Stage 5 | Cultural Assemblages: Music as Urban Phenomenon (or Performing Vienna: City of Music)
Stage 5 Design Studio ARC8050 – Semester 1 Elizabeth Baldwin Gray Cultural Assemblages: Music as Urban Phenomenon (or Performing Vienna: City of Music)
*please note that there is no requirement of familiarity with music to take, or indeed be successful in this studio*
Music Diagram of Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste by Elizabeth Baldwin Gray
Semester 1 (ARC8050): Mapping the City of Music; Disrupting the Tourist’s Gaze Henri Lefebvre and “the right to the city”: Sociologist and Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre argues that space itself changes with the advent of modernity: space is “not only produced by the forces and relations of production and property,” but also “a political product, a product of administrative and repressive controls, a product of relations of domination and strategies decided at the summit of the State.” The alienation of space, like that of “everyday life,” is not inevitable, however, but instead can be resisted. “Real alienation can be thought of and determined only in terms of a possible disalienation.” “In Lefebvre’s opinion,” Japhy Wilson explains, “the increasing political significance of the state-led production of space necessitates a form of revolutionary action that is explicitly oriented against the state and toward the subversion of abstract space, based on the contradictions internal to it.” The public performance art that characterised Berlin Dada in the 1910s and 20s, for example, is in this sense a model of the kind of collective appropriation Lefebvre recommends, a form of what he calls “disalienation,” reclaiming the physical space of the city from the political powers that control it and, even if only temporarily, returning that space to its inhabitants. In Berlin, especially, a city worth contrasting with Vienna, Dada aimed at political upheaval. As Hans Richter observed, Berlin Dada had “a very different tone from Dada in Zurich or New York.” “In Berlin they had a real revolution,” defined by “reckless onslaughts” carried out there. Does a city such as Vienna, with its reputation for conservatism, have a potential for such public demonstrations? How can architecture and your conception of space encourage such ‘disalienation’ among its inhabitants and visitors? Situationists and the Dérive: The Situationists of the 1960s encouraged randomised movement throughout the city which was anti-production and anti-consumption. Is such movement through the city possible? 1
Stage 5 | Cultural Assemblages: Music as Urban Phenomenon (or Performing Vienna: City of Music)
Vienna: City of Music “Music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Vienna boasts a rich array of cultural connections to the history of classical music, ranging from Mozart to Schoenberg and beyond. Taking “classical” music to mean, as it is referred to colloquially/generally, as the art music of the Western tradition, as opposed to popular music or Jazz, for example, and something which is composed for multiple instruments or voices. In relation to music, the term “classical,” however, also has another, more precise definition. “Classical” in this sense refers to Western art music of the eighteenth century, as opposed to the Baroque music of the seventeenth century and the Romantic music of the nineteenth century. Still more specifically, this period is sometimes known as the era of Viennese classical music (in German, Wiener Klassik). Vienna in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century was home to a group of composers who have since become known as the First Viennese School: Franz Joseph Haydn (1732- 1809); Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791); Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827); and Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828). A century or so later, new composers in Vienna such as, especially, Gustav Mahler (18601911) and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), reshaped the conventions of classical music. As director of the Vienna Court Opera (1897-1907) and conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic (1898- 1901), as well as through his own acclaimed, innovative compositions, Mahler led the way from Romanticism into early modernism. As the de facto head of what has since become known as the Second Viennese School (c. 1903-1925), Arnold Schoenberg introduced a twelve-tone system which removed the hierarchy of the scalar system and rendered all notes within the spectrum of Western music formally equal. This system, still controversial today, as well as influential, is often described as “atonal”; musicologists specializing in the study of Schoenberg and his circle, however, tend to prefer the more accurate term “pantonal.” By the middle of the eighteenth century, Vienna had become the world capital of classical music, and it arguably still is even now: a claim that our studio will investigate. Many of history’s most famous composers, innovators who shaped the trajectory of Western art music, lived and worked in Vienna; the city’s concert halls, churches, chapels and artistic salons hosted the first performances of pieces now universally recognized as musical masterworks, including, for example, Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro (1786), as well as Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony (1808). Mozart, although born in Salzburg, first arrived in Vienna at the age of five, when he performed one of his first compositions for the monarch at Schönbrunn palace. He was married at St. Stephan’s Cathedral in Vienna in 1782; his original residence, an apartment, now serves as part of the Mozarthaus museum. Beethoven came to Vienna from Bonn in 1787 to study with Mozart, but then had to return to Bonn to help care for his ailing mother; by the time he was able to return, Mozart had passed away, so he studied with “Papa” Haydn instead. Beethoven moved frequently, with evidence suggesting that he resided in at least 60 different locations throughout the city; a selection have since been converted into museums. The historic Theater an der Wein, built on what used to be the banks of the River Wein, hosted the world premieres of Beethoven’s Second, Third, Fifth, and Sixth Symphonies; Beethoven even lived there himself, in rooms within the theatre, while he was composing his opera Fidelio.
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Stage 5 | Cultural Assemblages: Music as Urban Phenomenon (or Performing Vienna: City of Music)
In the nineteenth century, Johan Strauss (1804- 1849) and his son, Johann Strauss the Younger (1825-1899), known as “the Waltz King,” ensured Vienna’s reputation as the epicentre of a new dance, the waltz. Although initially thought to be shocking, given the close embrace it entails between dancers, over the course of the nineteenth century, the waltz, sometimes known as “the Viennese waltz,” became wildly popular worldwide. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Gustav Mahler overcame anti-Semitic prejudice to achieve a lifelong dream: a position as the first Jewish director of the Viennese Court Opera, now known as the Viennese State Opera, and still today among the world’s most highly-regarded opera houses. In keeping with this unique cultural heritage, Vienna remains home still today to one of the most widely-admired, prestigious orchestras in the world: the Vienna Philharmonic, founded in 1842. Johannes Brahms described himself as a “friend and admirer” of the orchestra. Mahler felt himself drawn to it “through the bonds of musical art.” For Richard Strauss, “all praise of the Philharmonic reveals itself as an understatement.” Political, Social, and Gender critique of the traditional City of Music: Since World War II, however, the orchestra has attracted political controversy. In 1997, it became the last of the orchestras of its calibre to appoint a woman, Anna Lelkes, a harpist, to a permanent position as one of its core musicians, responding in part to vociferous protests in the United States. There have also been questions about its willingness to employ ethnic minorities, dating back to older controversies about its treatment of Jewish musicians during the period of National Socialism, as well as its connections to former Nazi officials. Architecture in Vienna and its Connection to Music Is Vienna’s past and present relation to music merely superficial? Is it extrinsic or integral to the city fabric? To ask the question another way, considering the analogy Goethe draws between music and architecture, what is the relationship of Vienna’s unique musical culture to its distinctive built environment: cause, effect, parallel, foil, or epiphenomenon? Was the physical city a backdrop where the greats of Western classic music happened to live and work? Or is there something about the city itself which informed their music? To what extent, if any, did music shape the city? As a starting point, consider the historical sites included in the various musicians’ walks advertised on the official tourist website of the city of Vienna. These walks include composers’ homes, now sometimes converted into museums, and sculptures of famous composers in public parks and squares, as well as performance venues such as churches, chapels, and concert halls. You can find more detailed descriptions of these musicians’ walks here: https://www.wien.info/en/music-stage-shows/city-of-music/musicians-walks-download As you come to learn about the city, as well as its musical culture, consider what Vienna is today, as well as classical music. How have things changed? What is the relation in Vienna between the past and present? Like many tourist destinations, Vienna trades on its past, promoting an image designed to attract visitors. How does this image compare to the reality of music today, including, for example, the nightlife of Vienna’s residents? You might also consider questions of social class and the tension between art and popular music, a distinction which dates back to well before the eighteenth century, and which still exists today.
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Stage 5 | Cultural Assemblages: Music as Urban Phenomenon (or Performing Vienna: City of Music)
Semester 1 Assignment: We will seek to enliven the routes through the city advertised on the tourist website as musicians’ walks with a series of pavilions suitable for performances of contemporary classical music, as part of a proposed week-long music festival. In addition to the performance venues themselves, you will also incorporate paths and public spaces which connect these moments. The first half of the studio will engage in mapping the hidden and visible traces of music culture in Vienna, using the city of Newcastle as a testing ground for the kind of representations of the city you will engage with on our trip to Vienna. In sum, your task is to align a historically-informed sense of music and performance in Vienna with the global contemporary classical music scene as it exists today and as experienced through live performance. Your proposed festival should be designed, not only to draw in visitors from outside Vienna, but also to attract participation from Vienna’s own inhabitants. The festival in this respect should be understood as a means to give the city back to its own residents, in keeping with Henri Lefebvre’s concept of “disalienation.” Public festivals allow long-term residents of a city to reclaim it from forces that seek to control it and redirect its use towards other purposes such as tourism. How can you reach out to the broadest possible demographic, bringing in new audiences for what has become a relatively little-known form of music, “contemporary classical,” more typically limited to a highly-educated, socially-elite coterie? You will design a series of temporary music performance pavilions for a contemporary music festival in a designated area of the city. Existing musicians’ walks will be included and adapted as part of this hypothetical festival. Note that “contemporary music” in this case means contemporary classical music, i.e. Western art music composed after 1945. Semester 2 Assignment (ARC 8052): In semester 2, you will propose a more permanent music hall as part of (or in culmination) of the route studied and re-designed in Semester 1. The permanence of the semester 2 assignment may offer an interesting alternative to the temporary nature of the series of pavilions designed in the previous semester. As with the Stage 6 brief, the idea of a civic building might be questioned, and thought of as a series of decentralised architectural interventions. Unlike in semester one however, these will need to be sufficiently complex and designed to a higher degree of user interaction and spatial sophistication in order to meet the tech requirement. Outputs: • Compare past and present Nolli maps (figure grounds) of Vienna. How has the city centre changed? Focus on the musicians’ pathways through the city and demonstrate the change and growth that has occurred over time. • Map the experience of the paths beyond the 2D. Demonstrate how your pavilions will change this experience. This 3D mapping could be a series of perspectives or axonometrics. • Create unique mapping documentation which focuses on the non-visual, auditory experience of the city. These representations could include sound recordings and videos.
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Stage 5 | Cultural Assemblages: Music as Urban Phenomenon (or Performing Vienna: City of Music)
Urban problems to be considered: • Is it possibly to give the city-centre back to Vienna’s inhabitants? • How can one link the past to the present classical or non-classical music scene? • How can one bring more activity to the musicians’ routes? Theory and the question of method: You will carry out your assignment using a multiplicity of techniques, methods, and approaches. Conceptually, you will be asked to study and learn from the theoretical claims of Henri Lefebvre, the urban interventions of the Situationists, the liberating process of the composer John Cage, and the indeterminist graphic techniques developed by the composer Morton Feldman. Helpful examples of visualising music: http://davidhall.io/visualising-music-graphic-scores/ Assessment Criteria: Thesis (20%) How logically does the brief follow on from the research and studio brief? How coherent is the response to this, from analysis to intervention and from urban strategy to programme? Design development (20%) How rigorously has the urban strategy been tested, analysed, and refined. How resolved is the design? Context (15%) How thoroughly are the various contexts (material, historical, cultural, social, political, environmental, professional) investigated? How critically and creatively has the design approach responded to these contexts? Criticality (15%) How thorough is the research, and precedent analysis? How successfully and originally has this been responded to in order to question existing conditions and propose alternatives? How reflective is the work? Representation (20%) How clearly and appropriately is the range of exploratory drawing/modelling techniques used to investigate and communicate the driving ideas and design proposals across the scales? Studio-specific criterion (10%) How well does the project engage with the studio ethos set out in the brief?
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Stage 5 | Cultural Assemblages: Music as Urban Phenomenon (or Performing Vienna: City of Music)
Coop-Himmelblau Rooftop remodeling Falkestrasse Vienna. Photo Š Gerald Zugmann
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