Cosanti and Arcosanti
— — the bronze bells and the cast-concrete arcology.
Not only on a wall.
“Cosanti sits in Paradise Valley, just outside Phoenix; Arcosanti rises seventy miles north, on a mesa above the Agua Fria. Both were begun by the Italian architect Paolo Soleri as experiments in compact, low-footprint urban form he called arcology. Bronze and ceramic Soleri wind-bells are still cast on site by hand, the proceeds funding ongoing construction at Arcosanti since 1970.
Cosanti and Arcosanti, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Cosanti is the original Soleri studio at 6433 East Doubletree Ranch Road in Paradise Valley, built starting in 1956 and still operating as a foundry and studio. Arcosanti is the larger experimental community at Cordes Junction in Yavapai County, about seventy miles north of Phoenix, where construction began in 1970. Both sites are owned and operated by the Cosanti Foundation, a nonprofit Paolo Soleri established in 1965. Arcosanti was designed for a planned population of five thousand; current resident population is about fifty.
The signature material at both sites is silt-cast concrete, formed by pouring concrete into moulds carved into the desert silt and then excavated. The result is the apse and dome forms, sweeping curves with patterned interior surfaces left by the silt. Bronze and ceramic wind-bells are cast in on-site foundries: bronze by lost-wax in graphite crucibles, ceramic in slip-cast moulds. Sale of the bells, designed by Soleri himself, has funded construction at Arcosanti since the project's founding in 1970.
Cosanti is open daily, free to enter, with bronze pours scheduled most weekday mornings when staff and weather permit. Arcosanti, seventy miles north off Interstate 17 at exit 262, offers daily walking tours, an overnight guesthouse, and a small café. Tours run roughly one hour and cover the apses, foundries, vault, and Soleri's original drafting studio. The Cosanti Foundation publishes the schedule; both sites operate all year, with reduced summer hours during the Sonoran heat.