Paolo Soleri

The long career of Paolo Soleri (1919-2013) spanned more than 60 years working in Italy and the United States in the fields of architecture, urban planning, sculpture and ceramics. A designer and theoretician, Soleri authored numerous monographs and essays. After graduating from Politecnico di Torino, the Polytechnic Institute in Turin, in 1946, Soleri moved to the US, where he worked in Taliesin West, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s studios. When he returned to Italy he opened Fabbrica di Ceramiche Solimene in Vietri sul Mare (Salerno) before going back to the US to settle in Paradise Valley, Arizona. When he opened his own practice, Soleri began an incessant career as a theoretician concerned with issues in ecology, community life, social ethics and global overcrowding. Issues of extraordinary relevance, which Soleri addressed with enthusiasm as early as the 1950s, when he set up Cosanti, a school and building site in which students from ....

Read more