Stanislaw Hansel
Composer and teacher of music in and around PeterboroughHow Buildings Sing
Music especially created for a particular site ? What would be the point of that ?
This is frequently an initial reaction expressed on a prospective client's face, if not actually articulated to me, when I am approaching the public and corporate sectors. After a few moments' consideration, however, there is a strong hint of recognition that, of all parameters considered when planning a building, sound and music are never mentioned creatively.
We live in a visual age, so I am told - but then we are also persuaded to live in cyber space. The use of telephones, computers, cash registers, mobile phones and any number of digitally induced technology persuades me that we live rather in an aural age brought about by our human need to communicate. Our offices and our public shopping malls teem with the interaction of the human voice with digitally produced sounds. If you are sitting in anoffice now, reading this article, do you have to wait long before you hear some machine - made sound ? Or, being honest, are we all so inured to sound we don't notice it at all ?
Every generation is faced with having to think afresh about what a building is. A building is activity - it is never static but an experience of movement - there can be the long acknowledged movement of the eye over the building's contour; there is the movement of people; there is paraphenalia being moved by people ( shopping trolleys, brief cases containing facts and figures, themselves coming out of movements, if this line of reasoning were to be extended ). There is movement of vehicles up to the bujilding and, quite often, inside ( I am thinking of wheelchairs, both pushed and motorised, prams and even staff on roller skates for speed at some Tesco's superstores ). Perhaps this is what led Le Corbusier to famously conclude that 'a building is a machine for living in'. But movement may be considered to be the manifestation of something less physical, for there is movement in the mental space occupying people's minds. There may be energy stimulated by the creative approach to shopping design or to window displays; on the other hand there may be a more calm movement instilled upon the person; office designers, too, seek to make similar effects upon employees in their work spaces. In any successful public environment there are managers who try to understand the combined mental effects so as to maximise their potential within the context of the building's use.
This interaction of mind space with the physicallyt defined taking place within buildings has helped me to see that the building itself is a manifestation of a spectrum which can now run roughly like this: -
architecture - design - art - music - sound
If a building is a 'machine for living in' it also induces the sounds of life and its attendant technology. By extesnion, sound,when creatively managed, comes into the domaion of the musician. Managers, of course, do make some attempt at controlling sound - we find that music piped through buildings is often there to disguise the noise of hundreds of people shuffling their feet as they amble through. Of course, the use of music taken from their intended venues such as discos, concert halls or cinemas has something to do with image projection in shops - music with a heavy beat to encourage young spenders to think about their self image and music of the 'smooth classic' variety to identify with the middle aged higher earners who, perhpas, need not prove anything but how comfortable they are.
But there is an inherent dissatisfaction with the Muzak approach in the very fact that the sound is brought in from an alien environment. If sound or music is part of the spectrum which combines to create the phenomenon of acrhitecture, it must be part of the very design of the site. Some managements may see a case for a 'thematic' music approach in the manner of a corporate conference or seminar, but this, in itself, does not address the nature of the building itself. Someone may put forward a case for a calm, New Age type of sound trac k to be diffused, perhaps, in doctor's suregeries or hospitals, but this, too, is hardly site specific, for the building's needs are not met.
An appreciation of sound as specific to buildings may be traced at least to Ancient Greece where, according to recently revealed evidence in writings by the Roman Vetruvius, great, empty urns were placed near the actors in ampitheatres to help project their voices. In much later times there is evidence of similar usage of mysterious recesses built into the walls of monasteries and churches. A type of church singing developed, and even organ music, where the very fabric of the building will resonate at times with the music. In recent times the Greek architect turned composer, Iannis Xenakis, used mathematics derived from hyperbolic paraboloid structures in order to design the roof of the Philips pavilion at the 1958 Brussels Exposition; he had previously used the same technique for creating a musical composition and saw architecture and music as essentially the same event. Likewise, Karlheiz Stockhausen played his music to be heard while the public moved around the German pavilion at the 1970 Woprld Trade Fair in Osaka. Also in the sixtees, the American, Schwarz, created music to be heard at different levels while travelling a lift in a tall building. To thisday many composers create music which is inteneded to be site specific in some way.
However, even these directions leave something to be desired when the aim is to create a music which becomes part of the very fabric of the building - in such a way that the building would lose enormously were the music not there.
We need to revisit architectural space if we are to make actual what buildings themselves insinuate:
a) music identification of tensions created by space
b) a changing musical environment, possibly to enhance spaces and their different uses at different times of day or night; a further possibility is the enhancement of the different qualities of daylight brought about by changing weather conditions as well as day or night.
All buildings are structured out of tensions - these are a musical force in themselves. All buildings make subsonic sounds the whole time. The raw materials they are made of come out of the ground - ground, indeed the whole planet, makes a continuous subsonic sound to which scientists are able to listen using sensitive equipment. When viewed as a three dimensional phenomenon, architecture is the embodiment of the very energy which, once the dimension of time is applied to our viewpoin, creates the impulses which we may hear and listen to as music. This is how buildings 'sing'.
For site specific music to work, it must embody in its own structure the same kind of tensions which exist in the building - in other words, it must be an expression of these tensions.
How a composer realises tensions and makes their music identify with those of architectural space is a personal matter. I hope that it is apparent that I would be looking for more from my composer, however, than the creation of mood music, or, as some have called it, New Age 'wallpaper' music.
The music needs to exist as free as possible from a subtext - it needs to be evident in the same way as the building itself is evident - responding to the way the building articulates its own energies in terms of its structure.
Music may treat different parts of a building in different ways. Large buildings create the opportunities for different layers of music to be heard in different malls, different atria and so on. It is essential that each of these music layers may be appreciated not only as a satisfying piece of music in itself but that, in fact, it may become apparent over a period of time that they are made to fit musically with other layers; an even deeper understanding of each layer shoulod be brought about by experiencing the other ones - a little like listening to a great cycle of compositions such as a single composer's symphonies or Wagner's Ring.
Technology exists for this kind of multi channelled sound diffusion through buildings. The music becomes the realisation of the potential the structures environment proposes - at llast a piece of architecture may be experienced more fully. This must be the future of architectural music.
Stanislaw Hansel Feb . 2002
Music especially created for a particular site ? What would be the point of that ?
This is frequently an initial reaction expressed on a prospective client's face, if not actually articulated to me, when I am approaching the public and corporate sectors. After a few moments' consideration, however, there is a strong hint of recognition that, of all parameters considered when planning a building, sound and music are never mentioned creatively.
We live in a visual age, so I am told - but then we are also persuaded to live in cyber space. The use of telephones, computers, cash registers, mobile phones and any number of digitally induced technology persuades me that we live rather in an aural age brought about by our human need to communicate. Our offices and our public shopping malls teem with the interaction of the human voice with digitally produced sounds. If you are sitting in anoffice now, reading this article, do you have to wait long before you hear some machine - made sound ? Or, being honest, are we all so inured to sound we don't notice it at all ?
Every generation is faced with having to think afresh about what a building is. A building is activity - it is never static but an experience of movement - there can be the long acknowledged movement of the eye over the building's contour; there is the movement of people; there is paraphenalia being moved by people ( shopping trolleys, brief cases containing facts and figures, themselves coming out of movements, if this line of reasoning were to be extended ). There is movement of vehicles up to the bujilding and, quite often, inside ( I am thinking of wheelchairs, both pushed and motorised, prams and even staff on roller skates for speed at some Tesco's superstores ). Perhaps this is what led Le Corbusier to famously conclude that 'a building is a machine for living in'. But movement may be considered to be the manifestation of something less physical, for there is movement in the mental space occupying people's minds. There may be energy stimulated by the creative approach to shopping design or to window displays; on the other hand there may be a more calm movement instilled upon the person; office designers, too, seek to make similar effects upon employees in their work spaces. In any successful public environment there are managers who try to understand the combined mental effects so as to maximise their potential within the context of the building's use.
This interaction of mind space with the physicallyt defined taking place within buildings has helped me to see that the building itself is a manifestation of a spectrum which can now run roughly like this: -
architecture - design - art - music - sound
If a building is a 'machine for living in' it also induces the sounds of life and its attendant technology. By extesnion, sound,when creatively managed, comes into the domaion of the musician. Managers, of course, do make some attempt at controlling sound - we find that music piped through buildings is often there to disguise the noise of hundreds of people shuffling their feet as they amble through. Of course, the use of music taken from their intended venues such as discos, concert halls or cinemas has something to do with image projection in shops - music with a heavy beat to encourage young spenders to think about their self image and music of the 'smooth classic' variety to identify with the middle aged higher earners who, perhpas, need not prove anything but how comfortable they are.
But there is an inherent dissatisfaction with the Muzak approach in the very fact that the sound is brought in from an alien environment. If sound or music is part of the spectrum which combines to create the phenomenon of acrhitecture, it must be part of the very design of the site. Some managements may see a case for a 'thematic' music approach in the manner of a corporate conference or seminar, but this, in itself, does not address the nature of the building itself. Someone may put forward a case for a calm, New Age type of sound trac k to be diffused, perhaps, in doctor's suregeries or hospitals, but this, too, is hardly site specific, for the building's needs are not met.
An appreciation of sound as specific to buildings may be traced at least to Ancient Greece where, according to recently revealed evidence in writings by the Roman Vetruvius, great, empty urns were placed near the actors in ampitheatres to help project their voices. In much later times there is evidence of similar usage of mysterious recesses built into the walls of monasteries and churches. A type of church singing developed, and even organ music, where the very fabric of the building will resonate at times with the music. In recent times the Greek architect turned composer, Iannis Xenakis, used mathematics derived from hyperbolic paraboloid structures in order to design the roof of the Philips pavilion at the 1958 Brussels Exposition; he had previously used the same technique for creating a musical composition and saw architecture and music as essentially the same event. Likewise, Karlheiz Stockhausen played his music to be heard while the public moved around the German pavilion at the 1970 Woprld Trade Fair in Osaka. Also in the sixtees, the American, Schwarz, created music to be heard at different levels while travelling a lift in a tall building. To thisday many composers create music which is inteneded to be site specific in some way.
However, even these directions leave something to be desired when the aim is to create a music which becomes part of the very fabric of the building - in such a way that the building would lose enormously were the music not there.
We need to revisit architectural space if we are to make actual what buildings themselves insinuate:
a) music identification of tensions created by space
b) a changing musical environment, possibly to enhance spaces and their different uses at different times of day or night; a further possibility is the enhancement of the different qualities of daylight brought about by changing weather conditions as well as day or night.
All buildings are structured out of tensions - these are a musical force in themselves. All buildings make subsonic sounds the whole time. The raw materials they are made of come out of the ground - ground, indeed the whole planet, makes a continuous subsonic sound to which scientists are able to listen using sensitive equipment. When viewed as a three dimensional phenomenon, architecture is the embodiment of the very energy which, once the dimension of time is applied to our viewpoin, creates the impulses which we may hear and listen to as music. This is how buildings 'sing'.
For site specific music to work, it must embody in its own structure the same kind of tensions which exist in the building - in other words, it must be an expression of these tensions.
How a composer realises tensions and makes their music identify with those of architectural space is a personal matter. I hope that it is apparent that I would be looking for more from my composer, however, than the creation of mood music, or, as some have called it, New Age 'wallpaper' music.
The music needs to exist as free as possible from a subtext - it needs to be evident in the same way as the building itself is evident - responding to the way the building articulates its own energies in terms of its structure.
Music may treat different parts of a building in different ways. Large buildings create the opportunities for different layers of music to be heard in different malls, different atria and so on. It is essential that each of these music layers may be appreciated not only as a satisfying piece of music in itself but that, in fact, it may become apparent over a period of time that they are made to fit musically with other layers; an even deeper understanding of each layer shoulod be brought about by experiencing the other ones - a little like listening to a great cycle of compositions such as a single composer's symphonies or Wagner's Ring.
Technology exists for this kind of multi channelled sound diffusion through buildings. The music becomes the realisation of the potential the structures environment proposes - at llast a piece of architecture may be experienced more fully. This must be the future of architectural music.
Stanislaw Hansel Feb . 2002