If you ever listen long enough to an architect sing about
their latest project, it might start to sound like a symphony performed by the ‘built
environment’ philharmonic. But other than making sure the structural engineering
section or the contractor section hit all the right notes, the architect also
has an aesthetic obligation to consider rhythm, harmony or dissonance in the
overall composition.
Here are a few examples of buildings and the sounds they leave
lingering in your brain:
Half way between sound waves and the strings on a cello, the
façade of House No.4 (named like a fugue)
by AZL architects has the dissonant cohesiveness of an orchestra tuning before
a performance.
The garden side of the Raigal House by Marcelo Villafane has
thin pixelated meurtrieres which make
the surface look like it was grazed by crackeling fireworks falling under the cracking
of ratchet noisemakers during Carnival.
Situated in close proximity to a cathedral, the market hall
of Ghent has an imposing somberness with a deep, almost spiritual echo reminiscent
of a Tibetan singing water bowl.
I can’t be sure how people resist running along the walls of
the Nembro Library with a stick. If they did, it would probably sound like
this:
The Emporia building in Malmo, Sweden, was just a standard
rectangular building until someone blew into a didgeridoo right in the middle
of it.
Marseille’s Coeur de
Mediterranee by Jean Paul Viguier has clear references to the maritime town
it is situated in, giving it a hollow metallic drum sound like the hull of a
ship. One would imagine ambulating
around the premises would have the same sound effects as the house in Jacques
Tati’s ‘Mon Oncle’.
Strasbourg’s Printemps department store has a metallic outer
skin that looks like the opening and closing of an accordion, but seems to have
more of a brass wah wah jazz sound, like the first couple bars of New Orleans’
favorite ‘2nd line’.
by Claire Toussaint Abbiyesuku
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