There's Always Something New under the Maricopa County Sun

There's always something new under the Maricopa County sun PLANNER OF CITIES

There's space enough and time in Arizona for a man to dream of building new structures free of the old restraints. The world-renowned architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, worked here for 30 winters, during which he built Taliesin West to house his family and architectural school.

Last year the world press noted that one of Wright's former students, Paolo Soleri, was urging a new kind of urban design: single-structure cities.

Visitors had been trickling into Soleri's small studio in Paradise Valley long before then. Some came to see the fairyland of forms built by Soleri's own students, to test his design ideas. Others were attracted by word of his wind bells, whose ceramic music has spread to three continents.

Italian-born Soleri came to study with Wright after World War II. He left Taliesin 20 years ago; pitching a solitary tent for awhile on the slopes of Camelback Mountain.

Later he bought four acres of virgin desert in Paradise Valley and began his experiments with new structural forms. The wind bells, hand-carved from local clay,originated as a means of support for his family.

In time, Soleri formed a study and teaching group, the Cosanti Foundation, locating it next door to his home. Cosanti combines two Italian words, meaning “things before.” All the study and teaching were meant to bring about a new kind of design.

Soleri announced this last year in his book, Arcology: the City in the Image of Man, published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Arcology joins two disciplines, architecture and ecology.

But the structures on Soleri's acreage seem largely sculptural. What is visible from the street looks like a collection of giant mudpies. These are the earth and concrete roofs of buildings which face into a compound below ground level.

All are prototypes of forms which must be strong enough to support the city com-plex Soleri envisions for another spot of desert 70 miles north of Phoenix. He plans this one-structure city to house and employ 1,500 people in an area seven acres across and 150 feet high. Soleri seems not to see any conflict in his taking 20 years of semi-solitude to come up with a plan for others to relinquish their solitude entirely.

By Mary Leonhard

Just a few miles from where Soleri dreams his designs for students to build is another rare structure assembled patiently by a desert recluse now dead.

ONE MAN'S CASTLE

Boyd Gulley began to build the Mystery Castle south of Phoenix in the 1920s. Like many health-seekers in Arizona then, he was suffering from tuberculosis. But a sanitorium was no spot for him. He patented an old mining claim on the slopes of South Mountain, and set out to make it livable. Instead, the Seattle businessman who had studied architectural engineering at Texas A and M made a monument to his own ingenious whimsy which has sincebecome a tourist attraction for Phoenix.

Its staggered roofline rises to a turret, frames a wagon wheel and moves on, creat ing a window which encloses only sky. The structure's appliqued with tree-trunkrailings, wide verandas and circling stair ways. Chimneys and concrete sculpture, electronic equipment and tile medallions emboss its exterior.

railings, wide verandas and circling stair ways. Chimneys and concrete sculpture, electronic equipment and tile medallions emboss its exterior.

Growing more and more solitary, Gulley built at the rate of one room a year. At first he had no piped water; hauled it in milk cans from an irrigation canal. A Mexicanworkman was his only helper.

He supported his roofs on stone piers which taper up from wide bases. The major building material was on the spot; jagged schist stone which he firmed in place byconcrete laced with goats' milk. The grand children of Gulley's goats still run wild on South Mountain.

First he built an L-shaped living room, dominated by a great fireplace, and covered by an open-beam ceiling of redwood from a railroad boxcar. When that roomwas done, he set three stone steps in the hillside and moved on to making a bed room. From there, it was two steps down to a kitchen.

Year by year, the house fanned out uphill and down until it had 18 rooms, with 13 fireplaces, on five levels. A recital of its innovations could be endless In the guest room, a bunk bed slides on railroad tracks out of an alcove. The room's "rose" windows are leaded by spoked wheels from a Stutz Bearcat.

An underground barroom has a hole in the ceiling, opening up to a wishing well which is a prominent part of the multilevel patio. The trick was to wish out loud for a drink. The bartender below couldn't help but hear and up the drink would come, ready mixed.

The castle has its own chapel, into which soft light plays through arched windows set in massive walls. Its kitchen has a built-in oven, hanging cupboards and what is possibly the most breathtaking panorama of night-time Phoenix.

One of Gulley's open-air windows originally enclosed a total view of Phoenix. Now it's just a peephole to a tiny part of downtown.

There is no mystery, really, about the mystery castle, except why Gulley lived there alone so long. He died of cancer in 1945. Then his widow and daughter came to the castle, opening it to the public. The man fought a long battle for health and against the kind of regimentation which is an affliction to all creative people. When Gulley died, he was at work on another innovation, a convenience for which Ari zona's Valley of the Sun has since become noted a backyard swimming pool.