Paolo Soleri's Antidote To The American Dream Seems To Be Stuck In Nowheresville. By Leo Banks Arcosanti, NEAR Cordes Junction, Arizona, looks like a space colony plucked from a B-movie and set down on the Arizona desert. Rattlesnakes thrive on land like this, not dreams. But the creator of this experimental city, still less than 5 percent complete after 25 years, continues to believe his vision will prevail. "We're a success, a slow success," says Paolo Soleri, a 76-year-old architect. "We're the only real thing happening in architecture and planning, and you can quote that." Soleri's boast seems fragile amid the quiet that prevails at this lonesome site, 65 miles north of Phoenix. The 10 buildings that make up Arcosanti are partially concealed below a mesa and above the bed of the Agua Fria River. The only sound to break the eerie winter quiet comes from a group of Soleri's protégés, busy building a cement wall, and the chatter of visitors who tour the site at $5 a throw. It wasn't supposed to be this way. What the noted architect hoped to build when he started Arcosanti in 1970 was something grand, nothing less than an antidote to the American Dream. He believes that notion--defined as unlimited materialism and the suburban sprawl it breeds--is unfeasible and destructive. It leads to cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Tucson, where growth gobbles up mile after mile of land, and requires vast expenditures of energy and natural resources to sustain. His solution is urban implosion rather than explosion, a concentrated city, built up rather than out, in which work, leisure and living spaces are set in small areas, diminishing the need for such polluting luxuries as automobiles. Soleri's philosophy is dubbed "arcology," a combination of architecture and ecology. He calls it the only solution to American utopia. "Suburban sprawl is going to kill us, physically and ethically," says the Italian-born Soleri, who came to Arizona to study under Frank Lloyd Wright. "Greed, self-centeredness and ego are all cultivated in our notion of suburbia. The planet cannot continue to deliver, and we're the only ones attempting to suggest frugality as an imperative." Notions of self-denial played well in the project's first six years, when virtually all of its construction took place. But interest soon diminished and the money slowed to a trickle. What has kept the place running is the sale of Soleri's wind bells. Every year 15,000 of them are made at the metal foundry and ceramics studio on the grounds, and sold in the visitors' center and at stores around the world. The bells have become so popular among the 45,000 tourists who visit Arcosanti every year that they account for 40 percent of its operating budget. Much of the remainder comes from donations, tour money, and from Soleri's speaking and writing fees. Never mind that tourists often confuse Arcosanti with the Biosphere, another futuristic project set in Arizona. Visitors often ask frustrated guides when they plan to lock people inside. "What a difference $150 million makes," Soleri says of the comparison. Arcosanti's lack of money has forced drastic reductions. Soleri initially planned a community large enough to house 5,000 permanent residents. He now says he'd be happy to reach 500 some time before his death, but even that seems farfetched. Still, the building proceeds, one chunk of cement at a time. The labor is done by idealistic architecture students and others accepted into workshops. Participants agree to help with construction in return for studying with Soleri. More than 4,000 have come to Arcosanti in its 25 years. Fifty students live there this winter. "Miniaturizing society is an idea I'll take back with me," says the 47-year-old Pete Petrie, of Abilene, Texas. He'd been laid off from his job as a quality engineer at Lockheed when he saw a segment about Arcosanti on the Discovery Channel. He decided to come. "I built a 4,000-square-foot house in Abilene because I thought I needed it," says Petrie. "Here I live in an 8-by-8-foot cubicle with a bunk bed. I share a bathroom. I don't miss it." Perceval Gay-Spriet, a 20-year-old from Figeac, France, says Arcosanti is well-known in Canada and France, much more so than in the U.S. "All the architects in Europe talk about this place," he says, rolling a cigarette on the cafeteria balcony. "The ideas here are powerful, even though we don't see their effects now. Maybe we won't see them for 150 years. Maybe it'll be like a wave." But that optimism is not widespread. The predominant view among architects and observers is that Arcosanti is a failure. Soleri remains undaunted. He still spends three days a week there, designing and writing. He's produced four books that deal increasingly with his views on life, the environment and the state of modern man. Guides call him a visionary. "Materialism, hedonism, fun--they're good for weekends, but for a nation and a way of life, it's sad," says Soleri. "That's what reality is telling us, and we have to listen. I'm the only realistic person around." Arcosanti is the perfect spot for such musings. The tinkling of the bells gives the place an other-worldly air. So does Soleri himself, remote, enigmatic, speaking in a voice barely above a whisper. He's sitting on the patio outside his office, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. A red headband dangles around his neck. The tourists who keep Arcosanti from becoming a ghost colony continue on their hourly rounds behind him. Soleri shrugs as he attempts to explain why he's still here, a quarter century later. "The desert has always been a place for saints, martyrs and prophets." Then he grins. "But maybe that's getting too philosophical."

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