Detail of Wavesurfer 1.8.5
Fragment of Wavesurfer 1.8.5 visualizing most prominent frequencies on the sound recordings and below my abstraction based on rectangles and lines.
Project description
“An architect needs to understand music in order to make architecture.”
Vitruvius 25BC
Music and architecture are often seen as equal arts and therefore been compared and related with each other through centuries. Architecture can be seen as a performance to the public world with the architect as the composer, it is the art of design in space, while music is the art of sound in time. Both music notations and architectural drawings describe a work that is yet to be performed and in both cases notations and drawings vanish when being realized. In this project, different sound recordings have been translated into analytical mappings that retraced the origins and effects of sound and space.
Working method:
Sounds_1 > Notations
Notations > Sounds_2
Notations > Space
Space > Sounds_3
During the spring of 2006 I recorded sounds with a digital photo camera in different urban spaces within a part of the city Kaliningrad (former Koenigsberg). This is a Russian exclave within the European borders. The research location is a stretched lake which is dividing an area within the old city centre in two parts with four bridges. On these bridges I made a 24h sound recording session at points which are parallel and perpendicular to these bridges. To visualize the sounds into a traditional notation based on pitch versus time, I used basic music software program Wavesurfer.
After several experiments of setting out the most evident characteristics of sound such as pitch, time, duration and range in space, I developed notations which could be seen as visualizations of spatial qualities in different scale levels. The research resulted in a design proposal for a sound museum in where the experience of sound is exposed as art. It is a soundboard of reality, containing the inevitability of change and (only) understandable by listening.
Developing the building has been a result of interpretation combined with various translations of the obtained notations. The shape of the museum consists of 37 intersecting boxes which are “floating” on various heights and angles in the location. Goal of this is to disorient the visitors and to strengthen the awareness of the senses. The spaces in between these intersecting boxes becomes a filter, it opens up so it can be used to go from one space to the other.
The museum consists of 5 larger spaces as exhibition spaces (sound boards) and 3 main complex parts as transition spaces (‘Symphonies’). Sound boards are spaces in where sounds are produced by everyday life, such as weather conditions and time. People have little influence on the sounds which are exposed. Transition spaces are sequences of spaces with a same materialization and functions as a connection between the different soundboards. People have more influence on the sounds because they produce the sounds themselves.
All different spaces have spatial and sonical relations with one and other and all fragments of the building have to be experienced as a whole. Each individual gets a unique experience and this will give the inhabitants of Kaliningrad a whole different perception of reality. This project is a ‘pioneering’ attempt to understand the significance of sound for architecture and urbanism.
Rudi Nieveen, Jan. 2008
Vitruvius 25BC
Music and architecture are often seen as equal arts and therefore been compared and related with each other through centuries. Architecture can be seen as a performance to the public world with the architect as the composer, it is the art of design in space, while music is the art of sound in time. Both music notations and architectural drawings describe a work that is yet to be performed and in both cases notations and drawings vanish when being realized. In this project, different sound recordings have been translated into analytical mappings that retraced the origins and effects of sound and space.
Working method:
Sounds_1 > Notations
Notations > Sounds_2
Notations > Space
Space > Sounds_3
During the spring of 2006 I recorded sounds with a digital photo camera in different urban spaces within a part of the city Kaliningrad (former Koenigsberg). This is a Russian exclave within the European borders. The research location is a stretched lake which is dividing an area within the old city centre in two parts with four bridges. On these bridges I made a 24h sound recording session at points which are parallel and perpendicular to these bridges. To visualize the sounds into a traditional notation based on pitch versus time, I used basic music software program Wavesurfer.
After several experiments of setting out the most evident characteristics of sound such as pitch, time, duration and range in space, I developed notations which could be seen as visualizations of spatial qualities in different scale levels. The research resulted in a design proposal for a sound museum in where the experience of sound is exposed as art. It is a soundboard of reality, containing the inevitability of change and (only) understandable by listening.
Developing the building has been a result of interpretation combined with various translations of the obtained notations. The shape of the museum consists of 37 intersecting boxes which are “floating” on various heights and angles in the location. Goal of this is to disorient the visitors and to strengthen the awareness of the senses. The spaces in between these intersecting boxes becomes a filter, it opens up so it can be used to go from one space to the other.
The museum consists of 5 larger spaces as exhibition spaces (sound boards) and 3 main complex parts as transition spaces (‘Symphonies’). Sound boards are spaces in where sounds are produced by everyday life, such as weather conditions and time. People have little influence on the sounds which are exposed. Transition spaces are sequences of spaces with a same materialization and functions as a connection between the different soundboards. People have more influence on the sounds because they produce the sounds themselves.
All different spaces have spatial and sonical relations with one and other and all fragments of the building have to be experienced as a whole. Each individual gets a unique experience and this will give the inhabitants of Kaliningrad a whole different perception of reality. This project is a ‘pioneering’ attempt to understand the significance of sound for architecture and urbanism.
Rudi Nieveen, Jan. 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
