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INTRODUCTION

Architecture is "frozen music"… Really there is something in this;

the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of
music."
Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe

No doubt, that the branches of arts are unified in one connected chain. Each branch is
affected by the others, thus the branches of music and architecture. Words & sentences of art
are similar as regards harmonic elements, unity & rhythm.There has been a tremendous
development in architectural concepts. In the past, we had obtained a complete symphony
through the architectural works. Presently, we invent flexible, dynamic architectural models by
integrating music wave frequencies using computer simulation programs or by de-constructing
forms into free separate pixels.

Architecture as a Translation of Music, describes quite eloquently the idea which this project
is centered around that the arts are not separate, and that music can provide a new sense of
thinking about architecture.Many have postulated and theorized about the relationships
which connect music and architecture.

Similarly, in both fields, we shall find an amazing symmetry between their elements. In the
past, the architectural work was considered as a huge existence containing many signs and
meanings. If we stress upon the architectural forms and their outlines of plans and elevations,
we will find by chance that these forms represent a beautiful portrait of art, which provides
the same feelings when we listen to an enjoyable music symphony.This study intends to
achieve a better understanding of the Relationship between music and architecture.

1.1 RESEARCH OVERVIEW

First of all, let us explain that the art of music shows an

interaction between the taste and sensitive affections of both
the composer and the listener. Therefore, music can be defined

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as: an emotion case affecting one person who uses his talent
to translate it to a musical art. The success of this work
whether that emotion case will convey the listener or not…

Art of music consists of:

A- Composer: is a person who produces a valuable work as

specified by his sense, type of dominating emotion and his
natural talent.

B- Listener: is a person who listens to the musical work and

receives the composer’s message. Each listener has a
different aural sense, thus the sound tone, its purity, its
instrument type and the musical hall…etc.

C- Musical work: is a sonic existence that comes out through

a single instrument or more. It contains melodies and wave
frequencies carrying the composer's sentimental feelings.

This work contains a mixture relating to rhythm, harmony,

unity and variety. The successful work depends on simplicity,
true expression, sonic purity, quality of instruments and
creation of charming melodies and freedom from boring &
repeating rhythms.

The comparison between architecture & music will reveal that,

the architectural design process has the same components &
elements, which are consisting of:

A-Designer B-User C- Architectural work

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If we recognize the literal meaning of architecture, we will
find that, the same emotion case –as in music- affect a
person who uses his talents to translate this emotion
producing sketches or creating 3D models.The success of the
architectural works depends on many factors including Depth of
study, Full analysis, Cultural grade and reaching top
aesthetics of formation through designer’s ability of
creation & innovation.

The architectural work is similar to the musical work as both

contain the same mixture of rhythm, unity, variety and
harmony. If we watch the outlines of the successful high
formative architecture from the outside view, we will find
high artistic value and will be surprised with musical
sentences. Usually, we were obtaining most pure musical
symphonies through the outlines of architecture as follows:
- Arches and colonnades (e.g. Fig.1) will be transformed to music pieces

(Couplet).

- Columns (e.g. Fig. 2) to drums hits or organs of church (e.g.Fig. 3).

- Transparency of glass curtain walls to the most pure voice (e.g.Fig. 4).

- The closed forms to (Opera Soprano tunes).

- The spaces between forms to music pauses.

- The floors and slabs will be changed to musical notes.

Fig1.1: Colonnades
Fig 1.2: Columns

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Figure 1.3: Floors, slabs and curtain walls Fig 1.4: Organs

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Towards the end of the 19th century, Romanticism reached its limits of expression.
Consequently, diverse and experimental music forms began to emerge, which broke away
from the mainstream of Romanticism. These included the impressionism of Debussy and
Ravel, and the surrealism of Erik Satie. The emphasis on irregular rhythms within Stravinski’s
The Riot of Spring caused its first audience to riot in 1913. These followed the experimentation
in scales and rhythms of Bartók. In the performing arts, cabaret songs were intentionally
naturalistic in language, theme while certain of its devices, such as the shadow play, were both
decadent and symbolist in their use of light, colour and evocative suggestion. Simultaneously,
in this period, architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier experimented with new
approaches in composing architecture.

1.3 PURPOSE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE RESEARCH

This study is valuable in that it might contribute and add to the existing body of knowledge
that has drawn out the parallels between architecture and music.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Writer Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe is famous for describing architecture as “frozen music”in
the 19th century. Music and architecture also share similar experiential aspirations.
Architectural historian Sir John Summerson notes in his essay “The vision of J.M.Gandy that
architecture is an art that is “constantly attempting to realize in solid, stable form those effects
which music is able to conjure up in an instant. He goes on to point out that music and
architecture even use a similar vocabulary, specifcally the use of mass, rhythm, texture and
outline to achieve similar effects such as the colossal. It was Pythagoras who discovered that a
vibrating string, stopped at its centre, produced the ‘octave’; at two thirds of its length the
‘fifth’, and at three quarters, the ‘fourth’. From this he developed the series of ratios that result
in the twelve tone scale used in western music today. The ratio between the full length of the

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string and the length stopped, or the ratios between the lengths making different notes have
their direct equivalents in the ratios between the sides of the rectangles that have made up
much of western architecture in the intervening centuries. Numerous aspects of this
relationship between the underlying ratios of music and architecture have been developed
and discussed and in this chapter we shall consider the aspects of rhythm, improvisation and
emotional response in the light of some of these discussions, and the architecture of Palladio,
Le Corbusier, Schindler and Holl.

2.1 FROZEN MUSIC

When starting to investigate the relationship between architecture and music, one is at once
confused with the perception of these two art forms, because architecture is the design of
space, and music is the design of time. Therefore, the interface between architecture and
music needs to be well defined in order to bridge these two art forms.

2.2 RHYTHM

Many architects have developed theories of proportion with which to govern and explain their
work. These have generated in their turn a significant body of critical analysis and comment.
Palladio, like Alberti a century earlier, expounded theories which took up and developed those
first proposed by Vitruvius in the 7th Century BC. These were particularly attractive to the
spirit of the Renaissance. “To the minds of the men of the Renaissance musical consonances
were the audible tests of a universal harmony which had a binding force for all the arts.In the
1930s R M Schindler, developed the ideas of module used by Frank Lloyd Wright in his Usonian
houses.

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 Fig 2.1

Here not only the architectural plans, but also the concrete floor slabs were inscribed with
grids derived from the sizes of the materials to be used. Schindler took this pragmatic idea and
incorporated it into a system of proportion which he described as ‘Reference Frames in Space’.
The appreciation of this relationship between the mathematics of the ratios and proportions
that underlie both music and architecture is of course a purely intellectual exercise.

“The analogy with music simply amounts to the transference of an established convention in
one art to the purposes of another It does not help explain or evaluate the emotional
responses that these media can evoke, which is a factor of how the underlying principles are
used and manipulated to create the final work. Stretto, the musical term for the overlapping of
subjects, and the only strict rule in the formation of fugues, provided Steven Holl with the
basis to explore the relationship beyond this intellectual analogy in his ‘Stretto House’. The

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house is directly inspired by Music for Percussion, Strings and Celesta by Béla Bartók, in which
stretto is used extensively. It is a choice which is particularly apposite as “... the chief feature of
his [Bartók’s] chromatic technique is obedience to the Golden Section in every element.

2.3 IMPROVISATION

In music improvisation is the impromptu or ‘in the moment’ creation and performance of
music as well as spontaneous response to other musicians. It is distinct from untutored or
casual composition, in that it requires discipline and a rigorous understanding of the forms and
rules in order to be suffciently coherent to evoke an emotional response. “improvisation is a
performative (sic) act and depends on instrumental technique, improvisation is a skill. Because
the creation of a work of architecture requires rigorous planning and control of all its
elements, improvisation is not usually associated with it. The usual view is that architecture
cannot be impromptu, it must be planned, detailed and explained thoroughly if all those
involved in its production are to collaborate effectively.

In his BBC Proms lecture in 2002 Daniel Libeskind confirmed that it is diffcult to have
improvisation in architecture – “to have rotating players, to have players interpret. He
suggested, however, that if the spatiality and materiality is open, then the public can “... form
its own operation on the building.This being, perhaps, the closest that architecture can come
to improvisation. Certainly the villas of Palladio, with the proportions of their components
controlled by a strict series of ratios, and their spaces assembled according to harmonic
sequences, must be considered as careful exercises in composition rather than improvisations.

Le Corbusier’s villas too are compositions which follow a set of rules governing their
proportions; Le Modulor. Within these cool, intellectual compositions, however, there are
elements which are freer in form and which play off against, and highlight, the orthogonal
correctness of the remainder. Coming finally to Schindler, Sarnitz observes that as his work
evolved “ the great importance attached to proportion in his early work gradually receded; he
never repeats the complexity of the Lovell Beach House.

This move away from strict adherence to the system of proportion that he himself
developed, to more lyrical or spiritual values, is directly analogous to that of a musician who
has learnt the disciplines of his instrument and the rules of music to the highest level but feels
able to express himself more fully and coherently through improvisation. Schindler, having

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developed and established his competence in his early work, chose to follow this route after
recognising the limitations that a purely intellectual approach can bring to a potentially lyrical
art.

“Most of the buildings which Corbusier and his followers offer us as ‘machines to live in’ ... are
crude ‘contraptions’ to serve a purpose. Mere instruments of production can never serve as a
frame for life.

2.4 EMOTIONAL RESPONSE

The emotional impact of both music and architecture is generated not by the intellectual
understanding and appreciation of the ratios and proportions that govern the relationships of
their parts and overall composition. It is a response produced by the composer or architect or
improviser by manipulating the “material multiplied by sound divided by time and the
“material multiplied by light and divided by space which Holl proposes as the equivalent
formulae for the creation of music and architecture respectively. The power of the piece to
move the listener or viewer is in direct ratio to the skill of the creator. Both music and
architecture are immediate rather than mediate forms of communication. That is they do not
require the intermediation of language. They affect the listener and viewer respectively, of all
backgrounds and languages, directly with no need for translation or interpretation. They also
both have a physical element to their means of communication. “Music can recall the serenity
and grandeur of a seascape; so also, says Violet, [le Duc] can architecture when it has occasion
to give us long, unbroken, horizontal lines. Then he compares the emotional effect of a low
broad crypt with that of a soaring knave; he notes the physical reactions of a man in these two
settings, And both directly affect the emotions and understanding.

“The very same numbers that cause sounds to have that concinnitas [a certain harmony]
pleasing to the ears, can also fill the eyes and mind with wondrous delight. The cool but
powerful emotional response generated by the composed serenity and authority of Palladio’s
villas is not simply the result of the principles of proportion that govern the elements of the

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elevations, but also the extension of these principles to the way that the spaces and volumes
are arranged.

Fig 2.2

“the systematic linking of one room to the other by harmonic proportions was the
fundamental novelty of Palladio’s architecture, At the other end of the architectural scale,
Holl’s fugue in the Stretto House generates a similar response in the viewer to that, which
stretto in music evokes in the listener, namely “excitement, acceleration, fuller realization, a
certain indescribable ecstasy with the sensation of heightened simultaneity.

Another aspect of emotional impact, which may be more mundane but is nevertheless
worthy of consideration, is the cumulative effect of the music and architecture that surrounds
us as distinct from the impact of a particular work. Emily Thompson posits the importance that
advances in sound engineering made to the aural perception of life in the early years of the
century, giving rise to the phenomenon that is sometimes referred to as the ‘soundtrack of our

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life’. The idea of a parallel ‘stage set of our lives’ has been hinted at by author Will Self, “ if
Brutalism is heavy metal, then what was Modernism, Schoenberg's dodecaphony.

Clearly the Little Englander Palladian nostalgia of the Prince of Wales, the Quinlan Terry
partnership, and even Barratt Homes, is of a piece with light classical music: Viennese waltzes,
frozen in red brick.

2.5 HARMONIC RATIOS IN ARCHITECTURE AND MUSIC

In the music sound ratios lead to beauty as well; the ratios that get to

symmetry. Symmetry is sometimes in visual form and sometimes in audio

form; therefore all the arts have one form. That is the form which is

already designed by our heart’s geometry. When we move from number

one, which is the monotheistic point of the word, to the multiplicity, firstly

we face numbers two and three. In architecture we work with optical

frequencies which describe the length, width and height, and once these

three locate in the most succinct form, you feel beauty and these

proportions exist in most of the great works of architecture. It is interesting

that this proportion exists in human body, Birds’ anatomy and trees and all

over the nature at the same divine proportion.

2.6 REPETITION:

2.6.1 UNIFORM REPETITION:

In this kind of rhythm an image is repeated

uniformly and continuously. This rhythm causes a kind of spontaneous

move and reaction and attracts the attention of the audience to itself,

however because of lack of diversity has negative effect as a consequence

as well and becomes tedious and boring after a while.

2.6.2 EVOLUTIONARY REPETITION:

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 In this kind of rhythm an image or a visual

element starts from one position and a particular form and gradually gets to

a new form with some changes in a way that follows a kind of growth and

development along the route of its changes.

2.6.3 WAVELIKE REPETITION:

In this kind of rhythm which is created mainly by

using curved movement of surfaces and lines and takes advantage of a kind

of alternation, is a perfect sample of visual rhythm.

2.7 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MUSIC AND COLOR

Music styles can be related to colors, texture and taste.

For example: sound without melody is white. The melody of speaking is

composed of different ranges of gray. The sound of cymbal is yellow and

Rock Music is green and different colors can be detected in Pop Music.

In Jazz purple and its different ranges can be found widely

3INTERSECTIONS OF MUSIC AND ARCHITECTURE

3.1 ALBERTI, PALLADIO AND THE APPLICATION OF MUSIC IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

Historically music was thought of as a mathematical science. The idea of harmonies sprung
from the process of division. A string that produced a certain tone could be divided along
exact proportions to create a note that would resonate in harmony with the first note, creating
an overlapping of tones that could be considered beautiful both aesthetically and
mathematically. These ideas were developed by the ancient Greeks, but brought into
importance during the Renaissance. It was during this time that architecture was thought of as
an art that needed a mathematical and therefore scientific basis to be considered objectively.

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Palladio often looked to musical proportions as a means to achieve ideal proportions in his
designs. Basic harmonies such as octaves and fifths were applied to room sizing in all three
dimensions, and were also often overlooked to as ornamental guides.

The Palladian practice of applying basic harmonic ideas to basic room proportions is a starting
point with what can be achieved by translating tonal ideas into the practice of architecture.
Renaissance thinkers placed importance on the translation of audible proportions to the visual
arts partly because they viewed musical composition as a mathematical science whereas
architecture was thought of as a liberal art. In an attempt to give architecture a system of
design method, it had to be referenced to a mathematical framework. Leonardo Da Vinci once
said that music and painting are sisters, and both are used to convey harmonies. According to
him, music achieved this through the use of chords and painting through the use of
proportions.

Palladio noted within his illustration ideal proportions for room dimensions and other
architectural devices. The numbers within the ratios are carefully chosen and are the result of
his attempt to fulfill Vitruvian principles. The principle in question has to do with achieving an
ideal design. The artists of the Renaissance believed that it was possible to obtain an absolute
beauty by following the proportional principles found in nature. In the practice of architecture,
this was achieved by allowing specific geometries to define certain forms. These forms then
would act as modules that would define and govern the development of the entire structure.
Palladio even stated that it was possible to achieve a harmonic building through the use of
proportional principles and that it would be possible to explain and evaluate the success of the
building using the terms of musical theory.

Leone Battista Alberti had taken the music scale and noted that musical theory is important to
the practice of architecture because the numbers that are responsible for pleasing harmonies
also evoke delight from man’s eyes and mind. Palladio took this idea and used this harmonic
scale as a proportioning system in his buildings. He focused on the relationship found between
four strings with lengths in a ratio of 6:8:9:12. When these strings were placed under equal
amounts of tension and then vibrated they produced wavelengths of consonant tones, most
importantly an octave, fourth and fifth. These proportions are noted in his plans published in
the Quattro Libri.

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3.2 MUSIC AS INSPIRATION

Daniel Libeskind’s analytical work operates in the field of architecture’s second invariant,
defined by Bruno Zevi as the study of asymmetry and dissonance that is realized in the
conscious application of a design method which results, on one hand, from the illogical chains
produced by liberal associations of the mind and, on the other, from the logic of the
deformation as a singular case of the variation of the composed theme, of the topological
order, of the deconstruction. A direct consequences of this is what is defined as a rarefaction
or dissolution of the architectural sign, which in reality leads to an abstraction that is often
extreme, but also to a closure that architecture shares with all other forms of artistic
expression. 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”,1 in the same cryptic way that
some contemporary scores adopt a system of notes without the staff.

Fig. 3.1. Chamber Works, drawing by Daniel Libeskind [1983]. Image courtesy of Daniel
Libeskind

The title “Chamber Works” in itself evokes a “chamber architecture” in the same way in which
we might speak of “chamber music”, a complete composition in all its parts, realized through
the use of a reduced number of elements, only those absolutely necessary to give body to the
logic of the written text.

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The two series of these drawings, the horizontal and the vertical, form a continuum of graphic
inventions that Kurt W. Foster [Libeskind 1991] defines as “spatial music”, a kaleidoscopic
collection of lines and symbols that represent the same double axial structure of sounds;
melody and/or chords, horizontal and/or vertical structure, regulated by the common principle
of liberal variation (fig. 3.1).

This methodological process, experimented in the pictorial form in “Chamber Works”, is also
applied in the project of the extension of the Berlin Museum with the section dedicated to the
Jewish Museum Department [Libeskind 1992], where even in a constructed architecture the
permanence of a design idea derived from the chance vicinity of apparently heterogeneous
graphical points, is realized. The topological deformation of the six-pointed star in the plan of
the Berlin museum, the figure that generates the idea of the place, is the Star of David,
transformed from a neutral symbol of religious faith into the memory of the holocaust through
the alteration of the traditional geometry.

This star, disjointed and no longer recognizable, becomes the path through the museum (figs.
3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5).

Fig. 3.2. Aerial model of the extension to the Berlin Museum with the Jewish Museum
Department.©SDL. Image courtesy of Studio Daniel Libeskind

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Fig. 3.3. Plan view of the model of the extension to the Berlin Museum with the Jewish
MuseumDepartment. ©SDL. Image courtesy of Studio Daniel Libeskind

Fig. 3.4. Realistic zinc model of the extension to the Berlin Museum with the Jewish Museum
Department. ©SDL. Image courtesy of Studio Daniel Libeskind

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Fig. 3.5. Topological transformation of the Star of David in the plan of Libeskind’s Berlin
Museum with the Jewish Museum Department. Drawing by the author.

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Fig. 3.6. Elevations of the extension to the Berlin Museum with the Jewish Museum
Department.©SDL. Image courtesy of Studio Daniel Libeskind

The dramatic zigzag, cut by oblique beams of light coming from slits in the perimeter walls,
regulates the sequence of the expository sections in the only order possible for this space of
contradictions, revealing the invisible and giving voice to silence (fig. 3.6).

The figurative effect is that of an architecture that, as Libeskind says, is “reduced to a sign of its
absence” [Libeskind 1983]. As an extreme expression of the contemporary work it is pursued
at various levels: the adoption of metallic surfaces for the outside hull that reflect the images
of the surroundings, immaterialize the walled masses which, in contrast, are characterized by
the consistent prevailing of solids over voids;

The definition of the design of the elevations, whose punctuation dots, defined by the same
graphic matrix of the cryptic “Chamber Works” are no longer windows to look out of, but non-

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oriented slits that permit of blades of light to enter like non-articulated screams in the hollows
of the holocaust museum; in the declared reference to the dodecaphonic music presented in
its final expression of an ineluctable reduction to silence, which is physically perceived in
Schönberg’s Moses und Aaron .

The alternation of instrumental and vocal music as the maximum rarefaction of the body of
sound immediately precedes the definitive dying out of the words, no longer sung, but spoken
“o Wort, du Wort.” With these eloquent monosyllables that create the figurative image of the
death of every possible expression, the work, reduced to silence, can not but cease at the
second act.

The non-musical realization of the word as used by Schonberg, would be the respective voice
of the non-architectural symbol as experimented in “Chamber Works” and reiterated in the
Berlin extension, both burdened by numerous symbolic accents, both relative to each
composed construction in itself and involving the destiny of the artistic expression in a more
general sense, as well as in the interpretation of the theme of remembrance.

In this particular case, the architect quite diffusely recounted (see, for instance “Between the
lines” in [Libeskind 1997]) all the reflections and personal studies on the musical work that he
transferred to the project. Therefore, the physical space and sound are in a reciprocal
relationship because the one inspired the other, even if it depends on constitutive laws that
are not easily shown to correspond, with the exception of the particular association of the
deconstructive style with the dissolution of the order introduced by the dodecaphonic music.
This is not so much a generic study of chaos as it is an interpretation of disharmony as a new
order, different from that of the classical order where harmonic laws dominate.

3.3 MUSIC AS IMAGE

Peter Cook is the author of design experiences imbued in ideals that began with the historical
group Archigram.

In the early 1980s he was involved in transferring the graphic form of Ernest Bloch’s concert
for violin into the composition of the plan of an ideal city:

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A simple exercise was the interpretation of a piece of a violin concerto by Ernest Bloch. Not a
piece that I know, but one that looked tempting on paper. The notes become towers, the stave
becomes a street, the supporting markings become walls. Around the time, I had set a series
of short projects for students on idea of “music” as a direct architecture … [Cook 1992].

Fig. 3.7.
Bloch
City
with
towers

arranged on musical staffs. Image courtesy of Peter Cook

The notes on the staff represent the planimetric position of tall cylindrical skyscrapers while
the musical lines are the urban highways of the “great march” [Cook 1985] (figs. 3.7, 3.8). As
support for the melody, the extension of the staff is virtually infinite, and represents the basis
of the fluent character of verbal and sound expression: it provides a road in space and time to
the completion of the musical experience.

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 Fig. 3.8. The
measures of the
concerto by Bloch
that provided the
layout for

Bloch City’s urban

highways are
three parallel
staffs, cut
diagonally by a
fourth that
appears as a link
with some other
place outside this system, which remains open and extensible both in the horizontal direction
for its possible transcription of the whole concert, but also in the vertical, hypothesizing the
representation of the entire polyphonic body of the orchestra.

From the geometric-mathematical point of view, we can see that internally the system is
entirely lacking in continuous solutions, while it tends toward an external left and right limit
with regard to the written beginning and end of the physical space, represented by silence.

The substantial disregard of this project for the natural and, in the final analysis, hypothetical
context, strongly underlines the idea that the musical continuous and the spatial continuous of
architecture both have the same nature, described by the same discrete graphical elements,
by the same punctuation marks, by the same syntactic colouring. This is evident in this case
because the project re-proposes an identical architectural and musical graphic composition,
but it also makes a limit case evident in the correspondence that is obviously realized in the

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common compositional writing in both fields by using the traits that are characteristic of each.

The dividing “bars” of the beats are represented as bridges, rhythmic separations that
acknowledge the units of space and time by establishing a correspondence between the
musical measure – the beat – and the formal urban unit – the neighborhood.

The notes are re-interpreted as towers in a knowing formal transposition: it is in fact possible
to note that this concert piece is full of chords and triplets that constitute the vertical structure
or harmony of the text. In contrast to the continuous horizontal movement of the melody,
even from a figurative point of view, Bloch City’s tall buildings clearly represent the vertical
aspect of harmony; they also reproduce the tall building’s discrete and punctual form and the
notes united in chords.

The symbol of expression repeated on all the accompanying chords (left hand of the script for
the piano, lower staff in the figure) indicates a tenuto sound, meaning that the notes have to
be held for the entire length of its value and also slightly accentuated: this fact highlights a
formal discontinuity in the execution on the piano of a succession of harmonic sounds which is
well expressed in the project of the isolated figures of cylindrical towers whose form, other
than being the same as the notes in their modern representation – no longer quadrangular as
is found with the ancient neum – is, in itself, closed, repelling, concluded; they do not formally
admit any continuity with other geometric figures.

The connecting symbol, superimposed on the staff, is the indication that reunites this
discontinuity, denoting the need to “play” the indicated piece as a whole. The continuous
linear buildings, containing offices and studios that trace the form and the position of the
buildings are therefore syntactically and formally precise.

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3.4 MUSIC AS METHOD

STEVEN HOLL AND THE STRETTO HOUSE

Fig 3.9.

Steven Holl took the investigation of a more complex musical idea that of stretto, as a
departure point for a house built in Texas. This project focused on using both the

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compositional and experiential qualities of a particular piece of music as a means to solve the
architectural problems presented by the site and the client.

Fig 3.10.

The Stretto House, a project by Steven Holl located in Dallas, Texas exemplifies a modern
approach to marrying the ideas of architecture and music. While there is more to the project
than just this aspect the ideas of music played an important part in the development and
implementation of the design. The name of the house comes from the musical term “stretto ”.
“Stretto is most commonly used in the fugue and in this context it refers to the theme of
the piece being repeated and overlapped by different voices. The decision to explore this
musical idea as a mode of design occurs during the initial sketching phase. This phase explored

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some of the vernacular materials of Texan architecture, specifically metal roofs and concrete
blocks. This combined with the need to create shade and producing this via overlapping led to
the exploration of the overlapping that occurs in stretto.

The composition in four movements presents a clear distinction between heavy, discontinuous
percussion elements and the lighter string elements, where sound flows without interruption.

Fig. 3.11.
Bars from
“Music for
String
Instruments,
Percussions
and Celesta” [Bartòk 1937]. Mirrored form. Drawing by the author

Fig 3.12

The building,
made up of four
distinct yet related
parts, represents
the structural
copresence of
alternating heavy
and light elements:
heavy orthogonal
walls, primarily
containing the
service areas, and
light curved metallic roofs connecting them.

Holl narrowed the study of stretto to one particular piece of music, Bela Bartok’s Music for
strings, percussions and Celeste. The feature of this work is the distinct separation between
heavy and light by carefully dividing the percussion and string sections.

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Holl literally took the basic composition of the music and composed his building in the same
way. Bartok’s work is divided into four movements and its most compelling feature is the
aforementioned division of instruments into two models. Holl designed his structure to have
four distinct spatial sections and focused the work on two distinct elements: masonry, which
mimicked the heavy role of the percussion and curved metal, which played the light nature of
the spring section.

The result is an overlapping and intersection of several elements. The curved metal roofs
overlap with the heavy masonry structure, referred to as spatial dams. The different planes of
the building, roof, floor and wall, pull space from each other to continue the overlapping
effect. The materials of the building follow suit, as do the actual design drawings. The
orthogonal plan of the main house drawing stands in contrast to the curvilinear section while
the drawings of the guest house reverse this pattern, mimicking the inversion found in Bartok’s
composition. This project was designed around a cohesive idea that can organize and guide
the experiential qualities of the space.

Holl notes that “the concept that drives a design like the Stretto House disappears completely
in the phenomena of the physical reality and yet intuitively the abundance of the idea may be
felt.

The Stretto House travels the temporal and spatial course: the sliding of the entrances can be
read in the passages created in the walled masses; the architectural thickening of the central
part corresponds to the orchestral thickening/broadening obtained by the gradual entrance of
an ever increasing number of instruments; the central insertion in one of the most intense
movements of the physical image of the harmonic relationships that define the cut of the
windows in the two lateral views, recalls the entrance of the celesta where the tonal passages
are of interest – the “distances” between one note and another – corresponding to the
measure of the geometric relationships that run between the rectangles set in the windows
(fig. 3.13)

25
 Fig. 3.13.
Comparison of
Bartòk’s
specular
composition
and Holl’s
Stretto House.
Drawing by
the author

Formally, the
internal
construction
of the two
works are of
great interest,
because they
are both
proportioned

26
according to the golden ratio (fig.3.14). The study of these harmonic measures runs
throughout the entire oeuvre of Bartòk and is identifiable in “Microcosmos,” an academic
compilation for piano, as well as a particular exercise composed at various levels in “Music for
String Instruments, Percussions and Celesta.”

Fig 3.14

By combining the ideas of music and architecture Holl was able to create an analogue between
the two practices. By treating music as something that has a materiality, one gained from its
instrumentation, he was able to synthesize it with architecture through his use of light and
space. The equation that Holl himself writes to explain this is “material multiplied by sound
and divided by time equals material multiplied by light and divided by space. The key to
success of this lies in the distinction that both architecture and music have a material aspect,
and this common factor allows parallels to be drawn.

3.5 LE CORBUSIER AND THE PHILLIPSS PAVILION

Design uses conoids and hyperbolic paraboloids (saddles such as z = x2

−y2). Architectural ideas had already been used in his piece Metastasis
(“transformations”), composed in 1953-54.

Metastasis, 1953-54

Piece written for 61 orchestral players (46 strings), with each playing a
different part.

Uses multiple glissandi (straight lines) in the music for string and horn
parts. These indicate for the player to begin at a certain pitch and slide
through all the frequencies on the way to a different pitch (could be higher
or lower).

Xenakis realizes that drawing the glissandi in the score can create a special
surface of straight lines, called a ruled surface. This was the inspiration for
his design of the Philips Pavilion.

27
He thought of the glissandi as graphs of straight lines (time on the
horizontal axis, pitch on the vertical), where different slopes correspond to
different “sound spaces.”

The growth of subjective judgment slowly did away with the Renaissance
search for an absolute beauty, but this did not stop the intersection of
musical and architectural ideas.

Fig 3.15

28
Fig 3.16

It did change them, leading to new investigations and ideas. Of particular

importance is the work of Le Corbusier on the Phillips Pavilion.

He investigated both the translation of musical proportions to built form,

but also the use of acoustics and sound to generate and convey a sense of
space. In 1958, Phillips Company, a producer of electronic speakers, hired
Le Corbusier to design and build a pavilion for the Brussels World Fair.

The Phillips Companys goal was to show off the capabilities of their latest
speakers and filled the pavilion with three hundreds of them.

Le Corbusier proposed to give the Phillips Company an electronic poem

with which to showcase their work. He worked with a team of Phillips
engineers and two modern composers: Iannis Xenakis and Edgard Varase.

29
Xenakiss role in the Phillips Pavilion was focused on the exterior shell of
the building.

His task focused on translating the sketches and abstract ideas of Le

Corbusier (mainly dealing with geometry and proportions) into a buildable,
architectural form. The end result, a curved, hyperbolic not only fulfills the
mathematical ideals of Le Corbusier, but also evokes the glissandi of
Xenakiss 1953-1954 composition Metastasis.

3.6 THE OUTER EFFECT

3.6.1 - OPERA HOUSE

Architect: Manfredi Nicoletti Cardiff Opera House, Cardiff, U.K (The

second prize winner of the architectural competition 1994)

Fig3.17:
Main sections
show the
outer effect
of music on
the outlines
of roof surface Same as previous

The architectural ideas of the Italian architect Manfredi Nicoletti are

represented as direct influence of the renowned Italian operas. Therefore,
we can see that effect in the external formation of his projects as the
following example: Sea Wave – Sound Wave, The fluttering hands of a
violinist.

30
This is the idea for the transparent Wave roof which shelters and protects
the City of Music, creating a new covered piazza, a materialization of
music and water. Under the Wave, a new animated cityscape extends the
Cardiff Bay urban fabric: the foyer and terrace restaurants, bar and
exhibition areas on the rooftop of the auditorium and the other facilities
form a variegated sequence of weatherprotected smaller piazzas at
different levels.

Fig 3.18: Interiors reflect

the effect of music on the
design‘s form

Fig 3.19 : 3d
Models represent
harmony of architectural elements due to effect of music

The fascinating social custom of seeing and being seen – a delightful

characteristic of European piazzas and opera houses – is thus revived. The
glass anodized aluminum carapace of the Wave, specially protected to
resist the aggressive maritime environment, will decrease the wear on the
City of Music and any associated maintenance.

Furthermore, it allows for an extremely compact scheme, minimizing the

length of all internal connections and increasing the interior flexibility of
the whole ensemble.

31
3.6.2-MUSIC PROJECT

Frank O. Gehry & Associates, Inc. Experience Music Project, Seattle,

Washington, U.S.A (Completion Date: June 2000)

Although the architectural attitude of Gehry‘s design, the type of this

project led him to present an up normal work incompliance with its spirit.
Then, forms were created in tremindous harmony as an orcestra played by
several instruments. The outer surfaces reflect music symphony played
throurh specific organization of the architectural elements as in musical
note.

Fig 3.20

High formative
architecture
produced by
interaction between
innovation of designer’s mind and musical melodies

The design explained an individual experience for each user by walking

into the museum spaces, listening and learning each instrument seprateley,
watching its historical details. Thus the external shape of every space was
created as a result of instrument type.

The Experience Music Project combines interactive musical experiences

with educational exhibits. Acoustically, the project was extremely complex
due in part to the constantly curving interior surface of Frank Gehry's

32
architecture and to the programmatic requirement of allowing visitors to
freely move between exhibits.

Exhibits were designed to allow visitors to participate in the creative

process of musicmaking—such as learning to play a guitar or being part of
a jam session. Acoustic separation between the galleries and individual
exhibits was needed but such sound isolation had to be achieved without
walls, doors or any other traditional means of acoustical control that would
also create barriers to the flow of visitors.

Drums
Saxophone

Fig 3.21

3.7 LA TOURETTE

Architect: Le Corbusier with Iannis Xenakis Location: Eveux-sur-

Arbresle, France Built: 1953-1956 Client: Reverend Father Courturier /
Dominicans of Lyon

33
 Fig 3.22

Fig 3.23

Mathematician, Architect, and composer; Iannis Xenakis; was an

acquaintance of and collaborator with French architect Le Corbusier.
Xenakis was a major infl uence on Le Corbusier, especially within the

34
realm of mathematics and proportion. In fact, Xenakis helped Corbu
formulate his famous “Modulor,” a proportional system based on the
golden mean. For the design of La Tourette, Le Corbusier faced an
interesting dilemma. Wanting facades that were open with a great deal of
glass, but not having the budget to do so, Corbu turned to Xenakis to aide
in the design of the facades.

Xenakis brought his passion for mathematics and proportion to the table
and came up with a manifestation of these elements, elements he also
manifests in his early musical works. In the design of La Tourette, Xenakis
replaces the idea of rhythm with the idea of density.

Instead of thinking about the spaces between elements, he thinks of zones,

and how densely the zone should be populated with elements. Author Sven
Sterken describes the famous West facade of La Tourette as, “a vertical
polyphony in a triple-layered arrangement, resulting in a detailed poly
rhythmic study of light and shade. Although each layer in the facade -
corresponding to a story - has in itself a fairly simple structure, the
resulting visual composition is of great complexity.

While trying to follow the development of the facade, the eye quickly
starts to travel from story to story and gets lost. This principle - the
stacking of several independent layers of duration whose proportional
relationships may vary throughout the piece - would become the
cornerstone of the complex rhythmical polyphony in many pieces by
Xenakis” (Sterken 27). La Tourette is a prominent example of a
compositional and proportional tie between music and architecture.

35
3.8 ROCK&ROLL HALL OF FAME

Architect: I.M. Pei Location: Cleveland, OH Built: 1995 Client:

Rock&Roll Hall of Fame

Fig
3.24

fig
3.25

Fig 3.26

Architect I.M. Pei could have been considered an unlikely candidate for
the design of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, considering he
admitted to not liking rock and roll music when originally asked to design

36
the museum. Pei was tutored in rock history, and taken on guided tours of
entertainment districts in New Orleans as well as Elvis Presley’s Graceland
Mansion in Memphis. In his own words, the design of the Rock&Roll Hall
of Fame was created “to express the dynamic music it celebrates, and
emblematize the city that introduced the term ‘rock and roll’ in the mid-
1950’s. Simple geometric forms are juxtaposed to combine diverse
functions within a unifi es whole.

Like an explosive musical chord, the sculptural components reverberate

out from the center.” According to Nick Talevski, however, critics of the
design are easy to come by. One critic, who Talevski quotes, is Boston
Globe music critic Jim Sullivan:

“From an aesthetic viewpoint, there’s always lurked the questionable

desire to institutionalize what was never intended to be institutionalized or,
especially, sanitized” . Weather one agrees with the design methodology or
not, music was utilized in Pei’s design process.

His design is a very pragmatic approach which is highly rational in its

formal architectural structure, but does not seek to carry that formality
through to any relationship with music. Only the ideas of general form and
polyphony are discussed by Pei as design motives.

37
4FURTHER RESEARCHES AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1 MUSICAL ANALOGY IN COMPOSING ARCHITECTURE AND ITS RESULTED SPATIAL

EXPERIENCE

Architectural projects impose more extensive limitations and external constraints than any
faced by a composer, and these are magnifed on larger works making the clear and literal
expression of any musical inspiration extremely difficult. Where the purpose of the building
dictates a sequence of movements through it, however, this may be considered analogous to
the movements in a symphony or concerto.

“There has always been a close relationship between music and architecture, in terms of
structure, pattern and aesthetics, even though sound ultimately describes immaterial space.

The composition of the elements of architecture is just as susceptible to formal analysis as a

musical composition. Indeed as Tzonis and Lefevre state,

“The isolation of formal aspects and their independent analysis is necessary”however, if one is
interested in understanding architecture as a coherent system rather than as a haphazard
collection of shapes and details.

However the actuality of architecture as a three dimensional object present in space over an
extended period of time, in contrast to the transient presence of music in both time and space
imposes more extensive limitations and external constraints than any faced by a composer of
music, making the clear and literal expression of any musical inspiration extremely diffcult.

“Contrary to tragedy or music, architecture is seen most frequently in a reversible way. One
can return to the end part of a building and make it read as the beginning; one looks at a
building from right to left and vice versa. The same convention does not apply, however to the
top and bottom parts. They are not accepted as equivalent; their arrangement is not
reversible.

Taxis, or the orderly arrangement of the parts, is the first level of formal organisation to be
considered.

“Taxis divides a building into parts and fits into the resulting partitions the architectural
elements, producing a coherent work. In other words, taxis constrains the placing of the

38
architectural elements that populate a building by establishing successions of logically
organised divisions of space.

This is clearly exemplified in the Usonian houses of Frank Lloyd Wright with their unit system
based on a three dimensional grid derived from the module of the materials to be used. This
not only generates effciency in the use of materials and their placement by the builder, but
also gives the houses themselves a great harmony and coherence.

Wright’s structural vocabulary consists of a three dimensional field of grid lines through which
the solid elements of the building are slid and located, the use of the grid allows what is
implied by the perceived form of the building to be as important as what is explicit. It is this
quality that gives the houses their perceptual richness and meaning.

It could not be said that the taxis of the Usonian houses was inspired by a specific musical
form. Smaller projects, such as individual houses do, however, potentially afford greater
control, and we have seen how Stephen Holl took inspiration from a specific piece of music
and the Stretto form in general in designing the Stretto House.

4.2 SEQUENTIAL MOVEMENT IN MUSIC AND SPATIAL EXPERIENCE

Where the purpose of the building dictates a sequence of movements through it, however,
this may be considered analogous to the movements in a symphony or concerto etc..,
Examples of buildings where an experiential sequence is imposed would be a church, (gate,
precincts, portico, nave, chancel), mosque, (precincts, courtyard, ablutions fountain, narthex,
prayer hall) and concert hall, (precincts, lobby, foyer, auditorium). As progress is made through
the sequence of spaces, attention is gradually directed to the event in prospect, concentrated
and finally brought to a focus on the climax of the altar, mihrab or stage respectively.

Smaller projects, such as individual houses potentially afford greater control. We have seen
how Stephen Holl took inspiration from a specific piece of music and the Stretto form in
general in designing the Stretto House.

Another form that offers relative freedom to the architect is the temporary exhibition pavilion.
At the Philips Pavilion at the World Fair in Brussels in 1958 Le Corbusier conceived a piece of
architectural sculpture to house a son et lumiere. It’s principal designer was the architect and
composer Iannis Xenakis, who had also worked with Corbusier on the projects at Ronchamp
and La Tourette.

39
“The exterior of the Pavilion was based on the parabolic curves that Xenakis had discovered in
mathematics and which he used to structure his early musical works, such as Metastasis; it
was a symphony in swooping steel and concrete, and seeing it today in photographs, it still
looks like the future made flesh.

Whether the musical inspiration can be read directly in the resulting building is uncertain, and
probably not necessary for the appreciation of the architecture. In this case the fact that the
design is based on hyperbolic paraboloids is obvious but the relationship to Xenakis’ music
would be apparent only to those familiar with the composer’s work and the fact that he was
involved with the design.

4.3 NON-WESTERN MUSIC AND ARCHITECTURE

The idea of a parallel between music and architecture does not appear to have been as
extensively considered in relation to non western musical systems and the architecture of the
corresponding cultures.

There are a number of possible reasons for the consideration of the parallels in western
culture.

The belief that proportion is an expression of a universal harmony may be peculiar to western
culture. It may be argued that it is specifically a product of the Renaissance when art and
science were developed in parallel, often by the same people. The architect, exemplifed by
Palladio, Leonardo and, in England, Christopher Wren, was regarded as ‘Uomo Universale’
during the 16th and 17th centuries.

A wealthy Church and powerful States provided patrons for which the expression of the
buildings they produced was of great symbolic significance. In addition there was a pool of
individual patrons who not only had the money to build and a desire to leave a lasting
monument to attest to their status and power, but also had an intelligent interest and
understanding of the contemporary developments in science and the arts and their
consideration as complementary pursuits.

40
Music theory had become formalised, with a standard system of notation by the 14th century,
thus rendering it susceptible to intellectual analysis as well as aesthetic appreciation.

There are also a number of possible reasons why this parallel has not been developed to the
same extent in other cultures.

Architecture may not play as important a role in the other culture. In China, for example,
painting has traditionally been the pre-eminent art form. Music developed an important ritual
function since being advocated by Confucius in the 5th Century BC, whereas architecture was
held subservient to merely human needs or being designed followed the cosmic principles.

Court, monumental and religious architecture may use a more direct form of symbolism which
overwhelms any consideration of a relationship with music. With regard to Indian architecture
Bannister Fletcher observes, “in the East decorative schemes seem generally to have
outweighed all other considerations, and in this would appear to lie the main essential
differences between Historical [Western] and NonHistorical [Non Western]
architecture.although this ‘regionalist’ view has been challenged by contemporary critics such
as Gulsum Baydar Nalbantoglu and Chong Thai Wong.

The music may be less formalised, or so complex as to defy formalisation. It may lack a
standard notation or have several or developing systems, such as the Ome Swarlipi system in
Indian music. This complexity and diversity may militate against a coherent and
comprehensive analysis of the musical forms and a comparative analysis of the relationships
between music and other forms of expression within that culture.

4.4 DANCE MOVEMENTS AND ARCHITECTURE

The most apparent common characteristic of architecture and dance is that they both occupy
and describe three dimensional space; dance transiently and architecture more permanently.
Although the primary purpose of the space occupied by a building is functional, architecture is
also capable of gestures analogous to those made by the human figure and typically used in
dance. The sweeping parabolas of the Philips pavilion by Le Corbusier and Xenakis may easily
be compared with the drama of a dancer’s out flung arm or high kick. The pinnacles of the
Chrysler and Empire State Buildings are expressive architectural gestures rather than

41
functional spaces and are used to complete and extend the forms of the building, increasing
their height and dominance in the skyline. The work of the choreographer and the architect is
to organise the use and expression of the space by the dynamics of human movement and
gesture, and the arrangement of solid and void respectively.

In dance,

“Every movement and every space has its own dynamics. ... In a choreographic work it is the
different choices made by the choreographer concerning space, and the dancers relation to
space, that conveys the dynamics to the audience.Rudolf Laban created a geometrical figure
he called the Icosahedron, which shows the different directions the dancer could reach out for.

In Wright’s Usonian houses,

“[Wright’s structural vocabulary] consists of a three dimensional field of grid lines through
which the solid elements of the building are slid and located, the use of the grid allows what is
implied by the perceived form of the building to be as important as what is explicit. It is this
quality that gives the houses their perceptual richness and meaning,

In both forms it is the degree of control and the skill and sensitivity with which it is exercised
by the choreographer or the architect that determines the ability of the work to evoke an
emotional response in the viewer. This may be the heart-stopping thrill engendered by a
spectacular leap or the primal sensual response to the low horizontal lines that connect
Wright’s houses so strongly to the ground they spring form.

5CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the parallels between architecture and music are best

understood by placing both art forms in their shared cultural and historical

context. During the Modernist era both embraced the principles of rhythm,

synthesis and performance in different yet intersecting ways, although

architecture did so as a structured discipline rather than purely an aesthetic

or entertaining art form. What both art forms share is the importance of

42
building and music being accessible to a wide audience and providing an

affordable service and entertainment to cultures which at the time still

epitomised and strove towards the Utopian ideal.

This research has pointed out some possible parallels between music and architect.
Learning about their similarities would be a useful way of expanding the design rep ort. The
occupant has a new role in the building becomes an active participant with the ability to affect
change to the sound of the building.

This study has confirmed the notion that architecture can become more experientially
enriched by studying the perspective music has on the common aspects the two shared.

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