Gorgeous Paolo Soleri bronze wind chime with a striking patina. These iconic and wind chime designed by architect, Italian designer Paolo Soleri for Arconsanti (the city he designed and built in Arizona in 1970).
Bronze cast elements with verdigris patina throughout from natural age and environmental weathering.
Branded with the Arconsanti cypher. Makes a lovely tone.
Dimensions: Length of bell is 21"
Bell is 2" in diameter
About the Designer:
Paolo Soleri was an Italian-born American architect. He established the educational Cosanti Foundation and Arcosanti. Soleri was a lecturer in the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and a National Design Award recipient in 2006. He coined the concept of 'arcology' – a synthesis of architecture and ecology as the philosophy of democratic society. He died at home of natural causes on 9 April 2013 at the age of 93.
Soleri was born in Turin, Italy, Europe. He was awarded his "laurea" (master's degree) in architecture from the Politecnico di Torino in 1946. He visited the United States in December 1946 and spent a year and a half in fellowship with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West in Arizona, and at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin. During this time, he gained international recognition for a bridge design that was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art.
In 1950, Soleri, with his wife Colly (née Corolyn Woods), returned to Italy where he was commissioned to build a large ceramics factory, Ceramica Artistica Solimene, in Vietri on the Amalfi coast.
Soleri adapted ceramics industry processes learned at this time to use in his award-winning designs and production of ceramic and bronze windbells and silt-cast architectural structures. For more than 40 years, proceeds from sales of the wind-bells have been an important source of funds for construction that is meant to test his theoretical work. Ceramic and bronze bells continue to be produced and sold at Arcosanti and Cosanti in Arizona.
In 1956, Soleri settled in Scottsdale, Arizona, with Colly and the elder of their two daughters; the younger was born in Arizona. He began building Arcosanti in 1970 with the help of architecture and design students, as a place to test his urban design hypotheses. This "urban laboratory" (so-dubbed by Ada Louise Huxtable, who at the time was the architecture critic of The New York Times) became internationally renowned.
Paolo and Colly Soleri made a lifelong commitment to research and experimentation in urban planning.
Soleri died on 9 April 2013 and was buried at Arcosanti in its private cemetery, beside his wife.