FRAGMENTS: A Selection from the Notebooks of Paolo Soleri

Like many architectural visionaries, Soleri--a figure of some reknown as a builder of desert metropolises--is virtually unintelligible in print. And the more so as he shifts from conceptual syntheses, with illustrations (like Arcology: The City in the Image of Man), to passing thoughts, in limbo. ""WHY A TWO SUNS ARCOLOGY IN SPACE (ASTEROMO II)?"" The reply: ""It is a theological imperative. On the premises of the Omega, it is unavoidable that woman will move out of the planet and the solar system."" Another piece of news: ""Reality, 'equipped' with consciousness, is attempting to create its own semen."" Unfortunately, however, this is one of those tracts that becomes more distressing the clearer it gets. Under the small umbrella of a synergistic, Teilhardian ""trans-theology,"" Solari finds room to denounce homosexuality, women's lib, rock-'n'-roll, cars, insurance, democracy in India, and congestion (though ""crowding"" is all right--that's ""theological""). And when he cross-references his ideas, it's against the likes of Theodore Roszak, E. F. Schumacher, Buckminster Fuller, Harvey Cox, Franco Zefferelli (!), and William Irwin Thompson: a galaxy of contemporary gurus. When Soleri's architectural schemes aren't practical, they're at least exhilarating; but nobody will be turned onto them here.