Paul Soldner: The Vision

Building the Aspen compound required many skills. What Soldner knew about construction dated back to college and postgraduate years when he had helped a chemistry professor build a house and supervised the building of apartment complexes for a friend of his father. After installing the septic tank, the first project on the Aspen property was to construct a building meant to serve as a future studio. Soldner then added an A-frame unit as living quarters. Later, he converted the former manufacturing area into a living room dramatically structured around skylights and cast-cement beams. The principle that architecture should improve with age directed his designs. To that end he used rocks and wood native to the area. The Soldner compound was one of the first in the area to acknowledge environmental concerns by using the sun’s energy with solar power for heating.

Excerpt from “Soldner: A Life in Art” by Elaine Levin, in Solder: A Retrospective, 1991.