What Happens When a Mad Scientist Creates Perfection?
Nothing happens - as it turns out - everything just kind of works like it should.
Hi everyone,
Mark to Market is a newsletter on the intersection of real estate, finance and technology, and specifically how they work together to shape the world around us.
But this week I did a little something different.
I made a friend, and I want to tell you about it:
Arcosanti
Despite false advertising I’m not actually here to inform, we’re here to explore thought. So take a gander here at what Arcosanti actually is so we can jump straight to what we think. Ok, mostly what I think.
To be clear. Arcosanti is not what I would call luxurious, nice, or even.. comfortable. In fact it's none of the things that you would find in a normal “home”. Or at least a home you would find today.
Was it ever advertised to be any of those things? Not really. But it was supposed to be a “new and better way” to live. So good, in fact, that it would be entirely self-sustaining and grow in population of its own accord.
The real life “Utopia on earth” – Arcosanti – is unfinished, unpolished, and inconvenient. It's also cold and windy. VERY cold and windy, even on a mild Arizona spring day.
First a little on the founder
It’s always good to put a face to the project. So in that spirit, here is Paolo Soleri. Look him in the eyes, that’s what I like to do. Vibes, right?
All you need to know about Paolo is he was a bonafide madman, and he believed in doing things his way. Even things that he was doing for the first time, that had been done many, many other times by people in a trusted and reliable way. Lol. But he was Italian, which is to say emphatic, stylish and convincing. He could croon, and raucously deride, and he did get his way most of the time.
For example, the centerpiece of Arcosanti is the main arches, of which there are two.
Now, arches are pretty well understood – and have been for thousands of years, actually. The critical part is the main beam that goes down the middle at the very top and keeps the whole house of cards from falling down. What do you notice? Look closely.
Yep, different.
Arch 1, the far one, was built first. The way they did it was that Paolo sent his army up there in janky scaffolding to pour concrete into a mold that they had built. Did it work? I mean… yeah, it worked.
But, as you’ll notice, on Arch 2 they went a different direction. They decided: “hmmm, even if we’re reinventing the wheel maybe we can steal some parts from old ones.” They just used a steel beam, like everyone else. And that also works.
But, you cannot learn this without feeling physically uncomfortable under the concrete-held Arch 1 after the fact, and that was some 55 years ago now. You can imagine what actually talking to Paolo was like. He wanted to do things his way, he didn’t give a fuck how tried and true current methods were.
What else is wrong with this place?
The short answer is “everything”. Don’t let the signage and lighting in the marketing photos fool you. Don’t let Paolo’s style, which was so distinctive it even shines through in a black and white sketch, fool you either. Behind every great salesman is an absolutely shit-tier (or worse) product and the rule generally goes: the better the salesperson the worse the end product. That is indeed the rule here and Arcosanti is a DUMP.
They don’t even let you down easily. Minute one you arrive at their dirt road. Hazard cones and electro-phonic wires all over your field of vision. Gross.
Survive that, and you now have to navigate a maze of brutalist architecture and minimalist, wooden furniture. The place seriously lacks comfort, no central air obviously… and what do we all want when we’re too hot, too cold, or our ass hurts too much from the uncushioned chair we’re sitting on? We want to leave, but if we CAN’T? In my case because I’ve just paid for a cheap tour and god damn if I’m not going to get our money's worth. In the residents’ cases, because they live there… then at the very least we want some kind of distraction. Some form of entertainment.
At Arcosanti there is none. Not even your phone works because the brutalist concrete blocks your signal.
Ok, so, I’m sorry. Ehson. But then how in the hell can it be perfect at the same time?
The rule is “the better the salesman the worse the product” for a REASON. While the substantive material product might not be there, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, right? Not even for a scammy salesperson. So what then, are you overpaying for when someone oversells? You’re not paying for the material product. You’re paying for a good time, and that is exactly what you get at Arcosanti.
You have a good time BECAUSE of how terrible it all is, because we humans as it turns out have a piece of our instinctive nature that’s been muted to the point of almost 0 volume in modern society. When we’re uncomfortable and bored at the same time, we seek deep, meaningful relationships with the people around us. Something inside us tells us that it's going to take a team effort to get through it all, and that’s ingrained. I saw this happen in real time at Arcosanti.
The pattern was immutable. Guests would arrive and get lost. Once they found the only possibly comfortable place there is to find, which is the common area & cafeteria, they would quickly get uncomfortable. Then bored.
They would look for the 21st century cure-all for boredom within the glass and metal brick clutched in the palm of their hand, only to find that it has been rendered ineffective by the very concrete around them.
Then… slowly but surely, they would all do what you’re SUPPOSED to do at Arcosanti, they would “socialize.” I know, right? Lost art.
… hmm. Tell me more.
I don’t know how to really describe it to be honest — other than the harder you try to run away from it all — the more cleverly the interior architecture and design reroutes you back in front of another individual who is doing the exact same thing.
Everyone sort of had their own unique way of going about this. Some guests would pace around until inevitably they ran into another guest that was doing the same. Some would relent and sit down at the relatively small tables for intimate conversations.
Yours truly? I found a nearly complete chessboard and plopped myself down. I had to fashion makeshift pieces of paper to represent the blue King, Queen and pawn, as well as the knight and Queen on the red side.
Then I started asking every cute gal that came in the door if she’d like to play and while most of them politely declined before their husband or boyfriend came walking up shortly thereafter - pretty soon I had some good games going.
With husbands and boyfriends, of course. But it was fun anyway.
Perfection?
I know what you’re thinking now:
“Dude, no offense you just sound lonely.”
“Perfect, seems like an extreme word to use for that experience.”
It is an extreme word to use for a place that sucks so much and barely works. Their feces drain down to their farm, where the residents who choose to live in nearby tents tend the garden, but cannot yet sustain them during any period of time. Let alone year-round. So their groceries are from places like Walmart. Much like yours.
The fresh water filtration and reclaiming system DOES work, and it only gets to be high 90s low 100s (degrees Fahrenheit) in the concrete insulated spaces during the scorching desert summers. So how can I make a claim to perfection? Well, let me now speak only for myself.
Arcosanti forced a certain hand on me. It forced me to connect with people like I hadn’t in a very long time. This was uncomfortable, and amazing. We did eventually use our technology hours later and that’s how I ended up with this beautiful set of photos that my new friend, Eric’s, wife took.
The technology was used as it was perhaps always intended, as a tool, to enhance our experience as beings. We weren’t serving it. It was serving us. When my good childhood friend saw the pic above on my Insta story he randomly replied “Ehson! Where are you? On a lunar colony?”
I laughed. But the truth is I didn’t travel to space or anywhere in the future. Arcosanti transported me to the past, with a dash of modern magic, and it was a really, really, very very very, nice experience.