Go West, Young Woman! And Then... Return! To Write Your Thesis

Go West, Young Woman! And Then... Return! To Write Your Thesis

by Gambrill Foster [HP]

For a second, we thought we might not even get to see Arizona. “We” is the six Historic Preservation students on a trip for our Concrete unit in Theo Prudon’s Material Conservation class. After an eventful flight -that included a woman passing out in the aisle mid-turbulence we picked up the paperwork and keys for two rental cars and headed into the garage. Theo and our adjunct professor Jennifer Schork grabbed one and headed out. The six students piled into our other car and were right behind them...we thought. The parking garage attendant wouldn’t let us out because the person who rented the car (Theo) wasn’t driving it. It was not, we were told, an acceptable excuse that he was driving the other car. Finally, after a trip back upstairs and even more back and forth, we were let of the garage and were on our way!

The trip was designed as 5 days in Arizona, visiting Taliesin West, Casa Grande Native American Ruins, Cosanti and Arcosanti. We had been studying concrete, the first unit of three in Special Topics in Material Conservation, the sites that we were to visit had unique uses of concrete construction. The bulk of our time was going to be at Arcosanti, where we would spend two days on site and practice doing field assessments on different areas of the compound. Arcosanti is a compound begun by Paolo Soleri in 1971, as an example of his solution to Urban Sprawl: Arcology. Arcology is a principle Soleri pioneered and worked on for most of his career, and life. The word itself is a mash-up between Architecture and Ecology, and the structures were composed to be able to feed and house large groups of people on less land than traditional cities.

When we first arrived, we had a tour by the Executive Director. He walked us all over the compound, from visitor center to communal kitchen to bronze forge, even his own apartment (which was once soleri’s drafting room!). Everyone knew him and in turn he knew all the faces and made us feel welcome immediately.

Gambrill Foster field testing concrete with sounding mallet.

Photo: Anisha Athrey.

Then we began to explore the site ourselves, walking around and looking at concrete in various applications, taking photos, inspecting the material, writing questions. We divided into three teams of two and each team chose a site on the compound to further explore. We spent several days sketching, measuring, writing down materials and techniques used for concrete construction—notes about both what we did and didn’t know. We took samples, reported back and gave tours of our sites to the other teams. We talked to Jeff, showed him our work thus far and our plan once back in New York. We ate in the communal kitchen and talked to residents. We went on a short hike our last day, saw a javelina, took lots of cactus selfies and sang along to hours of classic 80s rock.

We began to work as a whole group of six on a powerpoint presentation and written report that not only detailed our site (x3) specific analysis but also the history of the compound as well as our recommendations for preservation planning. The project was a hands-on, on-site preservation project first for me; to have the building, the material and physical space so closely inform my preservation recommendations was eye-opening as to how important place and context truly are.

I came back to school after Arizona mid-February, already a few weeks into my thesis about marketplaces and historic foodways. But I kept returning to the views of Arizona and the quirky, improbable, beautiful, organic structure that is Arcosanti. I spoke to Beth Bingham, one of my Thesis professors about switching topics, and with her go ahead, I took the leap. I would be using Arcosanti as the main case study for a thesis aimed at exploring the changing opinions on material authenticity. Theo teased me for drinking the Kool-aid when I announced in class what I had done.

I began to research the shifting attitudes on authenticity over the years, and found myself gravitating toward articles on the preservation of modern architecture--with its use of concrete, the focus on cutting edge or avant-garde technology, Arcosanti was a good fit. I was also reading work on Preservation and Sustainability, along with Preservation and Technology.

After another incredible trip with a GCPE Interdisciplinary Studio I started to lose focus. Arizona felt far away during the cold and wet spring. In our Materials Class we had moved onto metals, and I was thinking more about cast iron than concrete. I was still committed to Soleri and his vision made manifest, but I was stuck. I continued to believe the idea had academic merit and the concept of authenticity in preservation is such a hotly contested one that there’s a lot of material to mine. But the topic didn’t feel like it was moving ahead. Rather it just seemed mired in my same few thoughts on why material authenticity shouldn’t rule preservation efforts without taking into account the psychology (or soul or purpose) of the building.

The end of the semester always comes more quickly than you anticipate and so I suddenly found myself nervously pulling together my Thesis-I presentation, concerned at my lack of progress and more importantly, frustrated that I hadn’t pushed my vision for this topic even further. But as my time at Pratt has made clear, Preservation (and Planning, Placemaking, and SES) are collaborative disciplines. Beth Bingham, Ayse Yonder, Ron Schiffman, John Shapiro, and Jen Becker were my audience and brilliant as they all are, had multiple suggestions as to where I might focus next, or what other sites I might consider and draw analogies to. The experience of talking about the place again, telling the story of Arcosanti and showing photos, along with the suggestions they presented and I don’t feel nearly as stuck anymore. I am spending the summer researching experimental and/or living architecture, looking into Auroville, Hundertwasserhaus, even Gaudi. I’m also looking at the role performance criteria or social criteria can play in making physical restoration decisions.

Arcosanti is a principled place, an unexpected place, an off-the-beatenpath place, a special place. I am excited to see what secrets it reveals to me as I push toward a completed Thesis, hopefully to be submitted in December. So maybe I did drink the Kool-aid, but why not? Sometimes it’s the most unusual stories that teach us the most, that help push our thinking and make us re-fall in love the the field. And if you’re thinking it seems overly romanticized that only two days at this desert compound could be enough to change my entire thesis and the way I view the importance of material authenticity, then let me just leave you with this small story. After being of the belief that Arcosanti’s communal kitchen was entirely vegetarian if not vegan, four of us ate the meatiest, cheesiest, ooey-gooeyist lasagna (with a pepperoni crust) you’ve ever had. We spent ten minutes marveling at its existence and trying to wrap our minds around how vegan lasagna could so perfectly mimic the real deal. Hint: it wasn’t even a little vegetarian, nor at all vegan.

Group Selfie Post-Hike.

Photo: Anisha Athrey.