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Cosanti is the gallery and studio of Italian-American architect Paolo Soleri; it was his residence until his death in 2013. Located in Paradise Valley, Arizona, USA, it is open to the public. Cosanti is marked by terraced landscaping, experimental earth-formed concrete structures, and its sculptural wind-bells.Soleri is best known for Arcosanti, the prototype for an arcological "urban laboratory" begun in 1970 in the high desert about seventy miles north of Phoenix, Arizona; its community is comparatively young. Cosanti is where Soleri and his wife, Colly (née Corolyn Woods) Soleri, established their residence in 1956, with metropolitan Phoenix their city, on a site just a few miles from Taliesin West, where Soleri had studied. It is an area that has since been surrounded by expensive suburban residences. Cosanti has been designated an Arizona Historic Site.Paolo Soleri invented the words Cosanti, Arcosanti and arcology. He coined arcology by combining the words architecture and ecology. Cosanti fuses two Italian words, cosa (meaning "things", "property", "matter", "business") and anti ("against"). Arcosanti combines arcology with Cosanti.The structures at Cosanti include the original "Earth House" which is partially underground, a student dormitory, outdoor studios, performance space, a swimming pool, gift shop, and Soleri's residence. All are set amidst courtyards, terraces and garden paths.Location and orientation of the buildings is significant. Many structures are placed beneath ground level and are surrounded by mounds of earth so they are naturally insulated year round, moderating their interior temperatures. Soleri designed and built south-facing apses (partial domes) as passive energy collectors that collect light and heat in the lower winter sun, deflecting it and creating shade in the higher summer sun. The swimming pool and several other structures have southern exposures to maximize the warmth of the winter sun.
It'such a powerful visual experience. Paolo Salieri came from Italy in 1946 to Arizona primarily to work with Frank Lloyd Wright. He already had a PhD in architecture and he already was a licensed architect in Italy. He fell in love with the snorren desert and hence he made it his home. So what happened, Paolo was commissioned to design a ceramics factory south of Italy in the Amalfi Coast and it's an area that's very famous for ceramics. In the process of building that ceramics factory, he became interested in ceramics himself. Paolo started by doing the ceramic bills and then he discovered bronze casting. So he morphed from clay bells into bronze. You're putting the designs on in the sand upside down and backwards and you can carve those or impress those, put the other part of the bell together. So you have an airspace the shape of the bell that gets filled with the bronze. So he, being incredibly inventive, he decided to experiment by carving the forms out of the desert surface itself. Pour concrete onto the surface, wait 14 days and then dig it out. And this technique of earth casting is so unique. It's labor intensive for sure but it's very cost effective because the materials are in earth and water. So there are 18 buildings here and there are all variations of this technique of casting concrete directly onto the surface. You hope people can just see something that's outside of their normal perspective that will excite people. As Cosaci does, when people come in here they can excite them.
