Paolo Soleri, architect, builder, artist, writer, theorist, husband, father, died in April at age 93.  Soleri spent a lifetime investigating how architecture, specifically the architecture of the city, could support the countless possibilities of human aspiration. The urban project he founded, Arcosanti, 65 miles north of Phoenix, was described by NEWSWEEK magazine as “…the most important urban experiment undertaken in our lifetimes.”  His own lifetime of work is represented in models, drawings, books, lectures and museum exhibits throughout the world. Soleri’s exhibition in 1970 at the Corcoran Museum in DC – and the concurrent publication of his landmark book, City in the Image of Man – changed forever the global conversation about urban planning on our living planet. His term, “Arcology” joining the words architecture and ecology to represent one whole system of understanding human life on the earth is meant to serve as the basis for that conversation.

Check out the slideshow here.

PHOTO CREDIT: Paolo Soleri overseeing construction work at Arcosanti, Arizona, 1985. Photograph: Kent Sievers/AP

PHOTO CREDIT: Paolo Soleri overseeing construction work at Arcosanti, Arizona, 1985. Photograph: Kent Sievers/AP