized so soundly for the many references to ‘opulence’ in “…Matter Becoming Spirit” that after that, he emphasized the opposite: ‘frugality.’ (Then he switched to “the Lean Alternative.”)

The Arcosanti community was not necessarily comfortable with his gradual withdrawal from drawing and his ensuing preoccupation with writing. They found his papers and books difficult to understand. This includes Arcosanti: An Urban Laboratory? which is used as the basis for the Arcosanti Seminar Week. Seminar participants often complain that the writing is too difficult.

Counter-Culture vs. Soleri

In the Springof 1976, the Octagon in Camp was still a focus of activity despite the fact that more residents lived up on the mesa site in some completed housing units. Slide talks were still presented in the Octagon on and one evening, a resident I didn’t know gave one on space colonies. The late physicist Gerard O’Neill’s proposal for orbital space colonies was au courant at the time and we were aware of Soleri’s plans for space arcologies like Asteromo in the Arcology book and Urbis et Orbis, a Two Suns Arcology design. As background for his slide show, the presenter played music about space travel from the Jefferson Starship’s Blows Against the Empire album. Some people reacted negatively; they were against the whole idea of space exploration because “there are so many problems here on Earth”—a specious argument, in my opinion. They actually thought the slide talk shouldn’t have been presented at all! Again, in my opinion, a glaring example of the Arcosanti community’s anti-intellectualism. Lili Franklyn got so upset, she ran out the door of the Octagon exclaiming, “no, No, NO!”

But this is an example of the mind-set of many counter-culturalists and environmentalists who come to Arcosanti. Many of the students and staff have only a limited knowledge of Paolo Soleri’s attitudes, views and ideas. They think Paolo is a liberal, when actually he is conservative in his attitudes. Frugality, conservation of resources and the environment, criticism of the excesses of American culture, are conservative attitudes. Also, Paolo has conservative taste in terms of music, art and dance. His urban design is based on classical European design more than anything. He espouses the inequality of human beings, except when it comes to civil rights.

Many people at Arcosanti do not understand the extent of Paolo Soleri’s thinking. He is not, in other words, an American environmentalist, he is a European conservationist. If he were a radical environmentalist, he wouldn’t build anything on the Arcosanti mesa. But he does believe in building very large structures (micro-cities) that do not blend in with the landscape. He is concerned with the future of the evolution of life – insofar, at least, as that involves humankind: a thinking, spiritual being that can outgrow the boundaries of its environment and expand beyond them. In his recent Eco-Minutiae, he still projects human colonies in outer space, built upon orbiting asteroids.

Arcosanti Seminar

The present-day Arcosanti Seminar Week originated as a Seminar field trip. Towards the latter part of my spring, 1976, Arcosanti Workshop, the administration announced that an Arcosanti Seminar was being organized for that month. It would be a week-long field trip and details were sketchy except that it would cost $25. The Seminar would be led by Jack Blackwell, with Naomi Kauffman assisting with logistics and cooking. We were to visit a number of locations around central Arizona and hear talks on topics from experts in their fields. I immediately signed up to go. There was no van or truck to take us as a group, so individuals with cars had to take others with them, driving in a convoy. I think the drivers resented this, but they were paid for mileage.

A week of preparation preceded the actual field rip. When the Seminar convoy finally left the site, we drove for a great while until we got to a road leading into the mountains of central Arizona, to an unknown location: Jack was keeping our destinations secret. Also, he had forbidden to bring any cameras along. He said he wanted all of us to get what he called “a full experience” that would be “not through the viewfinder of a camera.” The first night, we camped out on a piece of land which was technically National Forest land east of the highway, north of Arcosanti. The next day, we met up with a geologist in a small rocky canyon through which the road passed. He gave a short talk on Arizona’s geology, which was interesting. Our major destination turned out to be the Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, southwest of Flagstaff. Jack explained that he had participated in an Outward Bound program and wanted us to have that same kind of nature-inspired, life-changing experience.

We drove off the paved road, onto a dirt road leading to the Sycamore Canyon trailhead, parked at the edge of a mesa, gathered our gear and hiked down the trail into the canyon basin. The colorful cliffs and hills of the canyon rose before us, speckled by pine scrub. It was sunny and warm, with scattered clouds. The lightly wooded trail was smooth at first but it eventually gave way to river rock and streams. It eventually ended and we hiked beyond it, me stumbling behind the group the entire way: I just couldn’t keep up. So, for safety’s sake, someone was posted to walk behind me. We hiked into Sycamore Canyon quite a ways and made our camp site under a cliff.

By the time Jack selected our camp site, we were all exhausted from the hike. We ate a light meal, then bedded down in our sleeping bags for the night. The next morning, after a light breakfast cooked by Naomi and crew, we climbed the cliff above us. Jack didn’t let us bring any water bottles with us on the climb, even though it was a sunny, warm and dry Arizona day. He claimed we wouldn’t need water. Everyone else climbed up a notch in the cliff. I arrived after they had all begun climbing and didn’t know what to do so I climbed another, smaller, rougher notch in the cliff. It was hard but I made it up to the top of the cliff. The rest of the group was already waiting there; they applauded me. Atop the cliff was a small mountain, called Red Hill, which we climbed. From the top, you could see forever: Jerome, Sedona, the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff – all there around us. Still, it was sunny and warm and we’d been exerting ourselves. We were growing thirsty and – thanks to Jack, had no water with us. I climbed down the cliff notch behind all the others, thirstier then I have ever been, before or since. Thirst! Yes, I know what thirst is.

In the canyon opposite the base of the cliff was a spring—water was flowing out of the opposite cliff into a shallow pond called a “Tank.” I borrowed a water container, filled it at the spring and drank the whole thing at once. People were ripping off their clothes and wading into the Tank. I waded in too. Obviously, Jack had known we would get thirsty from the climb; he just wanted us to experience real thirst. I thought this was interesting; at the same time, it was kind of crummy.

The group got together at the campsite and ate a hearty meal. Around the campfire that evening, Jack led a discussion about Arcosanti, arcology and Paolo’s theology, but there was rebellion brewing. One of the Canadians got into a big argument with Jack over the treatment of Workshoppers at Arcosanti and during our expedition. That guy swore he would go his own way after we hiked out of the canyon. Others agreed. The next morning we struck camp, gathered our gear and hiked out of Sycamore canyon. (Hiking out was a lot faster than hiking in.) When we arrived at the parking area, those who wanted to go their own separate ways did so. I wound up in a car with separate way-goers, even though I didn’t want to. We drove to Phoenix and visited the Bamboo Club. After the field trip, Jack asked us to write about our experience and I wrote about seeing sunlight through the beer steins at the Bamboo Club; I’m sorry to say this didn’t make a good impression.

Somehow we then agreed to join the rest of the Seminar group. We drove all the way up to Flagstaff and met the rest of the group at Northern Arizona University. Somehow the driver knew exactly where to go. A biologist gave us a short talk in his lab, about human evolution. We then visited an experimental solar greenhouse somewhere on the outskirts of Flagstaff, after which drove to Phoenix to visit the Planning Department of the City of Phoenix. We listened to a talk from one of the Planners about real-world urban planning in Phoenix, of which there is little. Finally, our group stopped at Cosanti, where we ate and camped out in the Cat Cast House back yard. We met with Paolo and had a question and answer session with him, based on what we had learned during the Seminar; then we met with Colly. I tried to tell her that it was worthwhile, taking this group of worker away from Arcosanti for a week. Then Jack showed us, from the Soleri Archives, some of the large scroll drawings Paolo had done in the 1960s. We took turns holding the drawings up so the group could back up from them and take in the whole drawing from a distance. The drawings were very impressive.

When we finally arrived back at Arcosanti, it was evening and we camped out under the North Vault. We had a long discussion about the construction of Arcosanti, during which I mentioned that a boot print is visible in the silt-cast design on the interior of the North Vault;. Jack said I was being too negative. But the next morning, we climbed the mesa opposite the Arcosanti site, where Jack gave an inspirational talk about the Arcosanti project.

The end of the Arcosanti Seminar was the end of my spring 1976 Workshop. Time to head north to the south rim village at the Grand Canyon for my summer job there.

Later that fall, at the University of Cincinnati, I presented the Independent Study paper I had written, Arcosanti—A New Horizon. After she read it, my sociology professor, Dr. Dubeck, told me, “This isn’t sociology, this is urban planning. Go take some urban planning.” I signed up for a senior-level urban planning studio in fall, 1977, at UC’s school of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning (DAAP).

In the winter of 1976-1977, while I was at the University of Cincinnati, Paolo Soleri came to downtown Cincinnati to give a slide lecture to a philosophical/religious group. I skipped out on a presentation my DAAP professor wanted me to attend so I could hear Paolo speak. I arrived early, as usual, and when I saw Paolo putting his slides together at the front of the Netherland Hilton auditorium, I approached him to say hello. Paolo was startled to see me there; he thought I might have somehow followed him from Arcosanti. Then he caught himself, saying, “This is your city.” I said it was indeed my city; Paolo told me how impressed he was with Fountain Square just a block away from the hotel; it was, he said, almost European. His slide talk was much different from those I had seen previously. Before, he had a few text slides interspersed with photos and graphics; this time he had text slides, explaining his theology. It was a boring presentation, frankly; I left before he had finished.