Music & Architecture
Hear & See
Published: 2/10/2021
By: Bill Watters
Rhythm, texture, harmony, proportion, dynamics, and articulation. All words used to describe music. And also all words used to describe architecture.
Three examples:
Swiss Sound Box Peter Zumthor Expo 2000
This project is my favorite example of how a concept is taken to its fullest extent. Lighting, clothing, poems, food, music, and structure are all designed to experience environmental harmony.
It was constructed as a labyrinth of stacked timbers (rhythm, texture). Visitors are totally immersed in the composition's structure and sound, which changes as the visitor and musician move about the space. A musician changes their location throughout the space and also their attitude. A certain area within the structure causes the musician to do certain things like move in slow motion, move backward, or change between sounds if they cross a certain threshold. The clothing worn has been designed for this exhibition. The pavilion structure is made of stacked timers and held in place using tension springs to compress the stacks together. No nails or screws are used. When exposed to wind, the stack oscillates with an inherent frequency of 0.65Hz.
Daniel Ott composed sounds based on the time-based dimension of the structure. One hundred fifty-three exhibition days: 153 sounds/23 exhibition weeks: 23 eruptions. He also used numbers from the architectural structure 12 stacks, 3 courts, number beam layers within a stack (4,5,6,8,10 or 11), proportions of the floor plan.
Stretto House Steven Holl Texas 1990
Stretto- a passage, especially at the end of an aria or movement, to be performed in quicker time. Bela Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste was chosen as the house concept. Much like the music, the house has four sections, with the materials playing between heavy (percussion) masonry and light (strings) curvilinear metal.
Material x sound/time = material x light/space
Elbphilharmonie Hamburg Herzog & DeMeuron 2017
Home to the Hamburg Philharmonic, the building was constructed above an old warehouse. What is interesting to me about this building is that there is no mention of music being the concept of this design, even though its for a house of music. Yet when I look at this building, music is all I see. From the old warehouse's rhythmic solid base to the flowing wave of the roof that captures the swells music so often carries. There's a light airiness to the glass facade, but it seems held in place by the rhythm of openings within. Much like a bassline or a beat that provides a constant yet sometimes irregular structure to a piece of music.
Exercise: put on some music, try and visualize the physical manifestation of the sounds you hear.
Context
"Music is liquid architecture; Architecture is frozen music."
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"When I see architecture that moves me, I hear music in my inner ear."
– Frank Lloyd Wright
Thoughts
– Can you feel space when you listen to music?
– Can you see color, material, transparency, or opacity?
– Is there a song that reminds you of a pacific time or place or season?
