Essay - An Architecture that amplifies the experience of music

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Celine Lavinia Battolla C.Battolla1@uni.brighton.ac.uk University of Brighton BA (Hons) Architecture AD573 Second Year Studio: Architectural History and Theory Karin Jaschke, Tilo Amhoff Architectural Humanities Essay 04/04/2014 An Architecture that amplifies the experience of music: Hans Scharoun’s Philharmonie Words: 2107 [not including title, footnotes, bibliography, captions]

Opening 1963: arrival of the festival audience (Photo: Archiv Berliner Philharmoniker)

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AN ARCHITECTURE THAT AMPLIFIES THE EXPERIENCE OF MUSIC: HANS SCHAROUN’S PHILHARMONIE “Of all the entries, our overwhelming preference is for the one which essentially strives to incorporate the mass from which sound emerges into the middle of the hall (the number of the model escaped me, but it is white, with a gold base) – I know of no existing concert hall which resolves the seating problem in such an ideal way as this design.”1 These were some of conductor Von Karajan’s words written in a letter in favour of Hans Scharoun’s proposal [see fig.1] to Fig 1. The Executive Board of the Society of Friends looking at Hans the jury of a limited competition Scharoun's model (Photo: Archiv der Gesellschaft der Freunde der Berliner Philharmoniker e. V.) that took place in 1956: his building was chosen amongst twelve others to house the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. “Still at the periphery of West Berlin when it opened in 1963, it became part of the new urban centre after the fall of the Berlin Wall”2, and nowadays it still remains the musical heart of the capital. The Berlin Philharmonie comprises two music halls: a main auditorium that can host approximately 2,500 people, and a smaller Chamber music hall that can accommodate up to 1,200 people. The former was designed by Scharoun, while the latter was a design by his pupil Edgar Wisniewski, inspired by some of Scharoun’s sketches drawn years before, and was built only after his death. This essay will focus on the phenomenological aspect of the Philharmonie concert hall, with a particular interest in how it relates to its complex acoustics and spatial layout, thus on how the experience of a concert is amplified in this particular concert hall. Architect Hugo Häring, who was together with Scharoun an exponent of Organic Architecture, affirmed that he firmly believed in the Leistungsform, the operational performance, and that it would “lead to every object receiving and retaining its own essential shape.”3 In his opinion the Philharmonie successfully embodied these principles. Along the same lines Scharoun stated: “Music in the centre- this, from the beginning has been the guiding principle which has shaped the new Philharmonie auditorium”4. 1 2 3

J. Christoph Bürkle, Hans Scharoun, Artemis, 1993 ‘Music and people first’ http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/philharmonie/

Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture Gallery; University of Brighton, pg. 45 4

Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hans Scharoun, architect, 1893-1972: catalogue of an exhibition held 6 November-1 December 1974; Kunsthalle Bern; Zwirner, Wolf (quoting Hans Scharoun)

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Fig 2. Scharoun’s sketch of 1956 (Photo: Archiv Akademie der Künste Berlin)

He placed music, both conceptually and physically, with the orchestra in the visual centre, at the core of his design [see fig.2]: “The most immediate consideration was this: is it mere chance that, whenever people hear improvised music, they immediately gather round in a circle? I set myself the task of translating to the concert hall this quite natural process, whose psychological aspect everyone can understand. The music should also provide the spatial and visual focus.”5

Despite the initial perplexity of the acoustic engineer Lothar Cremer, who worked in close contact with Scharoun, the acoustics turned out excellent, and “the complex perspective shape of the hall produces an ethereal and fantastic atmosphere enhancing concentration on the music.”6 Architect Peter Blundell Jones describes the music hall as follows: “Convex in the character, the tent-like ceiling is very much linked with the acoustics, with the desire to obtain the maximum diffusion of music via the convex surfaces. Here the sound is not reflected from the narrow side of a hall, but rises from the depth and centre, moving towards all sides, descending and spreading evenly among the listeners below. Every effort was taken to transmit the sound waves to the most distant part of the auditorium by the shortest possible route. The diffusion is also served by the refraction of the auditorium walls, and the multi-levelled, heterogeneous arrangement of the ‘vineyard terraces’”7, inspired by the idea of landscape. To this “landscape”, the tent-like structure acts as a “skyscape” where, 12 meters above the platform, ten clouds were suspended, slightly curving downwards. The pyramids that are fitted around the edges of the ceiling and that are packed with material to absorb low frequencies, also ensure an equal diffusion throughout the hall. Large ‘V’ columns were arranged in order to direct the complex spaces onto the main axis of the building. Wisniewski emphasized that the “countermovement between the rising rows of the stalls and the shape of the ceiling as it glides down”8 results in sound waves that “are necessarily diffused in a highly concentrated form to the most distant seats as well”9. As early as 1920 Scharoun had imagined the ideal theatre space as a modern-day symposium where there is “One person opposite another, arranged in circles in sweeping, suspended arcs around soaring crystal pyramids.”10 This idea flourished more than thirty years later in the final seating arrangement that contains 2220 seats that surround, just like in an amphitheater, the orchestra that is not exactly in the centre of the space, but in the visual centre. This arrangement

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J. Christoph Bürkle, Hans Scharoun, Artemis, 1993 (quoting Hans Scharoun, 2 September 1957)

Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture Gallery; University of Brighton, pg. 38 7 Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoun, A Monograph, London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1978, pg.36 8 Rainer Esche, ‘Sounding Space’ http://www2.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/50-years-of-the-philharmonie/acoustic/ date unknown 9 Rainer Esche, ‘Sounding Space’ http://www2.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/50-years-of-the-philharmonie/acoustic/ date unknown 10 ‘Music and People first’ http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/philharmonie/ date unknown

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creates an intimacy that according to Scharoun “ is essential for direct engagement in the musical event, for individual, creative participation…”11 The audience is tied to the action, rather than viewing it as a separate event on the stage. Each ‘terrace’ accommodates approximately 300 people and has its own separate exit to the foyer at its own level, creating a convenient circulation strategy and reducing circulation space in plan to a minimum. [see fig. 3 & 4] “The stunning invention of the valleysection is reciprocated acoustically by the catenary tent of the roof and the many faceted galleries”12 that enable “a direct and co-creative share in the production of music”13. This multifaceting structure, with its inner porousness and permeability of all the audience blocks among each other, forms a harmonic, pleasant space for the beholder – without being overwhelming. The architect’s aforementioned conception of the building, which starts from the event of the concert, suggests that structure is completely suppressed because it can play no part in the composition. The way he deals with details further illuminates Scharoun’s approach: Fig 3 & 4. Plan and Sectional Plan of the Berlin Philharmonie structural articulation was a mere expression of conjunctions and adjacencies and was not conceived of as the directing and control of forces. The architect explains that “Everything here serves to prepare for the experience of music, all spaces are related in dynamic tension to the solemn serenity of the auditorium which in the true sense of the world crowns the building.”14 The visitor is welcomed by “labyrinthine foyer, which lends itself to the ritual of the interval parade, of seeing and being seen”.15 When crossing the threshold of the music hall, everything, from the circulation routes, the landings, the wall planes to the soffits, suggests a sinuous composition of movements and prepares the visitor to a mirroring musical experience: “by 11

J. Christoph Bürkle, Hans Scharoun, Artemis, 1993 (quoting Hans Scharoun, 2 September 1957) Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture Gallery; University of Brighton (quoting Hugo Häring), pg. 45 13 Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoun, A Monograph, London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1978 14 Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hans Scharoun, architect, 1893-1972: catalogue of an exhibition held 6 November-1 December 1974; Kunsthalle Bern; Zwirner, Wolf (quoting Hans Scharoun) 15 Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture Gallery; University of Brighton, pg. 38 12

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slipping cascades of stairs over and under one another in diagonal relationships that begin to challenge one’s sense of order and orientation” Scharoun is able to “encourage a choreography of dynamic relationships among the persons moving within their domains”.16 Häring’s description of the concert hall further engages with the idea of movement: “Indubitably, the dramaturgical succession from the entryway covered by a canopy through the softly illuminated ticket office to the darker narrowing for ticket collection, behind which the foyer opens up, bright and festive of an evening, lively in an urbane and vitalizing way, is a tour de force in terms of the psychology of space. It generates an excited anticipation to which one can ascribe almost erotic qualities. Strolling or hurrying through the foyer and up and down various stairways, galleries, balconies and bridges, a climax is prepared in several stages that culminate upon entering the auditorium.”17 Moreover the atmosphere of the hall is very much influenced by the use of light [see fig. 5], that has an important role to play, especially when it comes to the experiential aspect of the building, where it becomes crucial, as the architect himself states: “Today’s lighting technology is excellent for setting a scene”.18 Overall this building is an outstanding example of how “the challenge for architecture to heighten phenomenal experience”19 was undertaken and successfully overcome: the experience of music is multiplied, expanded, intensified and spread out to reach all the listeners. As pointed out by Architect Matthew Wells, Scharoun was observant, and the tight functionalism of spaces and details shows a keen eye and encyclopaedic knowledge of human activity: “It is said he would often point out small incidents of interest while passing through the Fig 5. The light enhances the surreal aura of the concert hall. streets”.20 It is interesting to see how this scrupulous attention appeared more than twenty years before the Philharmonie, when the building was only the apple in the architect’s eye: Scharoun in fact produced some interesting watercolour drawings between 1939 and 1945, that, unlike his previous ones, swarm with people and are in some way an anticipation of what his future architecture would focus on.

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Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moore, Body, Memory, and Architecture, pg. 66 Gerwin Zohlen, ‘Space- Music- People’ http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/philharmonie/architecture/ date unknown 18 J. Christoph Bürkle, Hans Scharoun, Artemis, 1993 (quoting Hans Scharoun) 19 Steven Holl, Juhanni Pallasmaa and Alberto Pèrez-Gòmez, Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture, Architecture and Urbanism 20 Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture Gallery; University of Brighton, pg. 41 17

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According to the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein “what [the watercolour drawings] deal with are the two things that mattered most to Scharoun at a time in his life when he was utterly deprived of any chance to do anything about them but drawspatial experience and its relation to human activities. As drawings they are bound to fall short but construed properly they are a stunning insight into what could Fig 6. Acoustic model of the concert hall (hence the scale of 1:9) (Archiv have been built in Stuttgart, in Akademie der Künste Berlin) Kassel, in Mannheim and was at last built in the Philharmonie. These are the drawings of an imagination that feeds upon sensations of spatiality and if movement ordered in relation to foci of enormous concentrations, and whose interest in constructional elements ad their figurative disposition in facades (all the things that we can draw, the elements themselves of disegno) is of a secondary order.”21 Therefore it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that the Philharmonie represents revolutionary ideals not only for what concerns the way it totally rejects both rectangular organisation and symmetry with its unorthodox shape but, more importantly, because the architect thought radically within the building: “the conception of the building does not start from an aesthetic formula, but from the event of the concert”.22 In many ways this uncommon shape worked better than most of its rectangular cousins, not only for what concerns the incredible acoustics, that add a layer of intensity to a piece of music already brimming with emotion, but, consequently to this, “the act of music-making and the experiencing of music, both take place in one and the same place. […] Man, space, music- here they are related to each other in a new way”.23 Blundell Jones affirms that “As a visual experience the hall is quite remarkable and photographs give little idea of the strange quality of its shifting planes”24. He continues “After sitting in one place for a while, one feels that one has grasped it, but then one only has to move slightly to be proved quite wrong. Walking around the hall and watching it change its apparent size is a fascinating experience. Just as in a real landscape hills appear much smaller from the middle of a valley than they do when one is standing on them, so the hall seems much smaller when seen from the centre than it does when seen from the edges”.25 The mass of listeners on one hand is broken up by the banks of seats facing in different directions, stressing the individuality of every person in the hall, making them more aware of one another, and on the other hand, with its omnidirectional qualities, sound incorporates it in a unique, 21

Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture Gallery; University of Brighton, pg. 44 22 Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hans Scharoun, architect, 1893-1972: catalogue of an exhibition held 6 November-1 December 1974; Kunsthalle Bern; Zwirner, Wolf (quoting Hans Scharoun) 23 Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hans Scharoun, architect, 1893-1972: catalogue of an exhibition held 6 November-1 December 1974; Kunsthalle Bern; Zwirner, Wolf (quoting Hans Scharoun) 24 Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoun, A Monograph, London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1978, pg. 39 25 Ibid.

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universal experience. It is an example of how “Architecture strengthens the existential experience, one’s sense of being in the world, and this is essentially a strengthened experience of self.”26

Fig 7. The concert becomes a unifying, universal experience.

According to Architect Juhani Pallasmaa “The wide, open spaces of contemporary streets do not return sound, and in the interiors of today’s buildings echoes are absorbed and censored. The programmes recorded music of shopping malls and public spaces eliminates the possibility of grasping the acoustic volume of space. Our ears have been blinded.”27 But with the Philharmonie concert hall an unorthodox approach, characterized by the centrality of the orchestra that would considerably affect the acoustics, was attempted for the first time and the outcome exceeded all expectations: the sound quality resulted to be remarkable to the point that another similar task was undertook with the more recent aforementioned Chamber Music Hall. “[In the Philharmonie] the creation and the experience of music occur in a hall not motivated by formal aesthetics, but whose design was inspired by the very purpose it serves. Man, music and space – here they meet in a new relationship.”28 As affirmed by the great composer and pianist Ludwig Van Beethoven “Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy”29 and, as a matter of fact, the Philharmonie Music Hall engages each and every visitor in a universal experience, thus inciting them to reconsider the limits of their self and their place in the universe. While experiencing a concert in the Philharmonie one is fully taken over by the bliss of music in the most natural and pleasing way possible.

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Juhani Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin, 43. Multi-sensory experience Juhani Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin, 52. Acoustic Intimacy 28 Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoun, A Monograph, London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1978, pg.36 29 http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/569905-music-is-a-higher-revelation-than-all-wisdom-and-philosophy 27

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Bibliography Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moore, Body, Memory, and Architecture, 1977 Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoun, A Monograph, London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1978 J. Christoph Bürkle, Hans Scharoun, Artemis, 1993 Steven Holl, Juhani Pallasmaa, Alberto Pèrez-Gòmez, Questions of Perception Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hans Scharoun, architect, 1893-1972: catalogue of an exhibition held 6 November-1 December 1974 Juhani Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin, 1996 Royal Institute of British Architects, Hans Scharoun: the alternative tradition: ten projects, Matthew Architecture Gallery; University of Brighton Gerwin Zohlen, ‘Space- Music- People’ http://www.berlinerphilharmoniker.de/en/philharmonie/architecture/ date unknown Rainer Esche, ‘Sounding Space’ http://www2.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/50-years-ofthe-philharmonie/acoustic/ date unknown ‘Music and People first’ http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/philharmonie/

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