Silent Symphonies: How Architecture Shapes Sound

The relationship between music and architecture is a close yet somewhat an ineffable one. They share fundamental principles, ratios, rhythms, expression, both influencing the way which humans interact with the world. Both are warped by economic, political and geographical context and influence the other and ultimately can be timeless pieces of work. 

But what is the intangible presence underpinning the two mediums that connects them so intensely?

Architect Micheal Forsyth, states: “The urge to sing in the shower or to whoop in a tunnel, the ability of even unmusical prople to sing in tune in a reverberant space-these suggest a relationship between music and the acoustics of a hard-surfaced enclosure. From carly times the acoustics of stone buildings have surely influenced the development of Western music, as in Romanesque churches, where the successive notes of plainchant melody reverberate and linger in the lofty enclosure, becoming superimposed to produce the idea of harmony.”

What causes this urge? Is it the space in which we inhabit, our interest in the change of resonance? What causes our own desire to act differently depending on the space in which we dwell?

Perhaps the relationship between music and architecture is simply mathematics. This is brought to light by Forsyth as he goes on: “In the Middle Ages a close relationship that was not only acoustic developed between music and the Gothic cathedral, for both were expressions of the medieval concept of cosmic order. Philosophers theorized that the entire universe is ordered according to whole-number Pythagorean ratios, or musical consonances, and it was in recognition of this theory that the performance of music had particular significance in the medieval church. When Abbot Suger began in 1129 to rebuild his abbey church of St. Denis near Paris, which was to become a seminal building to the Middle Ages, the building itself was proportioned according to these same consonances, in order that the church would stand as a microcosm of the universe.”

So Pythagoras’  sequences and ratios would not only create the sequence of modern western notes we know today (Keys A-G) but also the ratios of architectural proportion. This can be furthermore exampled as the Architectural Review puts: “Since at least the sixth century BC, music and architecture have been intimately joined by a cosmic connection, the idea that they both are generated by an underlying code.”

Fig.1: Temple of Concord, Agrigento, Sicily, 450 BC. This view shows the Pycnostyle in front, and a screen of flutings on the side, because of viewpoint an even faster beat. Pythagorean proportions of column to intercolumniation, front to side, and width to height (roughly 2:1 here) also determine many other relationships of the Greek temple. (Jencks, C. (2013, May 6). Architecture Becomes Music. Architectural Review. https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/architecture-becomes-music)

To me this was astonishing. A building of magnitude constructed before antiquity, which has not only aesthetics in design but also science impacting its ideation.
Today, shape is often defined by human needs, economics and politics. I personally find it beautiful to see such an ancient structure, seemingly basic in design have so much knowledge put to its ideations. Perhaps we can take inspiration from this and begin designing again considering fundamental human values such as music and beauty.

References

Forsyth, M. (1985). Buildings for Music. CUP Archive.

Jencks, C. (2013, May 6). Architecture Becomes Music. Architectural Review. https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/architecture-becomes-music