In 1970, an Italian-American architect named Paolo Soleri broke ground on Arcosanti, an experimental utopic community in the middle of the Arizona desert. Soleri, a one-time student of Frank Lloyd Wright, wanted to propose a new kind of urban planning he called arcology, or the fusion of architecture and ecology. Over the next few decades, Soleri and his students built the town of Arcosanti into one of the strangest—and most awe-inspiring—architectural sites in America.
In the video above, presented by Hugo Boss, Edgar Ramírez takes you around Arcosanti and explains how the town’s massive domes and organic structures were built. Ramírez also shows you Soleri’s design studio and discusses his futuristic vision for Arcosanti settlements around the world. The experiment might not have caught on, but in this corner of the Arizona desert, the town continues to show visitors what it’s like to live simply, socially, and sustainably. Check out Mies van der Rohe’s most breathtaking collection of buildings here, and get a rare peek inside Frank Lloyd Wright’s epic LA mansion here in our first two episodes of “Amazing Spaces.”
