Cosanti Foundation Public Relations Erin Jeffries reports:

"Paolo Soleri and other representatives of the Cosanti Foundation attended a presentation about planning for Arizona's Sun Corridor, an area of rapid growth between the border of Mexico in Nogales to north of Prescott, Arizona.
Held at Arizona State University's Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory in downtown Phoenix, the event was created in response to the recent Brookings Institute report "The Sun Corridor as Mountain "Mega": One of America's Newest Metropolitan Places and a Federal Partnership to Help It Prosper."

Arizona governor Janet Napolitano and Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon made appearances, along with a panel of speakers consisting of key authorities in planning for Arizona's future.

Paolo Soleri made comments to the presenters, suggesting that making four lanes of highway between Phoenix and Tucson is reformation when we actually need reformulation, such as creating four strands of linear city instead of highway (referring to SOLARE and the Lean Linear City concept).
Governor Napolitano responded to his comments by noting the importance of the meaning of words; she explained the commonality between Paolo's words and her work by illustrating the difference between creating jobs and creating futures."

The photos were taken by workshop participant Pietro Viscomi, here with Paolo Soleri after the conference.
Pietro reports:
"This forum encouraged a free-wheeling discussion focused on the mature and ripe period for the “megapolitan” areas of the Intermountain West to better organize their energies and consider how to amplify their voice in national affairs.
Dr.Soleri underlined his idea of intervention : “give a new planning model dictated by a new mentality” [in respect to the the city].
“Mountain Mega” studies five emerging megapolitan areas in the Intermountain West: the Front Range, the Wasatch Front, Greater Las Vegas, Northern New Mexico and the Sun Corridor [metropolitan Phoenix, Tucson, and Prescott). The Sun Corridor was the crucial point of debate in which several Scholars and representatives of the political arena spoke at this conference."

Paolo Soleri was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Arizona Governor’s Celebration of Innovation. The award ceremony took place on the evening of 11/13/08 at the Dodge Theater in Phoenix. [see links to some of the articles on the event in our report from 11/14/08]

The photo is of Paolo Soleri at the Arcosanti table, with Cosanti Foundation Director and Treasurer Mary Hoadley, and alumnus Jeff Stein, who is the Head of the School of Architecture at Boston Architectural Center and Head of the Board of Directors of the Cosanti Foundation.

This was Paolo Soleri’s acceptance speach:

"Thank you all so much for acknowledging my life’s work here in Arizona.
Given that technology is reality generating itself since the Big Bang, the American Empire is a stupendous example of human ingenuity and industriousness. There is danger when technology is iconized into technocracy because that event gives way to idolatry: the worshipping of our invented idols, be they gods, guns, cars or our single family home hermitages, a story that has been our nemesis for millions of years. It is desirable if extremely difficult for dreaming Americans to transcend their technocratic triumph, an imperative if evolving life is not to be betrayed. Triviality and materialism are main obstacles on the runway of transcendence. But, yes we can, says Obama our new president.
I ‘d like to invite all of you to a public discussion at the Phoenix Central Library Saturday afternoon, December 6, exploring the possibilities for sustainable development in Arizona.
Thank you again."

Paolo received a One Minute Oration!!

More images of the event can be found on flickr, courtesy of Mark Goldstein, President of the International Research Center.

Paolo Soleri was honored with this years LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD at the Arizona Governor’s Celebration of Innovation.
The award ceremony took place last night at the Dodge Theater in Phoenix.
“This annual contest is a joint effort by the Arizona Technology Council, State Department of Commerce and the Governors Office, to honor business, researchers, educators and students who have made notable efforts to bolster the state’s technology and bioscience industries. The winners represent “an absolute first-class slate of community leaders, entrepreneurs, technologists and inventors,” tech council President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Zylstra said in an interview before the event.
[quotes by Andrew Johnson, AZ Republic, see the article.]

Additional articles on the award ceremony can be found in:

Phoenix Business Journal

The Wall Street Journal - Marketwatch.

We have not yet received photos of the award ceremony.

It's been a week of exciting events for Paolo Soleri.
This most recent photo of Paolo was taken in the Soleri Archives at Arcosanti, during an hour-long interview with Rita Lofano this last Wednesday, 11/12/08. Rita Lofano works for AGI, a press and media company selected by the Italian Government to carry out interviews with the greatest Italian personalities, including Paolo Soleri, for Italy's 150th year celebration.

This continues the report from the "Jump Now" exhibition.
[see previous postings on 9/24, 10/15 and 10/17/08].
Two of Paolo Soleri's Arcology models were sent to Suwon-Seoul, South-Korea, for this exhibition. One of them is the URBIS ET ORBIS Space Arcology model, here displayed at the Nam June Paik Art Center.
All the exhibiton photos came from Soleri Archives Director Tomiaki Tamura, who traveled to Korea especially to supervise the installation of this model.

The URBIS ET ORBIS model weighs over 360 lbs and is wired with a 4-channel sequential chaser that creates a rotation of lights.
[Tomiaki] "The space model installation was a challenge, but done successfully to hang in an open mezzanine level space."

This photo was taken at the Cosanti Foundry, when the model was first completed.
It was built for the TWO SUNS Exhibition, featured by Xerox Coorporation at the Xerox Square Exhibit Center in Rochester, NY, in 1975.

URBIS ET ORBIS:
Prompted by renewed interest in space colonization, Paolo Soleri re-examined his concept of an orbiting arcology and in 1975 developed this version: URBIS ET ORBIS.
In this model, the climate extremes of space have transformed the arcology into a totally protective envelope. Rotating on its five-kilometer axis, the arcology incorporates seven cylindrical landscapes, one inside another, ranging from water and materials storage in the regions closest to the landscape where gravity approaches that of earth, to a highly technological landscape in the center where gravity is near zero. Surface area, of all the landscapes together, is some 300 kilometers.

The opening of the NOW JUMP exhibition at the Nam June Paik Art Center took place on October 8. 2008.
The exhibition features numerous international artists including Paolo Soleri.
[see previous reports on 9/24 and 10/15/2008]

For some details on this exhibition, see articles in the Korea Times 9/19/08 and Korea Times 10/10/08.

A group of Arcosanti Alumni from Korea joined Tomiaki Tamura at the opening.

[from left]:
Hyun Ju Kim (one week visitor to Arco),
Archives Director Tomiaki Tamura,
Sung Sik Cho (Nov. 2006),
Yong Joong Shuk (July 2007),
Seon Yeong Ji (July 2007),
and Lee Jung Ju (Sep 2006).