While staying in Congress, we drove into the Phoenix area to tour the Cosanti Foundry.  The foundry makes bells – big and little ones, out of bronze and ceramics.  The bells are all works of art and are done using methods that have been used for thousands of years.  They use soft damp earth to form the molds and after creating a bell in a mold, the earth is simply pushed down and used again for the next batch.

The property itself is like a work of art.  The creator and original owner of the property was Paolo Scoleri, an Italian architect who was a student at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesan West facility. 

Scoleri had a vision of people living and working together in communes.  Between 1955 and 1965 he built several structures on his property using the “earthmound” construction, where you pile up earth into a mound the size that you want the structure to be, then you pour concrete into forms on the tops and sides of the mound.  When the concrete sets, you remove the earth and you’re left with a full or partial dome building.  A dome built in this fashion is very strong, and if it’s large you can put a couple of poles up for support.  He build several half-dome building with the half-dome either on the north or south side to make use of passive solar.  If you have the half-dome on the north half of the structure then it’s protected from the sun during the hot summer months and in the winter months the sun can shine down into the structure and warm it.

Scoleri also built a “commune” using a lot of the earthmound construction and other methods about 70 miles north of Phoenix and called it Arcosanti.  It’s still in use today, with passive heat and cooling systems, orchards etc.  People can go to Arcosanti for a few months and learn the methods of construction and lifestyle that are in use there. 

These constructions and lifestyle methods never caught on which saddened Scoleri.  He did a few architectural projects, at least one in Scottsdale, one in Italy, but his passion was the work he did at Cosanti and Arcosanti.

Here are pictures of the property, foundry and structures: