This is no commune. In conversation with Pete Seiter

The topography of an Arcology is presented as a dense, people-sized core. In 1965, in the journal L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, Soleri announced his intention to create a prototype of Arcology on desert land 60 miles from Phoenix, Arizona, and in 1970 construction of Arcosanti finally began. Today, what was intended to be a Solerian Tesla, a city in perpetual construction, appears rather as an unfinished place, not necessarily in the process of becoming, inhabited by a structurally temporary society: the “Arconauts”. In this context, we propose an interview with Pete Seiter, a 33-year-old architect who has lived in Arcosanti, to offer the reader a critical look at life in Arcosanti today, more than 50 years after its foundation, in its current social and spatial configuration.