sound, architecture, and perception
"Architecture is frozen music..."
-Goethe
But is architecture really just frozen music?
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As a trained musician, I process sound in the built environment by drawing upon my earliest experiences of growing up playing clarinet with my family. I learned from an early age to apply a musical lens to architecture and have recently begun to question architecture’s own relationship to the modern soundscape.
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Supported by the 2024 Bob Hull Research Grant, Frozen Music is a
re-examination of the 100-year old trope from a disciplinary perspective. The study explores how architectural soundscapes are active, complex, aleatoric, and constantly evolving.
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I ask of the profession:
To what extent are architects responsible for the soundscapes we create?
Should architects become the author of sounds in the built environment?
How might we begin to spatialize sound?
