Music and architecture

project ideas

mf

John Blacking viewed music as "humanly organized sound". Similarly, one might hear architecture as "humanly organized space".

The study of architecture moves beyond the physical structure itself to consider the social spaces, histories, and meanings it defines or enables, activities catalyzed, possibilities opened, or limited. We live in and through architecture, and we live in and through music, usually simultaneously.

We can move here beyond conventional structural homomorphism theories of the social sciences (which would see core cultural meanings and values (including sacredness) multiply expressed in various domains, i.e. in the geometry of buildings, and the structure of musics, perhaps one performed within the other), or attempts to translate one "art" into another (e.g. Goethe's "architecture as frozen music"), or the more creative architectural dimensions of contemporary music (as in Xenakis, or spatial electroacoustic music), to consider music-making and living-in-buildings as both being profoundly social activities.

Just as an architectural space defines resonant frequencies -- acting as a passive filter on sound produced within -- it may be that we can speak also of social-kinetic resonances, social filtering - ways in which the space and its architectural boundaries come to bear upon kinetic and (more generally) social-communicative activity.

Perhaps it is possible to apply proxemics (a field developed by Edward Hall) - how people interact and communicate within humanly-organized space, and the meanings of those spatial interactions, or kinesics (Birdwhistell), or the framing ideas of Erving Goffman (b. in Alberta!). People interact/communicate spatially through sound, whether musical or linguistic, and sonically through space.

fs

Humanly organized spaces as defining communicative and performative interaction, both affording possibilities and constraints for performers and, from a broader perspective, inscribing specific performative spaces in larger landscapes (architectural/urban landscapes, social and political landscapes).

Tentatively, it would seem to me that the relationship between music and architecture could be viewed along three main themes:

1) acoustics (architecture as passively filtering or actively reshaping sound, including a possible question like: to what extent the acoustic qualities of specific places play into the very fabric of performed music and might be even used intentionally by performers?)

2) symbolism (the relationship between cultural meanings encoded or sounded in music and those encoded or shaped in architecture). I agree with Michael that we can go beyond theories of structural homomorphism or analogy. At the same time it seems to me that correspondences between cultural meanings and symbols in music and those in architecture should be addressed, simply because they are likely to be quite prominent (at least in my experience). Of course, there is no need to assume "core" cultural meanings here, but we could rely entirely on insiders' discourse and history.

3) social framing and interaction (music as social activity = architecture as social space, both affording possibilities and constraints for social interaction). I guess this might be the theme where we can investigate Michael's "social-kinetic resonances", the bearing of architectural spaces on the social-communicative-kinetic activity of music makers and participants. I like the idea of expanding this theme beyond the boundaries of one building (or a series of related buildings) onto a study of urban landscapes as well = architectural space defined as building as well as urban geography. This, in my view, may add significantly to the study of the political dimensions of our topic.

A few other ideas I'm having at the moment regard how to elaborate on "architecture" as a metaphor, that is the architecture of music and, also, the architecture of film. Film as a frame, a man-made space that combines the audio and visual “framing” of experience > an architecture of representation and a representation of architecture (in its salience to music making and performance).

keywords/keyphrases

anthropology/sociology of architecture (cf. anthropology of music)

music/sound and/in architecture

sacred/spiritual/Islamic space/sound

music and sacred/spiritual architecture

sacred/spiritual music and architecture

music and Islamic architecture

Islamic music and architecture

sound, architecture, acoustics, architectural acoustics, architectural sociology (socio-architecture? ethno-architecture?), space, movement (kinetics), social interaction, social/cultural geography, visual anthropology, documentary film, Islam, sacred space, sacred architecture, ritual, performance....

articles

Music, acoustics, and architecture, by Leo Beranek

Music and Architecture, by Paul Waterhouse

Learning from architecture: music in the aftermath to postmodernism, by Nikolas Kompridis

Music-Tecture: Seeking Useful Correlations between Music and Architecture

The Reconstruction of the Abbey Church at St-Denis (1231-81): The Interplay of Music and Ceremony with Architecture and Politics, by Anne Walters

Architecture and Music Reunited: A New Reading of Dufay's "Nuper Rosarum Flores" and the Cathedral of Florence, by Marvin Trachtenberg Renaissance Quarterly > Vol. 54, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 740-775

Buddhism and Music, by Ian W. Mabbett, Asian Music > Vol. 25, No. 1/2, 25th Anniversary Double Issue (1993), pp. 9-28

Sounding out the City: Music and the Sensuous Production of Space. by Sara Cohen, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 20/4, 1995, 434-446.

The Poetics of Arab-Islamic Architecture J Tonna - Muqarnas, 1990 - JSTOR

books

Personal Author: Ankerl, Géza. Title: Experimental sociology of architecture : a guide to theory, research, and literature / Guy Ankerl. Publication info: The Hague ; New York : Mouton, c1981.

http://www.jstor.org/view/03186431/ap060036/06a00140/0?frame=frame&userID=8ef42d22@ualberta.ca/01c0a8346a00501d33d85&dpi=3&config=jstor (dismissive review, ironically by a UofA prof!)

Personal Author: Waterson, Roxana. Title: The living house : an anthropology of architecture in South-East Asia / Roxana Waterson. Publication info: Singapore ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1990.

Personal Author: Beranek, Leo Leroy, 1914- Title: Music, acoustics & architecture / by Leo L. Beranek. Publication info: Hunting, N.Y. : R. E. Krieger Pub. Co., 1979, c1962.

Personal Author: Forsyth, Michael. Title: Buildings for music : the architect, the musician, and the listener from the seventeenth century to the present day / by Michael Forsyth. Publication info: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1985.

http://www.jstor.org/view/03852342/ap040053/04a00250/0 (review)

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ250287&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ250287

http://www.papress.com/bookpage.tpl?isbn=1568980124&cart=1118424803349320

Resonance: Essays on the Intersection of Music and Architecture (Paperback) by Mikesch, W. Muecke (Author), Miriam, S. Zach (Author)

The production of public space / edited by Andrew Light and Jonathan M. Smith. Philosophers and geographers have converged on the topic of public space, fascinated and in many ways alarmed by fundamental changes in the way post-industrial societies produce space for public use, and in the way citizens of these same societies perceive and constitute themselves as a public. This volume advances this inquiry, making extensive use of political and social theory, while drawing intimate connections between political principles, social processes, and the commonplaces of our everyday environments.

The production of space / Henri Lefebvre ; translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith.

Rhythmanalysis : space, time and everyday life / Henri Lefebvre ; translated by Stuart Elden and Gerald Moore ; with an introduction by Stuart Elden.

websites

music and architecture

http://www.yale.edu/ism/events/sacredspacesconference.html

http://cmes.hmdc.harvard.edu/node/858

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_architecture

http://home.worldcom.ch/negenter/005_ResSerOnline.html

http://home.worldcom.ch/negenter/014aBaubioE_Tx1.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_byrne_how_architecture_helped_music_evolve.html

http://inhabitat.com/6-examples-of-innovative-architecture-inspired-by-music/

http://www.next.cc/journey/discovery/music-and-architecture#activity:1

islam and architecture

http://www.islamicarchitecture.org/

http://www.archnet.org

courses

http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~tcrnjja/architectureclass.pdf

http://www.architecture.yale.edu/drupal/index.php?q=node/1306