Historical and Systematic Aspects of Acoustic Design in Architecture (HS)

Abstract

Selected texts from the history and theory of architecture are discussed. The focus is on the design principles of exemplary buildings for speech and music and their historical and systematic significance.A visit to the music studio will give you the opportunity to have your own listening experience and emphasize the importance of spatial listening for the perception of architecture.

Objective

The examination of the acoustic architectural design is intended to make the design potential of acoustics clear. The sensitization for the everyday phenomena of the acoustic impression of the room as well as the orientation and localization of sound sources in the room play a prominent role. The knowledge derived from history should provide information about the success and failure of different concepts for buildings for music and speech.

Content

The starting point for the historical consideration of the acoustic architectural design is the imagination of the harmony of the spheres: the Pythagorean-Babylonian cosmos is well-formed by proportions of whole numbers and elementary geometric figures. Mediated by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoa, the four Pythagorean mathemata (astronomy, geometry; music theory, algebra) appear as a medieval training course (quadrivium) in monastery schools and thus also shape Leon Battista Alberti's idea of ​​well-formedness. Does Vitruvius share this Pythagorean world of ideas? Referring to Aristoxenus, Vitruvius uses a theory of harmony for the dimensioning of sound vases in theaters, which makes the audible criterion and thus stands in opposition to the ideality of purely mathematical pitch division through the proportions of whole numbers. Connected with this turn towards the perceptible of the inner world, Vitruvius gives us a whole series of examples of acoustic design of architecture and uses the terms sound wave, sound beam, reflection, resonance and sound coloration. The criticism of the theories of proportion, as produced in large numbers by Vitruvianism of the Renaissance, is essentially done by Claude Perrault, whose work also includes a contribution on sound and noises (Du bruit) and tries to transcend the music theory of Pythagorean origin. The baroque author Athanasius Kircher dealt with the formation of analogies between the eye and the ear in his work “New Hall and Thon Art” and transferred the geometric representation of light rays by Galileo Galilei to sound rays. Based on the echo phenomenon, he succeeded in describing sound reflections, bundling and scattering, which today form the basis of room acoustic simulation programs. The collaboration between Gottfried Semper, Otto Bückwald and Richard Wagner on the development of a festival theater for Wagner's musical dramas has become an example of the acoustic design of architecture. An extraordinary performance space was created in Bayreuth, the diffuse orchestral sound of which contrasts sharply with the distinctness and clarity of the voices. Neither the architects nor Wagner had any room acoustic parameters available for planning; but after the final visual and acoustic votes, the composer and impresario was satisfied. It was only with the experiments of Wallace Clement Sabine, published in the “Collected Papers on Acoustics”, that the reverberation time parameter was formed and used for the new “Boston Symphony Hall” to be built. Sabine has visited and listened to European concert halls in order to find an optimal space for symphonic music. In addition to the structures for music and speech, the “soundscape” of cities and landscapes has recently established itself as a theme of sound ecology. As a follow-up to Murray Schafer's “Tuning of the world”, a number of studies and designs have been carried out that are intended to enable acoustic comfort in all architecturally designed rooms. Up until now, architecture has included building and room acoustics for special structures, but today it is being expanded significantly through electroacoustics. Today, buildings can be simulated and auralized from a 3D plan, not only through ambient and elevator sounds, but also through sound systems that create spatial impression, such as in the cinema. These auxiliary tools have already become indispensable for the acoustic planning of rooms.

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