[HN Gopher] Arcology: The city in the image of man (1969)
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Arcology: The city in the image of man (1969)
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 44 points
Date : 2021-08-05 06:17 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.organism.earth)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.organism.earth)
| gumby wrote:
| I was very excited by arcosanti as a kid in the 70s -- just as I
| was excited by the studies of space settlements.
|
| Ultimately of course I learnt that the reality of life is messy
| amd with competing interests. Yet these utopian visions still
| provide a lot of formative insight.
| ansible wrote:
| What's funny is that some form of utopia is / was within our
| grasp, and we deliberately turned our backs on it in the USA.
|
| A walkable city is far less organized than something like
| arcosanti, as they tend to grow organically. But they do
| provide a significantly higher quality of life compared to most
| cities in the USA, because of the focus on car-based
| transportation.
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| Old thread about an Acrological building in Whittier, Alaska :
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8840005
| samatman wrote:
| I remember enjoying that thread when it first happened.
|
| Looks like the URL it points to is dead, so here's an archive
| link to spare the curious the trouble:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20170214222943/https://stories.ca...
| dirtyid wrote:
| Great coffee table book. Wish there was a reprint. There is a
| very handsome, large format (1m+) paper back version I can't seem
| to track down for purchase anywhere. A copy exists in my alma
| maters reference library, I drop by once in a while for a flip
| through.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Arcology-city-image-Paolo-Soleri/dp/0...
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| If I recall correctly, there's one at Arcosanti too (I visited
| it in the winter of 2013).
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| The bells sold at the Arcosanti gift shop [0] are very
| distinctive and once you start spotting them, you will know
| people who have been influenced or inspired by Paolo Soleri's
| architecture.
|
| [0] https://cosanti.com/collections/bronze-bells
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I keep a nice Soleri tile near my computer to remind me of
| utopian dreams.
| stcredzero wrote:
| Issac Arthur has a thing or two to say about Arcologies:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsl-GBEZ-_Y
| thunderbong wrote:
| From the Forward (by Peter Blake) - _italics mine_
|
| What I think he _(Paolo Soleri)_ is trying to say is this: there
| is an inherent logic in the structure and nature of organisms
| that have grown on this planet. Any architecture, any urban
| design, and any social order that violates that structure and
| nature is destructive of itself and of us. Any architecture,
| urban design, or social order that is based upon organic
| principles is valid and will prove its own validity.
| thamalama wrote:
| extra internet points if someone can guess what Paolo Soleri's
| "bacon" number is to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Bacon_(architect)
|
| teeeheheheh
| samch wrote:
| Can't see this without immediately remembering countless hours
| playing toward a city full of Arcologies in SimCity 2000. Fun
| times!
| coldacid wrote:
| Did you ever build enough launch arcos in a single city that
| they did indeed launch into space?
| samch wrote:
| Ha! It's been so long, I can't remember if I ever hit that
| milestone. I had honesty completely forgotten about that
| aspect of it!
| teknopaul wrote:
| FYI website unreadable on ff on android
| xs wrote:
| The last one on the list 30 - Arcosanti. Was actually built out
| in the desert of Arizona.
| pimlottc wrote:
| It was, though not to the full size that was ultimately
| intended. There's still a small community of people who live
| and work there, along with a trickle of visiting
| students/architects. Definitely worth a day trip if you're ever
| in the Phoenix area with some free time.
| elvinyung wrote:
| I learned about Paolo Soleri from William Gibson's _Count Zero_
| (sequel to the much more well-known _Neuromancer_ ). Gibson
| always had a knack for foreseeing not just the automobile, but
| also the traffic jam:
|
| > But today's episode kept veering weirdly away from Michele's
| frantically complex romantic entanglements, which Bobby had
| anyway never bothered to keep track of, and jerking itself into
| detailed socioarchitectural descriptions of Soleri-style mincome
| arcologies. Some of the detail, even to Bobby, seemed suspect; he
| doubted, for instance, that there really were entire levels
| devoted to the sale of ice-blue shaved-velour lounge suites with
| diamond-buckled knees, or that there were other levels,
| perpetually dark, inhabited exclusively by starving babies. This
| last, he seemed to recall, had been an article of faith to
| Marsha, who regarded the Projects with superstitious horror, as
| though they were some looming vertical hell to which she might
| one day be forced to ascend.
|
| > Other segments of the jack-dream reminded him of the Knowledge
| channel Sense/Net piped in free with every stim subscription;
| there were elaborate animated diagrams of the Projects' interior
| structure, and droning lectures in voice-over on the life-styles
| of various types of residents. These, when he was able to focus
| on them, seemed even less convincing than the flashes of ice-blue
| velour and feral babies creeping silently through the dark. He
| watched a cheerful young mother slice pizza with a huge
| industrial waterknife in the kitchen corner of a spotless one-
| room. An entire wall opened onto a shallow balcony and a
| rectangle of cartoon-blue sky.
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| His prose still kicks me in my teeth every time.
|
| Thank you for sharing.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Is this where the huge building in SimCity 2000 came from?
| coldacid wrote:
| It is indeed. Although there were several arcos in SC2k, not
| just one.
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