Living histories: engaging Paolo Soleri's Arcosanti project though the notion of "history/becoming"

This paper deploys the notion of “history/becoming” to explore architect Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti project; an experimental architectural laboratory still under construction in the Arizona desert. Arcosanti is the built embodiment of Soleri’s conception of “arcology”: the fusion of architecture and ecology. Of particular interest to the present paper is Soleri’s ongoing engagement with the notion of “becoming” as it relates to the idea of history and the architecture of Arcosanti. Reference will also be made to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s writings on history, creativity and becoming; as well as a more recent interpretation of their important works—Craig Lundy’s 2012 text History and Becoming: Deleuze’s Philosophy of Creativity. These thinkers are critical of conceptions of history that restrict it to that which has already between actualised or produced. For Lundy: “historical reality is always already more than the actual and in productive relation with the virtual and the incorporeal.” It will be argued that exploring Arcosanti using the notion of “history/becoming” prompts a deeper theoretical engagement with the project; specifically by drawing attention to its relation with history without limiting or constricting the project’s relevance to a particular historical period. As an experimental architectural project, Arcosanti’s power resides in the interplay between that which has already been constructed and actualised on site, and the potential of the project to forge an unknown future in synch with the planet Earth.