Home Tour:
Arcosanti

“In the desert you become a discoverer,” the Lebanese American author Ameen Rihani wrote. He was alluding to the desert’s power to spark spiritual awakening, but it can also produce other transformations. Situated in the Sonoran desert in Arizona, Arcosanti was founded to reconceptualize how people can live together. 2020 marks the 50th year of this bold attempt to create a new community. 

Arcosanti is a collection of whimsical structures atop an isolated mesa about 60 miles north of Phoenix. There are modular block units, Romanesque half-domes and oculus windows looking out over the valley below. Circular and semicircular motifs recur in the expanse of weathered concrete. Viewed from certain angles, it could double as the lair of a Bond villain—in fact, it served as the locati...