ABSTRACT Music and architecture, derivatives of the finest of arts and their constant intersections give us a deeper understanding and meaning of both. But how much do we actually ‘sense’ this? Does it arouse the interest of all our senses or does it just deceive the viewers by adhering to just one?
SYNAESTHETICS OF MUSIC WITH ARCHITECTURE AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE CURRENT ERA Dissertation – DRAFT REPORT
Name: Michael Vivian Ekka Year: 4th Year B. Arch. Section Y Roll No.: A/2408/2011 Date: 15 October 2014 Guide: Ashwani Dutta Coordinator: Dr. Shweta Manchanda
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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LIST OF PLATES/ FIGURES AND TABLES
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION A brief insight into the research topic which explains some basic theories and helps start up a conversation with the reader, grabbing their attention and subtly guiding them along towards a more detailed understanding. It will provide the major stepping stones into the research, providing glimpses of what lays underneath. The various sub-parts help summarize what the research can achieve and how deeply the research can affect design process and thinking. 1.1 INTRODUCTION AND IDENTIFICATION OF TOPIC 1.2 AIMS 1.3 OBJECTIVES 1.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS 1.5 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
2. MUSIC vs ARCHITECTURE This chapter will help explain the basics of the extraordinary connection between music and architecture and will help start a very qualitative and openminded discussion about the connections between these two arts. It will also show how music can be the tool for efficient and effective, yet unique architectural expressions; provided, how and when they come together with each other to create a rare unification. 2.1 BASIC CONNECTIONS 2.2 WHAT IS A LEAP VEHICLE? 2.3 THE SYNTHESIS OF THESE ARTS 2.4 UNDERSTANDING CORRELATIONS
3. CONNECTION WITH THE SENSES The major crux lies in how deeply can music connect with architecture and spatial experience. Music has the penchant to attract and interest the senses and does cause us to feel itself. This unique multi-sensory experience should 1|Page
also be reflected by architecture (quality of spaces to increase stupendously) and what better tool than music to provide the notions. This multi-sensory connection will hence garner a more artistic coalition and help create a deeper meaning for the spaces. 3.1 SYNESTHESIA EXPLAINED 3.2 EVERYDAY EXAMPLES 3.3 EFFECTS 3.4 AFTER-EFFECTS 3.5 WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
4. WHAT IS THE DILEMMA? IS THERE A SOLUTION? This chapter focuses on how architecture, when going mainstream, has lost most of its actual purpose and has become very visually oriented and quite deceptive and troublesome to the other senses. It shows that even the best looking structures are nightmares in terms of spatial experience and daily usage. It will also focus on how a better understanding of music and architecture with synesthesia will help create architecture which has greater emotional, sensual, logical and monumental importance rather than just remaining a visual candy.
5. CASE STUDIES AND ANALOGICAL ANALYSIS This chapter talks about some case studies which portray how synesthetic understanding and musical ideas have been used in the real world and conceptually to be applied successfully on architectural masterpieces. These examples portray how the deepest of feelings can be evoked from these nearperfect renditions of a multi-sensory experience. 5.1 BERLIN JEWISH MUSEUM 5.2 ARCHIMUSIC 5.3 DITHYRAMBALINA 5.4 PHILIPS PAVILION 5.5 INDIAN INFLUENCE AND SCOPE
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6. CODA Back to the roots, the gist of all the inferences derived from the research. This chapter finalizes the research and gives it a decisive conclusion by giving the major observations and their analysis in brief.
7. REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY This section contains all the resources and study material used for basing the research and quantifying, gaining from it. The basic requirement of any good research is a good and exhaustive database and the mentioned resources are a few that have been used to gain insight into the research.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I extend my heartfelt gratitude towards everyone for helping and guiding me towards the successful completion of this dissertation. Firstly, thanks to my guide, Mr. Ashwani Datta, whose patience and understanding guided my research ahead, and his valuable and strict advices always encouraged me to look for more in the process and became the catalysts for this research. I also thank Ms. Czaee Malpani and Mr. Federico Babina, with whom my discussions always lent me a new perspective and helped me narrow down my direction. Their impartial and valuable comments were always most welcome. Also. Thanks should be given to the excellent jobs done by our coordinators, Ms. Jaya Kumar and Ms. Shweta Manchanda, for their unending solutions and guidance on achieving a better understanding of this research. Lastly, thanks to all my friends and colleagues for their undying interest in the research and the long hours they spent with me in informal discussions to broaden my mind and also explain things to me from a layman’s perspective.
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LIST OF FIGURES/PLATES AND TABLES
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TABLE 2.1: THE INFERENCES FROM MUSIC AND ARCHITECTURE
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FIGURE 2.1: CITY LIFE, STEVE REICH
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FIGURE 3.1: THE MATRICES OF THE ARTS
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FIGURE 4.1: THE ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
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FIGURE 4.2: GURGAON SKYLINE
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FIGURE 4.3: RAJOURI GARDEN MALL
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FIGURE 5.1.1:THE BERLIN MUSEUM
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FIGURE 5.1.2: THE INSPIRATIONS
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FIGURE 5.1.3: SKETCHED OUT INTERPRETATIONS
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FIGURE 5.1.4: THE WINDOWS
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FIGURE 5.1.5: INTERNAL SPATIAL ARRANGEMENTS
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FIGURE 5.1.6: SECTIONS AND ELEVATIONS
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FIGURE 5.2.1: THE ARCHIMUSIC EXPERIENCE
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FIGURE 5.2.2: ANALYSIS OF WHITE STRIPES – 7 NATION ARMY
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FIGURE 5.3.1: DITHYRAMBALINA’S – THE MUSIC BOX
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FIGURE 5.3.2: REALIZING CONCEPTS
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FIGURE 5.3.3: ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION OF THE SMALL TOWN
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FIGURE 5.3.4: THE SITE BEFORE
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FIGURE 5.3.5: THE SITE AFTER
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FIGURE 5.4.1: THE PHILIPS PAVILION
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FIGURE 5.4.2: THE PHYSICAL RELATIONS
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FIGURE 5.4.3: EXPERIENCING THE SPACE
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1. INTRODUCTION
Music and architecture are quite intricately connected much like the two sides of the same coin and share those artistic connections which exemplify and complement each other. They share a bond so close, so adventurous, so simplified and yet diverse and unique to each example. Why does there exist this connection between them? What makes them so perceptive of each other? Understanding this metaphysical connection is purely subjective to anyone, and yet we can see it in even the simplest of dwellings to the most towering superstructures. “Architecture is frozen music, music is liquid architecture…” (Von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 1829) In essence, music and architecture are the opposite ends of the spectrum between material and immaterial and to consider the phrase, we have to understand that architecture exceeds building, as music exceeds sound. As music is not a random sound or noise, so should architecture not be just bricks and concrete piled into a structure. It should obviously be more. We stand at the gates of an era that is striving to prove this point. Both these arts stand closest in stirring the deepest of human senses and can effectively guide each other in the quest for artistic zeniths, whose shimmers have been lost in the modern visual hallucinations of technology. This dissertation hence strives to show the achievements of the coalition of these arts in the real world. In today’s times, do these pioneering connections still exist? Or have they been so miscommunicated to create lackluster implementations of a slight so marvelous? This metaphysics is now on the verge of being lost to the growing blindfold of technology on us. Do we really ‘sense’ a building to the fullest? Or just visions and concepts on a well rendered and colorful presentation deceive us to believe that the sheet is truth? “Instead of experiencing our being in the world, we behold it from outside as spectators of images projected on the surface of the retina…” (Pallasmaa, Juhani 2005) In the field of architecture today, the architect is the guide to create brilliant implementations and what should he be guided by? Experience will speak for the experience caused and hence can the senses actually speak for the architecture fully to the viewer? Architecture thrives on the experience it garners; acoustically, visually and maybe olfactorally, and it’s the architect’s responsibility to be able to have his audience, the viewers and the users, indulge with all their 6|Page
senses equally and completely, and not just rely on one. This is where synesthesia steps in, creating inter-sensory connections, and hence, while experiencing space, there is more play in creating a better and richer emotional and dramatic stage.
Music can be used as a highly creative and unique leap vehicle (Young, Bancroft & Sanderson 1993) to establish and work through this rich and delicate relationship between architecture and our senses, not necessarily acoustically, but also visually and spatially. Yes, architecture does sometimes becomes boring, perceptive and constantly, perpetually requires supplements (Rakatansky 2003) and this leap vehicle may become that lost synesthetic connection between architecture and sensory experiences. And desire becomes the drive to achieve this aim.
1.1 RESEARCH QUESTION
HOW DOES MUSIC AND ARCHITECTURE COME TOGETHER TO CREATE SYNESTHESIA AND A HEIGHTENED SPATIAL EXPERIENCE?
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1.2 AIM To understand Synesthesia, its purpose, its effects on the correlation of music and architecture, and how can it be implemented to give an enhanced architectural experience and spatial understanding.
1.3 OBJECTIVES To understand the basics of Synesthesia and its associations with music to create a full and emotional, sensual experience. To understand in – depth, the representation/ correlation of music and architecture in the modern spatial playground. To further use this understanding to find applications of music as a guiding tool for qualitative spatiality. To articulate the ways in which specific emotional experiences can be designed into architectural spaces. To understand the concept of access, pertaining to the experience of the architectural quality in the built environment. To shed light on examples where such use of the above concepts have been applied successfully.
1.4 SCOPE This dissertation will put up a concise database on how music and architecture have come together in the past, present and on concept and would analyze them on the basis of experience and spatial qualities. It will also help in showing how music as a guiding tool can be used to create unique architecture and spaces. The dissertation will also contain discussions with various musicians, architects and other professionals on how they react to the concept of synesthesia and its implication on music and architecture. The end aim would be to highlight the power of this bond between music and architecture and how the designs accomplished through them not only are functional, but create a more enjoyable and emotional space, which helps in further development of individuals, communities and society.
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LIMITATIONS The studies have a limit to the number of opinions that can be generated and used from the discussions initiated. The case studies would be primarily Western due to its application as such, and not Indian, due to its premature form and lack of theoretical material. The research would very opinion based by its nature, and may, at times, lack factual validity. The research could also become vague sometimes due to its huge interconnected and subjective topics and material. Site visits, independent first hand experiences and analysis would not be possible due to geographical limitations.
1.5 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY It helps to give a clear path to the findings, how to arrive at them, why and how are the sources reliable enough and present suitable arguments and answers to the consents/ hypothesis of the research. 1. This study deals with understanding many basics of musical and architectural fusion, its connection to the human senses (synesthesia) and how its expression garners a certain emotional reaction, unique to each individual. 2. This study will also fully identify music and architectural space to have some common basic structure. 3. As music is a carrier of emotions, its structure and implementation will be studied accordingly in lieu with the provided literature. 4. Architectural examples portraying such emotionality with music will be studied (primarily western case studies) and analysis will be made to comprehend their coalition. Both positive and negative aspects will be analyzed. 5. Further, this study will conclude by inferring how this fusion is a good tool to be used while designing spaces which also have a multi-sensory experience and response. 6. As most of the case studies are primarily western, and inference on how good its use can be done in the Indian Classical music scenario and context, would make this study more holistic and universal.
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CHAPTER 2: MUSIC vs ARCHITECTURE
2.1 THE BASIC CONNECTIONS
Everyone knows the fact that music and architecture are closely and intimately associated and beneath this paradox, there is a glimmer of the idea that architecture in is static solidity is quite similar in effects of music which is dynamic and mobile (Waterhouse 1921, p. 323). Before we can say anything about the connection between these two, we should understand their relationship with the other arts as well. And among these five main arts, the only representative ones are painting, literature and sculpture which rely on mimesis or imitation and we should understand that they cover a great deal more than the merely visible or tangible aspects of the world outside ourselves. But architecture has no mimesis and hence we should learn that ‘art’ is not a ‘thing’, but a ‘quality of performance’ and all the arts are thereby distinguishable by thought but not in performance. This means that there should be no literal translation of these arts into one another, but how far can we actually go towards the direction and at what point should we be faced by the fact that there is only a thin edge of poetic flash, where we can work for an wider expanse of analogy, And in music, it is quite clear that, because of a function or a thing done, it can be dissociated with the method of doing. In any case, music and architecture should stand side by side and yet apart because, unlike all the rest, they should be unattached to imitation or representation. And then, when we come to music itself, it should be compounded of an art and a function, the art is there, but what of the function? Due to its feature, the art is the music and is free from function. The contention that music is as expressive of feelings as the emotions with which it is produced, it can be concluded that what the creator desired to convey, music did not imitate, but provoked those feelings. The likenesses and unlike-nesses found in architecture as contrast are in fact quite drastic. With claims that architecture, in whatever style, still tries to mimic what had been done by the ancients, tries to achieve a sort of perfection and uniqueness whose prerogative has been distinctly lost. Architecture, basically, does its business in forms which might be copied from nature, but invented by the architect, which gets disposed under laws and rules of physics and aesthetics. These forms to architecture are the exact equivalent of the tonal combinations, harmonic laws and principles of rhythm which are the mediums of the musician.
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“…for both of them, quantity, quality and measure constitute the basis of form. But architecture works in quiescent forms and exists in external space, while music works in that feeling for tone which is unconditioned by matter and exists in its own qualities and time movements… ” (Hegel 1920)
2.2 THE LEAP VEHICLE
The analogy between these two arts become quite evident in aesthetics. As they both are founded on the same basis – Form, the space – time continuum of each are an eternity, something that is (Higgins 1925). Architecture works on the principle, that man has a supreme gift of creating Form. The length, height, dimensions, volume, prove this analogy further. But, we do not seek the engineering connection between these two arts, rather, an inspirational relationship. The idea of music as the leap vehicle or the drive for guiding architecture and vice versa
TABLE 2.1 The inferences from music and architecture. (Higgins 1925)
gives an insight on how much potential these two have in their respective fields, and if combined, could overshoot the potential barrier easily (Young, Bancroft & Sanderson 1993, p. 39). The idea of a leap vehicle is quite a start for focusing on how music can be used in a better way to create meaningful and emotionally connected spaces with the frame that it is sitting upon. Giving inspirations to each other, correlations between them can create quite favorable expressions and carry the paradoxical connections to heightened reality and practicality.
2.3 THE SYNTHESIS OF THESE ARTS
A lot of emphasis can be laid on how music and architecture are the most easily yet beautifully capable of being used as one to create harmony within human senses. They both have excellent tools like rhythms, beats, decorations etc. which, when effectively used, can be a viable option for creating actual wonders. Researching on them might get too much but can 11 | P a g e
never be enough as it’s not easy to get the perfect proportions of the near excellence mix, and in turn might actually turn up mush, just mush, an amalgamated eccentricity of combinations. What this becomes, is just one fleeting view, one shortly enjoyed moment of a dish served without heart and emotionality (Rakatansky 2003, p. 29). And what we are left are just fleeting intensive, insensitive spaces like an atrium or the outer building skin. Every form of art has a vividness, a life to it, but that experience in most of our architecture around is missing. As a tasteful dish, a building cooked deeply enough, the relations between the ingredients (the tectonic ingredients, the programmatic ingredients, the geometric ingredients, the site and material ingredients) have a chance to draw out the flavors in and of each ingredient and each to the others, to draw out the relations of the bitter and the sweet, the music and the architecture, so you can feel and taste them separately (Rakatansky 2003, p. 30-32). This will always lead to a state of both fluidity and static, but it will always be up to the architect, how well can he cook his dishes, not just yummy in concept, but with enough substance to carry on a lingering feeling of fulfillment. This feeling of contentment, familiarity and intimacy that can be achieved, is a bare minimum that these arts can provide when fused together. How do these arts actually fuse together gives many ways on how this emotional acquaintance with the space can be created as a consequence.
2.4 UNDERSTANDING CORRELATIONS
Though music has always been regarded as ephemeral and transient, it seems quite unrelated to the homogenous, static volumetrics of architecture, but since Goethe’s expression, there has been fundamental fascination that architects have with music and composers with architecture (Wheatley 2008. p. 11). There has always been an amazing symmetry to both these arts, and we can greatly stress upon the chance that these forms in architecture (especially aesthetics, forms of facades) portray an artsy feeling, like the same to an enjoyable musical symphony. The performance of orchestral works in Basilicas, theatres and concert halls with amazing and exhilarating timbre, have compelled a simple admiration to an evocative synthesis of these arts. Acoustic experimentation always provides a unique architectural element for every sort
FIGURE 2.1: CITY LIFE, STEVE REICH
of performance. A good example is Steve Reich’s strong connections with architecture in City Life, and his piece Three Movements contains some really projectionist tic passages, 12 | P a g e
suggesting an almost nocturne, spaced-out and ambience of architecture. Many such symphonic creations project images of an evitable superstructure and the cycle of its construction and destruction. ‘Let him be educated, skilful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens.’ (Marco Pollio Vitruvius) What majorly do these arts have in common in terms of quantifiable commodities? How do they, in term of usage are comparable? A simple table can be derived: MUSIC
ARCHITECTURE
COMPOSER
ARCHITECT
LISTENER
USER
MUSICAL PIECE
ARCHITECTURAL WORK
Simply creating an architectural work is easy (as in today’s penchant for 3D modellings), but like in music, its success depends on the depth of understanding the creator has with his ability of creation and innovation. Many composers have articulated their efforts to resurrect the image of their home, their own city in trying to create pieces reflecting and complementing the dynamic and bold architecture they grew up around. People like Michael Gordon (Gotham), Jennifer Higdon (Cityscape) and Benedict Mason (Lighthouses) portray such exemplary attachments between their music and the morality they have reserved for their city. And to create intimacy with their music, they are performed in spaces which accentuate these feelings and hence bring sound, art and architecture inexorably together (Wheatley 2008, p.13). Music can hence turn the architecture into an instrument itself. This supernatural nature gets a thundering climax as the ephemeral fusion of music with architecture.
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CHAPTER 3: CONNECTION WITH THE SENSES
3.1 SYNESTHESIA EXPLAINED Le Corbusier, one of the most famous architects of the modern era had said that ‘just as musicians have a system of notation, capable of encompassing sound compositions and transmitting them through time and space, which may be trite or beautiful, I have the Modulor, a harmonious measure to the human scale, which could universally be applied to architecture and mechanics throughout the complete process of construction’. And this is when things got way, way exciting as mathematical progressions and the Golden Section started their tread into music and architecture. These progressions formed the basis for many projects derived from proportionality and harmony. This sort of harmony can be best experienced not just visually or spatially, but emotionally too.
This is where a term called SYNESTHESIA would like to budge in. Well, the dictionary says that synesthesia is a neurological condition or phenomenon one experiences in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to an automated, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. I essence, you could stimulate most of your senses in experiencing a stimulus in one way or the other: and art is one of the most striking and perceptive stimuli. Don’t get confused with the research trying to give everyone a disease, just to experience architecture! Here, synesthesia is used basically to understanding that stimuli should be such that it evokes most of your senses combined, not just one of them. It’s just like how we see and feel music and understand the various harmony of progressions being played together in a continuous delicious melody. One of the best examples is Tool’s Lateralus, a song completely based on the Fibonacci sequence and an epoch in music’s history. The noted composer, Debussy, who experimented with tonality and musical symbolism, which in the early 1930s prompted an irrevocable attachment to music and architecture which grew exponentially (Wheatley 2008, p 15-16). Therefore, here, synesthesia basically means assimilating the art as a whole. Architecture greatly requires this sort of participation to make sure the space is experienced as fully as possible, as deeply and as real as possible. Speaking of music itself, what has it in itself that connects to us at so many levels? We always get a sensory blast while listening to the most deepening and brilliant of compositions or songs, to cheer us up, to energize us, to prompt us or may simply inspire us to be musicians ourselves. And this is all due to the phenomena of synesthesia, or commonly, the 14 | P a g e
inter - sensory association of music with the senses, evoking a visual base to the music. Music mixes and plays with our emotions and with synesthesia, it creates impressive effects which some would admire, some would be perplexed, and due to being formed in the subconscious (normal in art), it garners a color hearing or the linkage of music with shapes and colors (Galeyev 2007). Music thus really stirs you up to experience the reality it portrays which becomes the main reason for using it as a synesthetic tool for architecture. All this is very personal to the one experiencing it and may give out arbitrary and unstable characteristics due to the feeling being by some chance being forced (lucid dreams).
3.2 EVERYDAY EXAMPLES Among the most obvious synesthetic associations made is the “pitch - size”, or how a low pitch looks black and opaque while a high pitch is small, thin and acute (Galeyev 2007, p. 285) and happens due to the contiguity of the senses saying and describing the space taken y the music. Another common implication is “pitch - brightness”, low pitches giving a sense of darkness and nocturnes and high pitches being lighter and brighter like dawns, and these again correlate with the “spatial - gravitational” characteristics of music being high, low, heavy, light, short or tall, (Galeyev 2007, p. 285) hence making the sense of music being deceptive to one sense but synesthetic and invitational. "Architecture
is the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world, and this
mediation takes place through the senses." (Pallasmaa, Juhani) Though architecture has always been associated with multi-sensory experiences, in the recent years, this level of experience has declined massively to give way to visual appeasements. There are really good examples of how this has been achieved in architecture, and this has nothing to do with famous buildings by extremely well known architects. Your neighborhood marketplace, the nearby restaurant, the institution you might go to, all have this feeling of completeness and humility associated with them, which in turn give these places a feel of their own. There are ways synesthesia has infused the feeling of spatial and articulated sight – sound interrelations that make us simply imagine a space when listening to music, a space we remember or can build up, or simply something that is physically defected yet perfect for our sensory experience. Hence the ephemeral, abstract nature of music make it essentially possible to perceive it as some kind of movement to a sounding space, and there we can assign it the characteristics of brightness, size and weight, along with depth to create a realm 15 | P a g e
of sensory embellishments (Nazaikinsky 1972). According to Galeyev, in the subjective image of the objective world, the color, its perception and its evaluation are mediated by is, the subject, to a greater degree than the structure of the image (gestalt, as the psychologists say) and this simple yet exotic and whimsical nature helps this perception to escape the logic express.
3.3 EFFECTS AND AFTER-EFFECTS
This is where boundaries blur, this is where the master builder also start becoming a symphony conductor. And this has been evident since the classical times, even the mythical traditions, where Apollo and Amphion were supposed to have built the walls of Thebes and Troy, by charming the stone s to take their proper positions in the walls with their enchanting strains of music (MacGilvray 1992, p. 87). St. Augustine experienced the power of music and art to evoke emotion and attempted to reconcile these sensuous assault on the ear and eye with early Christian faith. There followed attempts to equate the mathematics of music with architecture, involving such things as traditional proportions, rhythm, balance, equality, regularity and harmonic relationships (Augustine, De Musica). The matrices of the arts as proposed by Schelling, who proposed architecture as solidified music, are a rough guidance to how much these two arts have been tried and tested with excellent results, to be worthy pinnacles for each other (MacGilvray 1992, p.88)
FIGURE 3.1 THE MATRICES OF THE ARTS
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At this point, this synesthesia reaches surrealism and architecture presents us images of falsified pretenses of an emulsion of confused understanding and emotion. But is it really architecture if it does not engage the body as a whole (Budarick 2011)? Even Pallasmaa says that the most important acoustic quality of architecture is tranquility, achieved in a great sense by music only. Our current built environment is much too loud to gain an acoustic understanding of the volume of a space and our ears have been blinded by all of the background noise in day to day life. This suggests that while the physical environment may be blinding our ears as we move through space, not all is lost for our sense of hearing. When silence and tranquility are achieved the human ear is still able to locate and define boundaries without reliance on the eye.
3.4 WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Architecture has become solely tranquilized, being based on just the imagery to impress and surrounds itself with publicity in order to gain public opinion and well, we think of it as a genius. This is just an empty egg shell, trying hard to show it can grow into something of sensual value, but fails miserably to do so. Modern architecture has hence become a disillusioned epitaph on the senses and the considerations of context are forgotten, an existence as an inappropriate noun on the narrative of the streetscape (Budarick 2011, p. 5). In the race for dominion on the visual stimuli, the gap between the senses and architecture widens. Where is the influence now? Where is that inherent feature of intimacy we associated with music and architecture so talked about? “The eye is the sense of separation and distance whereas touch is the sense of nearness, intimacy and affection. During overpowering emotional states we tend to close the sense of vision; we close our eyes when caressing our loved ones. Deep shadows and darkness are essential, because they dim the sharpness of vision and invite unconscious peripheral vision and tactile fantasy. Homogenous light paralyzes the vision and imagination in the same way that homogenization eliminates the experience of a place.� (Pallasmaa, Juhani 1994, p. 34)
There is need for the understanding of sensuality and intimacy in architecture. By impeding sight with darkness, one generates an air of mystery; forcing us to use our other sensual modes, especially the sense of touch to observe, interact and experience (Budarick 2011, p. 6). This bias against sensuality with architecture also impacts its relationship with memory. 17 | P a g e
“Memory by no means is static, it is continuously shifting in perspective and in purpose.� (Lambek 1996, p. 242) According to Pallasmaa, memory is a device to renegotiate our senses with the space around us. He believes that architectural experience is a verb. Thus, the main objective becomes using music as a synesthetic tool to create architecture which is highly elusive to emotions and spatial experience, as this will help create those potential spaces and works which would have the necessary amount of rational abstraction and yet be firmly attached to the sensuality of the user.
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CHAPTER 4: WHAT IS THE DILEMMA? IS THERE A SOLUTION?
EXPLAINING THE DILEMMA Most of today’s architecture seems to originate in a single moment and evoke a sense of flattened temporality. This architecture is often hyped by the media, surrounding itself in publicity and manipulating the public opinion, deceiving us into its genius. These pieces of permanence have an air of vanity, omnipotence, and ‘attempt to conquer the foreground instead of creating a supportive background for human activities and perceptions..’ (Pallasmaa, 200 p.80). True to the fact that they might be bold statements to their surroundings, but once visited, they are no more than empty shells, removed from the related social and contextual considerations.
FIGURE 4.1 THE ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM, DISCONNECTED, AMBIGUOUS.
What is the use of technology if it simply can’t provide enough attachment to the spaces we use in our day to day lives? A space a 3C modeler designed somewhere, plonked it out someplace else, whose aesthetics are as same and insignificant as the horde of others right alongside yours; in the spaces we live, we hate them more and more by each passing day due
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to their underconstructivity, shabby finishing; and in those fleeting moments, curse architecture for what it is becoming: a commercial money-pot.
FIGURE 4.2 GURGAON, envisioning disaster…
FIGURE 4.3 WEST GATE MALL, RAJOURI GARDEN
We talk modernity, sustainability, legacy and progress and our own symbols of such (take offices and mall for example) are huge glass chandeliers without proper purpose to the context, no connection to the inner and outer self of the user as a whole… just a space… come… shop or work or do whatever it demands… and leave… no further thought. 20 | P a g e
Architecture as such has been harmed by this undue alienation of the sensuality each and every space commands, corresponds to and deserves. It is high time we dig our heels and fingers out of the modelling screens and listen to the cries of nature on the junk we are trying to impose on it.
This has to be stopped. There is so much disregard against this. But has anything being done to prove otherwise? This beautiful fusion has led us into the world of classic architectural pieces which reverberate with the harmony of a cause completed and ring in with the joy of countless emotions they have gathered over these years, yet, never ceasing to amaze one with their originality and mastery of art. Music being their prime guide, the evolved from lines on a paper to lines on the planet which are unforgettable, memorable and provoke the innermost of our sensuality and emotions.
Apart from being just representations, they have shown to the world the wonders of the arts mingling together to create a rich experiential emulsion. The synesthesia is finally rendered with the space it needs, the experience it craves and the reunion of contemporary architecture with an age-old conceptualization. Each space can be given life by just reacting to the awareness it deserves, and this research’s sole purpose is to show how this has been achieved and can be achieved on a larger scale of emotionality and experience.
These examples can be further analyzed to understand more the organization of spaces, the character of the designer and the influences and inspirations that can be gathered from it
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CHAPTER 5: CASE STUDIES 5.1 DANIEL LIBESKIND – JEWISH MEMORIAL AND MUSEUM EXTENSION, BERLIN, GERMANY
FIGURE 5.1.1 THE BERLIN MUSEUM VIEW
One of the most perfect application of the philosophical effect of musical symphony which translates into actual lines and a design based solely on experience. Being inspired by music since an early age, Libeskind became a poet first and an architect later and it shows in this near perfect rendition of the coalition of music and architecture.
FIGURE 5.1.2 INSPIRATIONS FROM THE STAR OF DAVID AND THE SYMPHONY OF MOSES AND AARON
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The imitation of the symphony to recreate the harrowing experiences of the Jews is clearly visible and the connections the architect makes in this sort of spatiality is unparalleled. Conceptually, Libeskind wanted to express feelings of absence, emptiness, and invisibility – expressions of disappearance of the Jewish Culture. It was the act of using architecture as a means of narrative and emotion providing visitors with an experience of the effects of the Holocaust on both the Jewish culture and the city of Berlin.
FIGURE 5.1.3 INSPIRATIONS FROM THE STAR OF DAVID AND THE SYMPHONY OF MOSES AND AARON
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The project also takes its form from an abstracted Jewish Star of David that is stretched around the site and its context. The form is established through a process of connecting lines between locations of historical events that provide structure for the building resulting in a literal extrusion of those lines into a “zig-zag” building form. The building as such has the features to be called truly synesthetic.
FIGURE 5.1.4 THE WINDOWS… EYES OF THE ANGUISHED SOULS
The realization of the concepts are taken to a wonderful new level of understanding and ingenuity and the thought process reflects on the type of spaces created keeping in mind each and every experience as one moves from space to space. The architectural space gives the voice to the silence, the zig-zag edginess brings out the confusion and harrowed sorrow in a loud thundering crash of spatial organization. The consequential and inevitable reduction to silence in “compositional writing” has been compared to other, more recent musical forms where the paroxysmal crescendo of the sound are contrasted by sudden long pauses, both metaphoric expressions of the contemporary condition. These concepts may be expressed in a slightly cryptic way in a collection of drawings that Libeskind entitled “Chamber Works”, in the same cryptic way that some contemporary scores adopt a system of notes without the staff. 24 | P a g e
FIGURE 5.1.5 INTERNAL SPATIAL ARRANGEMENTS
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FIGURE 5.1.6 SECTIONS AND ELEVATIONS
Having a first-hand experience counts as the sheer scale of the architecture, the way the spaces are laid out, the different areas and sections that have been made so specifically for a purpose, the sharp jagged windows (representative of the anguished souls of the Jewish) and the total anarchy against context (used purposely to highlight the incongruity faced) add up to such an overwhelming experience, you never want to step out of it. “The Jewish Museum is conceived as an emblem in which the Invisible and the Visible are the structural features which have been gathered in this space of Berlin and laid bare in an architecture where the unnamed remains the name which keeps still.� (Libeskind, Daniel)
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5.2 FEDERICO BABINA – ARCHIMUSIC
FIGURE 5.2.1 THE ARCHIMUSIC EXPERIENCE
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Another worthy mention is this artist’s work in representing some of the all-time great songs into architectural cognitions. The idea was taking cue from an intangible item like music, giving shape light and color to music and its performers. An exercise to uninhibited sense and try to listen to architecture and to observe music. Be guided by the sequence of notes to give form and life to architectural forms. These representations are very much subjective of what one thinks and makes out from the musical pieces. It helps you understand more and more about how much architecture is in the music and how much can you take out of it. Making use of the fact that music and architecture are bonded by a cosmic connection, they are both generated by an underlying code, an order revealed by mathematics and geometry. The architecture is hence shaped as walking on the musical staff. The abstraction of spaces produced is quite related to a clear cultural lineage between the two arts. This just says one thing: TRY LISTENING TO ARCHITECTURE… From Babina: “Music and architecture are intimately joined by a cosmic connection. They both are generated by an underlying code, an order revealed by mathematics and geometry. [...] in these images architecture and music share a clear cultural lineage. The color and the different nuances of music shape the forms and volumes. Reading horizontally gives some basic melodic lines, while reading vertically reveals both harmony and dissonance. A building like a harmonic progression following the movement of chords. A spatial progression that is equivalent to the harmonic progression through chords. Generate a rhythm of solids and voids to reproduce the sequences of notes and silences.”
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5.3 SWOON – DITHYRAMBALINA, NEW ORLEANS
FIGURE 5.3.1 THE MUSIC BOX, SWOON
Imagine music, imagine soundscape, and imagine a town doubling up as a giant musical instrument in itself. It is a fantastical series of structures made from reclaimed and recycled materials that work together as a larger – than – life music box, with the house sculptures doubling up as interactive instruments. The Dithyrambalina takes inspiration from New Orleans musical heritage and its unique architecture, both of which can be whimsical and yet relentless in their rhythms.
FIGURE 5.3.2 REALIZING CONCEPTS
A place known for its musical heritage but a dying architectural field, has received its redemption in the form of this ode of coalescence: musical and playable architecture. Many artist collaborated to give a fresh incentive to get the culture of this place to live on, while
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spotlighting how effectively music and architecture come together to create such an astounding mixture of creativity.
FIGURE 5.3.3 AN ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION BY THE ARCHITECT
Musical components are built into walls, floorboards, stairs and the like, allowing visitors to move through the houses and create sounds. More experienced sound artists can fine tune the house-instrument and manipulate theses sounds into more orchestrated music. The shanty town sound lab seems like a dream- with singing walls, heart-beat triggered percussion machine, and organ staircase and weather sensitive oscillators.
FIGURE 5.3.4 BEFORE
FIGURE 5.3.5 AFTER
A city burdened by an increasing number of shanty, ruined and abandoned The open house invites the public for a rare glimpse into this giant living art installation, whose tiny rustic structures look right out of a movie set (Zimmer 2012). 30 | P a g e
5.4 LE CORBUSIER AND IANNIS XANAKIS – PHILIPS PAVILION
FIGURE 5.4.1 THE PHILIPS PAVILION
And whenever there is mention of this synesthetic coalition of music and architecture, two names surface the water constantly: Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis, who took Alexander Scribian’s idea of ‘cosmic vision of all arts’ and went on to develop architecture combining technology and the arts, and in Corbusier’s word, ‘create an integrated experience in sound, space, vision color and structure, a sort of multimedia son et lumiere’. This is all based on a complete research according to the acoustic qualities a form can have, as an extension of contemporary architectural symbols, and mainly the ones of functionalism, to the one of music, cinema and architecture (Dewidar, K Gohary, Farouk Nabeel, Maged and Salama, Hebatallah 2010). The direct super positioning of the hyperbolic external shape, contradicts their own virtues of inside = outside and form follows function, and is a direct deconstruction of traditional architectural language of that era. This is perhaps the only most perfect and rational approach to relate space, music and construction through science. But on the other hand, the internal shape of the pavilion creates rather seamless and flowing organic spaces (Dewidar, K Gohary, Farouk Nabeel, Maged and Salama, Hebatallah 2010).
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FIGURE 5.4.2 PHYSICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN GEOMETRY AND MUSIC
The figure clearly shows how mathematical progressions of musical score (the glissandi of Metastasis) can be turned into spaces that are heavily illustrated in terms of spatial representations and end user experience. It leaves you with an awe hard to forget, harder to let go and even harder to try and replicate. Unique, distinct and definitely passionate‌
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FIGURE 5.4.3 EXPERIENCE OF THE SPACE
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5.6 INDIAN INFLUENCE AND SCOPE India has a rich musical and art culture, but has there been any significance of Indian music on its architecture? A lot of architectural inspiration is claimed to be from religion, art and traditional heritage. In India, art is the major driving force as it has dense roots in history and its implementation has produce many of the finest monuments which till date stand resolute in the intricacy and passion of the artists, showcasing the ideological and aesthetic framework, even if its religious, but the ornate nature does capture the eye rather than the whole, which sequels in a much higher transient level. The music just takes it to another higher level. Being in total touch with the reverence commanded by its inspiration (the gods, goddesses, spirituality, earth and the ethereal nature of the traditions), it does take you away in a whole new world with its hymns, taals, and ragas. But is there an architectural connection to the architecture? Since ancient times in India, there is not. Music has been the supporter of the other arts, but no been a complacent guide. It has rooted itself in worship and praise, but not in vision. The only source to create the rasa (aesthetic delight) has not been used in the physical rendering of this slight. The architecture imposed itself upon the music ad its development through the ages, but was never the other way around. Modern architecture does seem to have a solution, if used wisely and has not been applied yet to the Indian scenario. It might be helpful to take inspiration and come up with a good answer to this missing piece of the puzzle in the whole composition of the ephemeral and eternal beauty of the Indian arts.
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6. CONCLUSION
There are a lot of ways to combine the properties of synesthesia in music and use it as a tool to guide architecture in to creating meaningful and wholly enjoyable spaces. It is the need of the hour to create spaces which are tempering to the senses, to reunite our senses with contemporary architecture. This synesthesia is not just mere curiosity, but a stepping stone, a leap vehicle, a window into the qualia of sensual perception and cognition. (Budarick 2011). Such stimulation of the architectural processes with music and synesthesia will integrate our sensorium with a more plausible explanation for the permanence we design as architects. There is a pandemic of begotten architecture upon our heads, and synesthetic methods of perceptivity can help mediate and harness the potential that lies beyond. Our country itself might not have any such examples of architecture, or of synesthesia in the built environment to speak of in utter respectful terms, but it has a lot of classical music at its art base to effortlessly help in this process, keeping in mind how much depth Indian Culture has, this process of creating synesthetic architecture can be easily comprehended to create stupendously monumental architecture to replace this ingrowing evil of mimicry of modern western architecture. CODA, referring to Locke, for his musings prompt the imagination into the possibility of something more than architecture‌ “A studious blind man who had mightily beat his head about a visible object and made use of the explications of his books and his friends, to understand those names of lights and colors, which often came his way, betrayed one day that he now understood what scarlet signified. Upon which, his friend demanded what scarlet was? The blind man answered it, it was like the sound of a trumpet.â€? (Baron-Cohen & Harrison 1997, pg. 4)
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7. REFERENCES:
7.1 BOOKS 1. Heisnam, Shantanu 2008, Architecture of the Senses, dissertation, viewed 10 July 2014, SPA Library (Architecture) 2. Pallasmaa, Juhani 2005, ‘The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses’, 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons 7.2 WEBSITES 1. Barton, Gem 2012, Coca-Cola's Beatbox Pavilion, http://inhabitat.com/cocacolas-beatbox-pavilion-will-inspire-olympic-visitors-to-move-to-the-beat-oflondon-2012/ 2. Kroll, Andrew, "AD Classics: Jewish Museum, Berlin / Daniel Libeskind" 25 Nov 2010, ArchDaily, Accessed 21 Jul 2014, http://www.archdaily.com/?p=91273 3. Kroll, Andrew, "AD Classics: Berlin Philharmonic / Hans Scharoun" 01 Feb 2011, ArchDaily, Accessed 22 Jul 2014, http://www.archdaily.com/?p=108538 4. Quirk, Vanessa, "ARCHIMUSIC: Illustrations Turn Music into Architecture" 17 Jun 2014, Archdaily, Accessed 15 Jul 2014, http://www.archdaily.com/?p=516973 5. Zimmer, Lori 2012, Swoon's Dithyrambalina is a New Orleans Shanty Town That Doubles as Giant Music Box, http://inhabitat.com/swoonsdithyrambalina-is-a-new-orleans-shanty-town-that-doubles-as-giant-musicbox/
7.3 IMAGES 1. Gina McColl 19 September 2012, Architecture stars align to bring music school to Monash, The Sidney Morning Herald, viewed 10 July 2014, http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/architecture-stars-alignto-bring-music-school-to-monash-20120918-264id.html 2. Sylenius 12 December 2008, Theme of City Life By Reich, Wikimedia Commons, viewed on 12 August 2014. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:City_Life_Theme_Steve_Reich.png 36 | P a g e
3. Young, Gregory, Bancroft, Jerry & Sanderson, Mark 1993, ‘Musi-tecture: Seeking Useful Correlations between Music and Architecture’, Leonardo Music Journal, Volume 3, MIT Press, p. 41 4. Own images from the Berlin Museum. 5. Own analyzed image of the SEVEN NATION ARMY song.
7.4 SECONDARY RESOURCES 1. Rowell, Lewis 1983, Thinking about music: An introduction to the philosophy of music, University of Massachusetts Press, p. 22 2. Schelling, F.W.J. 1989, The philosophy of arts, University of Minnesota Press, p. 163
7.5 JOURNALS 1. Blake, P 1977, Form Follows Fiasco: Why Modern Architecture Hasn’t Worked, Little Brown And Company, Boston, pp. 39-78 2. Budarick, Joshua 2011, Synesthetic architecture: The lost senses of architecture, School of Arts, Architecture and Design, University Of South Australia 3. Capanna, Alessandra 2009, Music and Architecture, A cross between Inspiration and Method, Nexus Network Journal Volume 11 no. 2, Kim William Books, Turin 4. Dewidar, K Gohary, Farouk Nabeel, Maged and Salama, Hebatallah 2010, Mutual Relation role between music and architecture in design, Thesis, Ain Shams Academy Press. 5. Galeyev, B.M. 2007, The nature and Functions of Synesthesia in music, Leonardo, Volume 40 No. 3, MIT Press, pp. 285-288 6. Higgins, L.N. 1925, Music and Architecture, Music and Letters, Volume 66 No. 988, Musical Times publications Ltd., pp. 509 7. Kadinsky, W 1977, Concerning The Spiritual In Art, Translation by M. Sadler, Dover publications, New York, pp. 120-138 8. MacGilvray, Daniel F. 1992, the proper education of musicians and architects, Journal of Architectural Education, Volume 46 No. 2, Taylor &
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Francis ltd. On the behalf of Associate of Collegiate Schools Of Architecture Inc., pp. 87-94 9. Nazaizinsky, I 1972, On the Psychology of musical Perception, Muzyka, Moscow 10. Novak, Marcus 2007, ‘The music of architecture: Computation and Composition’, MIT Press 11. Rakatansky, Mark 2003, The Bitterness And Sweetness Of Architecture, Log No. 1, Anyone Corporation, pp. 27-32 12. Waterhouse, Paul 1921, Music and Architecture, Music and Letters, Volume 2 No. 4, Oxford University Press, pp. 323-331 13. Wheatley, John 2007, The sound of architecture, Tempo, Volume 61 No. 242, Cambridge University Press, pp. 11-19 14. Young, Gregory, Bancroft, Jerry & Sanderson, Mark 1993, ‘Musi-tecture: Seeking Useful Correlations between Music and Architecture’, Leonardo Music Journal, Volume 3, MIT Press, pp. 39-43
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