As a archaeologist, I am interested in the sub-field of archaeo-acoustics, which has various manifestations. For example, early religions that placed an emphasis on the oral recitation of texts such as Buddhism, usually chose caves for their meeting spaces, which the modified to amplify and broadcast the monks' recitations. Pitalkura in Maharaastra State in the Western Ghats of India is a spectacular example of this. Also the choice of habitation sites the soatial organization of various activities winthin these sites (early settlement planning, in the terms of the architecture profession) may be based on their acoustical properties. For example, the Taut Batu of Palawan Island in the Philippines have lived by preference for 35,000 years inside very large in area, circular, eroded sink holes in the ancient limestone karsts of their coastal mountain environment. Even today, members of this ancient tribal group clearly articulate that this geogical formation is the best location for settlements, due to a combination of acoustical considerations. Listening to the winds, the Taut Batu can predict snd gauge with a high degree of precision the timing, strength, trajectory and pattern of tropical typhoon storms, including tidal waves, which are some of the most common and potentially deadly natural disasters that threaten the community. They can also hear, with enough distinction and clarity, animals or humans who are approaching the settlement from kilometers away, and their approach trajectories, distinguishing between one or more humans, a wild boar, a troop of moneys, an iguana or a low-flying hornbill, etc. And, at a even more micro level they have set up a kind of telephone/telegraph system within the community using the acoustical properties of the hollow limestone outcrops, to the degree that a message as specific as: "Tell Johnny that his mother says to come home for dinner, and to check the bamboo rat trap along the way" can be broadcast throughout the community. Coming to traditional architecture, one good example is how the wooden floors of the corridors of ancient Chinese, Korean, and Japanese houses and palaces were constructed so as to squeak loudly if a shoeless person was trying to sneak up quietly on the occupants of a room. There are so many other good examples in traditional structures. And example is the way in which the curvature of the brick walls of the defensive gates of ancient Chinese forts that dotted the Great Wall along the western frontiers were designed to facilitate hearing the verbal orders shouted from the commanders on the lookout towers above, to the troops on the ground below.
From what I have read at some point, Jesus Christ also used the acoustics given by a physical place when talking to crowds from a shore, with the cliff walls behind Him. I can't reamember the source, just the information, partially. I thought to write this comment, maybe it helps somehow. :)
Pauline Oliveros has an album called Deep Listening that explores this idea. You should listen when you have the chance it was pretty revolutionary in the world of experimental music.
@@9everagain except sound from a face is protruded forward.. but it maybe serves to block out other interfering sounds to have a back drop alcove. Geo-eaqualization ha.
Just a commentary. (I'm a Physicist,): Light waves can also cancel out with reflection. It's not a phenomenon that only happens to sound. One example is the Morpho Blue Butterfly, that has no colour ( it has no pigmentation, it's actually white, and not blue). What happens is that all colours that bounce off it cancel the incoming ones, except for the blue colour. So you see blue, even though the butterfly is not really blue. It's a phenomenon called Iridescence, it's what gives soap bubbles their rainbow-ish colour, (in Physics we call these "thin films") and that bright colour on the holographic stickes on some credit cards. All that said, beautiful video, Stewart. Love your channel. Keep it up! Cheers from Brazil.
I'm not a physicist, but it seems to me that lasers generate their beams by way of constructive interference, don't they? If I understand it correctly, you can have electromagnetic resonance just like you can have acoustic resonance: waves of a specific length being reflected in a way (an exact multiple of their wavelength?) that generates constructive interference, increasing the waves' amplitude.
@@JoshuaBennettMusic They do! The space where the laser beam is generated has a specific length corresponding to the wavelength of the light being produced.
The audience is also an instrument to tune, I think. My brother does stand up, and I organize a speaking event in the same town, and we have the opposite acoustic preferences. His worst nightmare is that all the laughter gets swallowed by open air or absorbent walls before it can build into a self-reinforcing wave. He likes closed spaces with low ceilings to reflect audience noise back to them. My worst nightmare, on the other hand, is that chatter from the audience builds to the point where my presenters (often talking about more dry topics) don’t feel like anyone is listening to them. I prefer open air venues - which are of course terrible for stand up. Like you say, the best acoustics is a matter of what you’re trying to accomplish. Great video, thanks!
The audience is a HUGE factor in tuning. Im an orchestral musician and you dont realize hust how big a factor it is until your playing solos. I recently played a church gig for easter, and the sound of my playing changed very dramatically between the rehearsal and when the church was full
As much as I appreciate the built environment, my favorite acoustical spaces are forests where most sounds, except those made by animals who have evolved their vocalizations to be heard, are muted. A sizeable forested space in a city provides a welcome respite from the sounds of city life. That being said, the architecture you have presented in this video is inspirational!
only part of the northern US winter i can appreciate. closest experience ive ever had with "total silence" is a snow covered forest, and man is it tranquil
@@chinmeysway, water in general has this property. Whether in the form of snow (falling or laying) or in the form of mist/fog. It probably has something to do with the increased mass of air containing the water, leading to more energy needed for sound waves to propagate through the space. Also for fallen snow there is the property of porosity which increases absorption of the sound energy within the snow mass. It's actually a fascinating topic to think of 🙂
@@OntarioTrafficMan Lol, clearly my focus is all about sounds and how it can be contained or surrounded, not the spelled out words that describe them 😉 (Tbh though, Arch midterms kick hardest)
@@Zieman_Grace Haha sorry, it was just asking for a pun. Best of luck with both of them! I did an undergrad in Urban Planning while doing music on the side, but not ambitiously to enough to actually get a second degree.
I'm nostalgic for the theaters I attended when I was younger. Not for the performances, but for the unique vibes they contained inside. You really felt it when you crossed through the threshold. It was otherworldly in the best way. Some museums have this going on too, and honestly that made it fun to be there even when nothing was going on. Stepping in or walking through, major soundscape changes can feel like magic. So it's incredible how we can plan for those moments through a building's design.
I think it's the fabric everywhere, usually they have huge panels of it along the walls which absorb the sound so it doesn't echo or bleed from theater to theater, so it's very womb-like and meditative
I really enjoyed this video being a musician who plays mostly acoustic instruments this all makes so much sense to me. Some of my favorite spaces are the Philharmonie in Berlin. I love the way it offers the ability to “ tune” the space by adjusting panels suspended from the ceiling to suite the type of performance taking place. Another Hall I’ve developed a fondness for is Hill Auditorium on the campus of University of Michigan the Shell design of the back wall of the stage really amplifies and distributes the most minute sounds around the entire Hall. I’ve loved the acoustic of every old European church and cathedral I’ve ever been in especially in regards to how the spaces work so well with the pipe organs in the spaces.
@@stewarthicks Oh WOW! What an incredible experience to have in high school. I was in concert band and chorus. Our auditorium was less than ideal for music performance, honors band performances were always in gymnasiums. Extremes
Having worked in the music industry for some years, the role of sound in daily life is made more obvious when you step in to a studio designed for almost zero reflections. The effect of zero sound is almost painful to the ears and you can feel the sound stop as soon as you make it. Your eardrums are used to the sound of pressure waves hitting so much so that the temporary absence is deafening. I love the idea of the train above the school. Integrating what might be a nuisance sound of the train into a closed space that might be usually designed to exclude outside sounds. Making the person inside the space forget they are inside and reminding them that there is an outside still going on without them. Again , great piece.
I love this! I often talk about the importance of soundscapes and people look at me like I’m crazy. I don’t buy a clock unless I like its tick and chime, I test whistling tea kettles and ringing kitchen timers whenever I can before purchasing. I went out of my way to find a microwave with a bell instead of a beep, and I’m incredibly fortunate that the dryer my house came with also has a bell signal. My first car had a physical bell instead of an electronic chime. I am a huge advocate for enclosing kitchens in walls with doors. Otherwise these ‘open concept’ designs make the entire house sound like a kitchen (with the fridge humming, the echo of a tile/hard floor, and cooking/washing sounds when somebody is busy). Windy days are magical (albeit chilly) with 19th century single pane windows. And who doesn’t love a good door creak on a stormy night? My “dream house” will be as passive in its design as possible to avoid unnecessary mechanical noise (the ugliest noise there is, imo). One of my ideas is to have an extremely reverberant central atrium with vents near the ceiling that let in natural sounds like birdsong and rustling leaves. It would be arranged so that direct sound does not reach floor level and so the occupant only hears these sounds after several reflections. I think the effect would be magical! Anyhow, thank you for validating my antics. 😅
I had to move a small refrigerator out of my bedroom because i could hear it. It was very noticeable. I understand your viewpoints. An open-concept does make a living room sound like a kitchen. Notice how modern architecture disdains carpet and therefore the spaces echo.
Hi Stewart! I just wanted to comment and say I got served your videos by the algorithm a few months ago, and then Professor Jayne Kelley showed us your videos in her class. I’m excited to have you present to us!
Always wanted to do architecture, but the education never happened. Now that I'm an old man, I'm getting the education. This is good stuff, keep up the good work, professor!
I design loudspeakers I created my home to have 3 rooms with varying degrees of refection absorption and sound leakage. I also designed this home to be passive solar and geothermal it doesn't go below 50f without heat in winter and if sunny can get up to 80f if it's below freezing out. I cool 2200sqft with 1 bedroom-sized AC unit.
This is quite possibly the only comment section ive ever seen that has consistantly been filled with positive, intriguing, engaged thoughts. Well done.
11:49 Glad to you included the Philips Pavilion designed by Iannis Xenakis (Feat. Le Corbusier). I studied Xenakis's research of using music theory as a form generator for architecture, and there were fascinating results that deserve more attention in the academic field. There are hidden relationships between geometry and waves of all types. His studies highlighted forms that revealed themselves when musical scales were compounded, harmonized, and syncopated. Nothing is new, just undiscovered.
Excellent video! One of the most acoustically pleasing spaces I've ever experienced is the "Volcano Room" inside Cumberland Caverns in Tennessee. This natural space is used for concerts and featured in a program carried by some PBS stations called Bluegrass Underground, ( they play all kinds of music, not just bluegrass). I estimate that the space can seat approximately 500-600 people and the natural rock formations make a great reflective surface for sound waves. If you are ever near Pelham,TN, check it out. There are you tube videos of concerts, but you have to experience it live to get the full effect.
@@pamelah6431 I'm sure the crowd helps to soften the reverberations. It was packed when I was there so no way to compare the two. I would describe the space as very balanced acousticly
@@stevevice9863 the audience can make a difference but this is typically accounted for in the design of the space. All that padding on your chair in a movie theater or concert hall is to approximate the absorption provided by a seated person so the room performs the same empty vs full.
I was a musician from middle school all the way through college (not doing much playing these days). As an architect, I always appreciated the correlation between Music and Architecture.
Great video! I agree the building/room is the instrument. In the city where I live, there are old grain silos that have been repurposed into performance venues. When they were built no one thought that they'd eventually hold concerts in the space so the sound experience is extraordinary and challenging, at best, to perform music in. The reverberation is disconcerting. I haven't performed there yet but hope to someday with the knowledge that the space IS the instrument and to "play" the room.
Interesting topic. I'd love to also see one about acoustics in a more common and practical environment, like homes and office and how that affects people's experiences. I come across a lot of "modern" building, where I feel that acoustics have been forgotten/neglected to be incorporated in the design.
*AS A MUSICIAN,* who performs live and in public, assessing and choosing between acoustic environments for their ability to reflect and alter the experience is part and parcel with what I do almost every time I perform. Thanks for your video!
This is one of the many reasons I love audio - it is just so cool how universal it is: you can find it anywhere you look. One of the first instances of this kind of architecture I learned about was the Danish national opera house that uses slits in the interior to enhance the musical experience. As I am getting into mechanical keyboards I wonder if anyone has tried to do something similar to what the architects in these examples have done, just on a smaller scale.
Where I live seems to work almost as a natural auditorium for air shows. Pre COVID, the Air Force Thunderbirds would do air shows twice a year or so, and everyone knew that the best place to watch them was on the east side of the interstate a few miles away, because you can see all the stunts, and the noise of the engines reflects off the mountains back to you. There's nothing like watching a fighter kick on the afterburners, feel the thump in your chest from the engines, then as you're turning to watch them tear overhead your ears fill with the echo off the mountains behind you.
I’ve had the privilege of standing on the roof of one of the Marina City towers where, facing the opposite tower, a loud clap gets transformed into something wholly other and science fiction like. Favorite noise in Chicago.
Once, at regional orchestra event when I was 14, it was raining that weekend, and there were a LOT of leaks in the auditorium of the HS where the events was being held. We moved to the gymnasium, which had two smaller gyms at ceiling level, that could fill with bleachers, but the bleachers up there were folded to function as walls. A large box, with two smaller boxes above. The sound was amazing. Even audience members commented on it after hearing us perform.
I had an acoustical experience in Denver back in the 1990's. We were outside on the grounds between the state capital and Denver's city hall for a ceremony that had brought in bagpipers from all over the U.S. and Canada. In the audience, we were listening to speakers up on the capital steps and hadn't really paid attention to the legions of pipers on either side and to the rear of us. At the end of the ceremony a single piper took the stage and played one chorus of Amazing Grace. Touching but then the hundred or so pipers to the left joined in and then the same number to the right, and finally the rear. There was so much sound pressure, my chest was literally vibrating. I can see why there were stories about British opponents retreating in fear upon hearing these overwhelming sounds.
Stewart, 1880 Truro Cathedral was completed. It is HUGE. Architect literally build the Cathedral around the acoustic laws of the Organ. I experienced a perf there live. Most AMAZING sound EvEr!
I am so happy to have stumbled across your channel. I love architecture never studied it but your channel is helping me understand and read the buildings. It would be great if you could do more videos on the terminology. Thank you so much learnt a lot already really appreciate what you do. Keep going. Xxx
Wow; quite thought provoking, especially learning that music was/is often composed to be performed in specific buildings. I never knew that or anything about the science of acoustics with different genres of music.
I love thinking about this kind of stuff. I have been reading this book called Resonance: Essays on the Intersection of Music and Architecture Vol.1, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about this. This stuff is so cool!!
Some years ago I attended a "Stomp!" concert in Guadalajara, Mexico at a modern theater. The exit stairs were around the outside of the auditorium and were metal and in a sort of scaffolding. As the crowd descended these stairs, a rhythm was set so that each person moved one step at a time landing hard and entirely in unison. Making a perfect encore for the performance we had all enjoyed. I do not know if this happened as the audience exited from other performances, but it was very fun to be in for me that evening.
Excellent video! This subject is too often neglected in architectural criticism unless the building is specifically intended for music. I am reminded of the travails of New York City's Philharmonic Hall, a.k.a. Avery Fisher Hall, a.k.a. David Geffen Hall. It has undergone numerous major and minor renovations because the acoustics are so bad for music. The first iteration was so bad that remodeling began immediately after it opened in 1962, but this and subsequent adjustments did little to correct the problem. The interior was completely rebuilt in 1976, using Boston's Symphony Hall as an acoustical model but on a much larger scale. Though there was a slight improvement, the results were still unsatisfactory and many guest conductors insisted on using Carnegie Hall for performances. Further renovations in 1992 didn't help much. It is now being completely rebuilt again, with the stage moved forward and audience seating extending across the back of the stage. This arrangement has been successful in some European concert halls, but again, they are smaller. This seems to be the hall's biggest problem. It is too big to have good acoustics for unamplified music. The rebuilt hall is reopening in October. I am interested in hearing the results. One of the most amazing yet problematic acoustical environments I've ever been in is NYC's Cathedral of St John the Divine. It is HUGE -- purportedly the largest Gothic-style cathedral in the world. The interior reverberation is 11 seconds! Some musicians, like the Paul Winter Consort, have used this feature very effectively. However I have been to large diocesan services there with the cathedral filled, and during hymns the congregation at the back of the cathedral ends up a measure or so behind those positioned up front. CHAOS!
It's rare in my experience for an architect to speak confidently about acoustics, so I really appreciate him taking a swing and mostly knocking it out of the park. The explanations and examples were layman-friendly without being patronizing (appreciate going as far as including the Bolt region chart). Overall really good intro video on the subject and hope to see a part 2! Maybe about acoustics in everyday spaces? This one seemed pretty focused on performance spaces. My two minor quibbles as a practicing acoustician: 1. Yes, acoustics is an engineering discipline and yes there are "acoustically perfect rooms". The question is always what your definition of "perfect" is (criteria), and how much precision can you design with. His main point, that there is no singular definition of perfect for all rooms, is absolutely correct, but let's give the few hundred years of academic research and engineering development some credit where it's due rather than imply we can just "feel" our way to a space that works for the given program. 2. Architecture absolutely shapes the local soundscape, if we think of architecture broadly (city planning, specific buildings, economics of land development, policy choices, etc.). However the way this is explained in the video could be misinterpreted that a soundscape is mostly determined by the specific buildings around it. While this has some influence, I fear that most people will jump to the conclusion that urban noise etc is a problem of hard buildings reflecting noise when the true solution is noise control at the source (tire noise, combustion engines, etc.). The reason I point this out is that the general populations understanding of a problem can impact policy, so I think its important to focus on the actual problem.
Music being made for a particular space reminds me of a nerdy article about beer and wine that was (is) crafted to be poured into a particular shaped glass. It impacts air, flavor, fizz, etc.
I hope you read my comment. Very interesting video. I'm from VENEZUELA and there's a building here famous for having excellent acoustics. Experts say it has the best acoustics in the country. It's called Aula Magna de la Universidad Central de Venezuela, you can check it out. What gives it its excellent acoustics is the "clouds" on the ceiling, which are particular structures that help the sound bounce in a very efficient way while making the interior of the building look beautiful. :)
I always tended to think that only acousticians would debate whether a concert hall had defective acoustics. Like others before me, I experienced it first hand when sitting in the "cheap seats" of Alvar Aalto's Finlandia Hall in Helsinki. Sat at the back, the balcony above stretches so far out that most classical music sounds muffled. Not being able to correct all its defects, by 2000 the city decided to build a new concert hall nextdoor.
Favorite industrial sound, working at Wal-Mart stacking metal grating (4"x4" grid with 4" flanges on two sides, 1/4" gauge). After sliding the top grating its vibrations, metal against metal, reverberated (or, resonated) through the other gratings. Sounded similiar to "music of the planets" on You Tube channels. An oriental person saying mung, as in mung bean. Sound reverberates in their mouth cavity. Okinawan Expo hall with a sloped wall and thin sheets of water rolling down it. Similiar to a large room of Pachinko machines. Ambulance siren echoing between tall buildings two in the morning. Distance subway train approaching station coupled with compressed air before it. One more, Tom Petty's line from "American Girl" " ... hear the cars roll out on 441 like waves crashing on the beach." Highway 441 runs though Paynes Prairie, a marsh. When the car tires roll on the asphalt the sound echos over the shallow water likes waves breaking in the humid night air. Primordial feeling.
Are you referring to the one in Southern Utah, I listened to a great bagpipe group there, or there may be another red rock that I'm not aware of. Edit. I got my names mixed up. Tuacahn was the one I went to. It just seems like everything in St. George is named Red Rock. Haha
I work in a museum that built in 1904 for World's Fair. The main hall designed has huge Archway. Which branches into galleries by other archways. You can stand any corner of main hall and hear conversation other side of building
My favorite acoustical space is Orchestra Hall in Detroit. It and many other theaters around the world were designed by C. Howard Crane. It has been analyzed for its ability to propagate music to every seat in the house. I have been seated in every area of the auditorium and while the sound in the top of the balcony is different than the visceral blast of sitting directly in front of the orchestra, the music can be thoroughly enjoyed from any seat.
I should add that the first time I saw the Detroit Symphony was in the old 1950s fan shaped Ford Auditorium on the riverfront in Detroit. It was the most uninspiring concert I have ever seen. Without the shoe box shape of traditional auditoriums that allow for the sound to develop, it was like the music was moving past you.
My favorite "sonic accident" in architecture is the whisper spot in the Old House Chamber in the US Capitol where, the story goes, John Quincy Adams could hear the other party strategizing from across the room.
The Egg in Albany NY is a wonderful architectural space acoustically and visually. I am always in awe every time i visit for a concert. If you havent been i highly recommend it!
I don't understand much about acoustics except the bare minimum. Feels like I learned some new concepts here. Linked this video to my musical inclined friend
Can't complement enough this sorely needed understanding of acoustics in architecture. I say this with 30+ years' experience of sirens, radios, alarms, flatulence, belching, and snoring gratuitously amplified in badly designed fire stations. (Yes, badly designed common sleeping areas amplify the sound of nocturnal body functions. But not to worry, the people using them are only trying to sleep!) One day at work in a brand new fire station, the principle architect of its design firm showed up for a walk through. When I brought up an aspect of how sounds traveled in the brand spanking new building, he said it had never even occurred to him to consider acoustics. Then he said building design can't affect the sound characteristics of a building anyway. Good to know.
In thermen Vals by Zumthor he designed a lot of different rooms for different experiences. One is a small chamber that is only accessible through a almost claustrofobic passage. But inside the chamber you have a very clear and long echo (probably due to the hard materials and the height of this chamber). But experiencing a church like echo in such a small place felt very relaxing and enjoyable. Would definitely recommend!
There's a church in Brasilia (Brazil's capital) that has this huge, circular almost triangular-shaped wall, going from one side of the church to the other. If you whisper in one of the ends, people on the other end will be able to hear you loud and clear, even though they're 10 meters away. I have no clue why that's inside a church, but it's really cool.
The wigwams of indigenous Americans, traditionally floored with pine boughs and involving surprisingly complicated architecture, often strike me as warm, comforting spaces. The sphere, imagined as the whole and split by the earth, offers a uniquely intimate space while recalling a connection to the larger world around you, and I think acoustics have a lot to do with that. Think blanket fort, with the lights off.
It's really funny he mentioned Weird Al because I can remember as a kid in the 90s listening to Dr Demento and either Dr or Weird Al talking about one of his albums or demos, saying that the vocals on tracks had been recorded in a bathroom because of the acoustics! Some goofy thing that stuck in my head all these years. Great Video!
Hi Stewart - that performance space was amazing. Simple materials but used in a way that is both functional and interesting. Thanks for a future trivia question - What do David Byrne, Weird Al Yankovic and Chris Lowe have in common?
favorite acoustic space: 10 years ago, Fells Point MD USA. there was a marble circular large bench-like structure. in the middle was a marble ottoman-like structure with a copper manhole cover on the top. talking while sitting on the ottoman facing the large circle seat created a strange phenomenon that sounded like you were talking from inside your head. almost like wearing headphones. sadly “the circle” no longer exists.
The Chinese Pavilion in Stockholm is a rococo castle with an elliptical room in the center. It was designed with a domed ceiling to enhance the sound of harpsichord music, and has a light springy metallic reverb. It's also engineered so that when you stand in the focal point of the ellipse you can eavesdrop on whispered conversations from across the room, as all sound waves converge at the focal point. It's a psychedelic experience, and not at all what you expect from such an old building.
I am glad to have discovered your channel. You have a great way of explaining architectural concepts in ways that laypeople can understand. I never know what to expect when I see a new video from you, but I'm never disappointed.
On many videos regarding home architecture, there is this style of huge flat windows, flat floors without any carpets, tall flat skylines, flat walls, and very square rooms. By following this style, you end up with spaces where no one can talk. Hopefully, this style will learn a bit about acoustics.
I once took part in an artistic 'installation' I guess, in an old Chapel, where you could take a nap on the floor of the Chapel while people played music with weird instruments that I don't know the name of, I think mostly oriental instruments It was a nice moment and the building did feel like an instrument to me
The tutoring space I work in just got redesigned, and for awhile we weren't sure what purpose these odd panels on the walls and bird-like structures hanging from the ceiling were, until we realized that they muffle sound just enough to give the open floor plan a feeling of privacy.
Vendôme metro station in Montreal, has an intentionally designed tubular art piece that hangs in the ceiling, the air pressure from the trains coming into the station creates a sort of "tune" when the wind pushes through the structure. It's really fascinating!
Autechre is a british electronic duo who actually used falling water on the cover of one of their records. they're music is the most architectural music i've ever heard. It's all about material and space.
César Pelli was the architect for the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, California. The hall has adjustable canopies and acoustic control chambers and curtains which can be adjusted according to the type of music being played. The hall is beautiful and sounds great. It’s really fun to see the hall adjusted for the music to be played. The downside is in the seating: the seats are too narrow and too close together. It’s like flying coach on an airplane. My husband and I are tall, but not overly so. We are very uncomfortable in the fixed seating and must choose to sit in the moveable balcony chairs. Such a shame for such a beautiful space.
My favorite concert hall is the new Ordway center where the St. Paul chamber orchestra plays. Even in the nosebleed seats, I can see and hear the orchestra perfectly. Other acoustically significant spaces I like include the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, the Senate chamber in the New York state capitol in Albany, and the amphitheater in Heidelberg, Germany.
We could also consider musicians who became architects, the most obvious contemporary example being Daniel Libeskind. His thoughts on the relationship of architecture to sound are worth listening to. Also, the ‘Architecture is frozen music’ quote is normally attributed to the German poet and polymath, J W von Goethe, in ‘Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of his Life’, but it is likely to have been a commonly expressed sentiment in Baroque times.
My undergraduate research paper was on architectural acoustics in performance spaces. In particular the Santa Cecilia Hall by Renzo Piano and the Walt Disney Concert Hall by Frank Gehry. Fascinating stuff.
I enjoyed getting into the material properties of woods used and that chairs imitate the acoustic properties of people to maintain consistency between practice and performances.
Saarinen's Noyes Dormitory, at Vassar College, is designed as a semi-circle. The complement of the semi-circle is a semi-circle of tall pine trees that complete the circle. There is a spot at, or near, the exact center of the circle that is marked with a concrete slab on the ground. And if you stand at that spot and speak in a normal speaking voice, your voice can be heard by someone in the dorm, and it reverberates loudly back into the outside space in that circle.
I enjoy the sounds in newer auditoriums. The school I went to had a stage in the gym. I thought it was our microphones sounding bad, but it was probably the gym itself. My kid’s schools have has dedicated auditoriums and I love them. I like the Yale School of Music, but in future I’m only going to attend choral performances at Woolsey Hall. It’s old and kind of church-like. I went to a band concert there and hated the echoes.
The James Turrell Twilight Epiphany Skyspace at Rice University is a must visit. The paint used on the structure has special acoustic qualities. There is a small installation that The University of Texas at Austin.
Genius idea, amplifying train noise into a building. Genius....I bet everyone loves that and sits around marveling about the fact their part of living art. 😮💨
Excellent video. Each type of music requires a different kind of acoustical space to be heard to its best advantage. I remember the brutalist Tennessee Performing Arts center used thick cloth panels that would raise and lower around the auditorium according to the acoustical requirement of the music played there, and it actually worked quite well.
Thanks for this video. I think architecture and acoustics on the human body is highly important. I found a research paper, Soundscape Ecology: The Science of Sound in the Landscape, super interesting read. "Soundscape ecology thus can be described by our working definition as all sounds, those of biophony, geophony, and anthrophony, emanating from a given landscape to create unique acoustical patterns across a variety of spatial and temporal scales."
I wrote my bachelor thesis on this topic and good videos in this field are rare. You cover very much in an understandable and entertaining way. I will use this video to educate my friends about what i am doing for living :D thank you!
Excellent, informative, a favorite subject of mine, how sound affects us. Was gobsmaked with the acoustics in Lees Chapel at the University of Washington and Lee in Lexington Virginia .
Great video ! Your explanations and referneces are very clear and illustrative. In my opinion you should name silence (control of the background noise) as one of the most important acoustic qualities of a space.
As a archaeologist, I am interested in the sub-field of archaeo-acoustics, which has various manifestations. For example, early religions that placed an emphasis on the oral recitation of texts such as Buddhism, usually chose caves for their meeting spaces, which the modified to amplify and broadcast the monks' recitations. Pitalkura in Maharaastra State in the Western Ghats of India is a spectacular example of this. Also the choice of habitation sites the soatial organization of various activities winthin these sites (early settlement planning, in the terms of the architecture profession) may be based on their acoustical properties. For example, the Taut Batu of Palawan Island in the Philippines have lived by preference for 35,000 years inside very large in area, circular, eroded sink holes in the ancient limestone karsts of their coastal mountain environment. Even today, members of this ancient tribal group clearly articulate that this geogical formation is the best location for settlements, due to a combination of acoustical considerations. Listening to the winds, the Taut Batu can predict snd gauge with a high degree of precision the timing, strength, trajectory and pattern of tropical typhoon storms, including tidal waves, which are some of the most common and potentially deadly natural disasters that threaten the community. They can also hear, with enough distinction and clarity, animals or humans who are approaching the settlement from kilometers away, and their approach trajectories, distinguishing between one or more humans, a wild boar, a troop of moneys, an iguana or a low-flying hornbill, etc. And, at a even more micro level they have set up a kind of telephone/telegraph system within the community using the acoustical properties of the hollow limestone outcrops, to the degree that a message as specific as: "Tell Johnny that his mother says to come home for dinner, and to check the bamboo rat trap along the way" can be broadcast throughout the community. Coming to traditional architecture, one good example is how the wooden floors of the corridors of ancient Chinese, Korean, and Japanese houses and palaces were constructed so as to squeak loudly if a shoeless person was trying to sneak up quietly on the occupants of a room. There are so many other good examples in traditional structures. And example is the way in which the curvature of the brick walls of the defensive gates of ancient Chinese forts that dotted the Great Wall along the western frontiers were designed to facilitate hearing the verbal orders shouted from the commanders on the lookout towers above, to the troops on the ground below.
You are living the dream
From what I have read at some point, Jesus Christ also used the acoustics given by a physical place when talking to crowds from a shore, with the cliff walls behind Him. I can't reamember the source, just the information, partially. I thought to write this comment, maybe it helps somehow. :)
Pauline Oliveros has an album called Deep Listening that explores this idea. You should listen when you have the chance it was pretty revolutionary in the world of experimental music.
@@9everagain except sound from a face is protruded forward.. but it maybe serves to block out other interfering sounds to have a back drop alcove. Geo-eaqualization ha.
Pre-intercom then, in short
Just a commentary. (I'm a Physicist,): Light waves can also cancel out with reflection. It's not a phenomenon that only happens to sound.
One example is the Morpho Blue Butterfly, that has no colour ( it has no pigmentation, it's actually white, and not blue). What happens is that all colours that bounce off it cancel the incoming ones, except for the blue colour. So you see blue, even though the butterfly is not really blue.
It's a phenomenon called Iridescence, it's what gives soap bubbles their rainbow-ish colour, (in Physics we call these "thin films") and that bright colour on the holographic stickes on some credit cards.
All that said, beautiful video, Stewart.
Love your channel. Keep it up! Cheers from Brazil.
I'm not a physicist, but it seems to me that lasers generate their beams by way of constructive interference, don't they? If I understand it correctly, you can have electromagnetic resonance just like you can have acoustic resonance: waves of a specific length being reflected in a way (an exact multiple of their wavelength?) that generates constructive interference, increasing the waves' amplitude.
yup, "structural coloration" occurs in a lot places in nature, including blue/green eyes in people (Tyndall effect)
@@JoshuaBennettMusic They do! The space where the laser beam is generated has a specific length corresponding to the wavelength of the light being produced.
The audience is also an instrument to tune, I think. My brother does stand up, and I organize a speaking event in the same town, and we have the opposite acoustic preferences. His worst nightmare is that all the laughter gets swallowed by open air or absorbent walls before it can build into a self-reinforcing wave. He likes closed spaces with low ceilings to reflect audience noise back to them. My worst nightmare, on the other hand, is that chatter from the audience builds to the point where my presenters (often talking about more dry topics) don’t feel like anyone is listening to them. I prefer open air venues - which are of course terrible for stand up. Like you say, the best acoustics is a matter of what you’re trying to accomplish. Great video, thanks!
The audience is a HUGE factor in tuning. Im an orchestral musician and you dont realize hust how big a factor it is until your playing solos. I recently played a church gig for easter, and the sound of my playing changed very dramatically between the rehearsal and when the church was full
As much as I appreciate the built environment, my favorite acoustical spaces are forests where most sounds, except those made by animals who have evolved their vocalizations to be heard, are muted. A sizeable forested space in a city provides a welcome respite from the sounds of city life. That being said, the architecture you have presented in this video is inspirational!
only part of the northern US winter i can appreciate. closest experience ive ever had with "total silence" is a snow covered forest, and man is it tranquil
@@brewskimckilgore6796 good point; snow seems to absorb a lot of frequencies - even in the midst of city sounds.
@@chinmeysway, water in general has this property. Whether in the form of snow (falling or laying) or in the form of mist/fog. It probably has something to do with the increased mass of air containing the water, leading to more energy needed for sound waves to propagate through the space. Also for fallen snow there is the property of porosity which increases absorption of the sound energy within the snow mass. It's actually a fascinating topic to think of 🙂
As a UIC duel degree student for Music and Architectural Studies, I appreciate the interdisciplinary cross over 🙌
what a flex
Which degree is winning the duel?
@@OntarioTrafficMan Lol, clearly my focus is all about sounds and how it can be contained or surrounded, not the spelled out words that describe them 😉
(Tbh though, Arch midterms kick hardest)
@@Zieman_Grace Haha sorry, it was just asking for a pun. Best of luck with both of them! I did an undergrad in Urban Planning while doing music on the side, but not ambitiously to enough to actually get a second degree.
As neither of those things I agree
I'm nostalgic for the theaters I attended when I was younger. Not for the performances, but for the unique vibes they contained inside. You really felt it when you crossed through the threshold. It was otherworldly in the best way. Some museums have this going on too, and honestly that made it fun to be there even when nothing was going on. Stepping in or walking through, major soundscape changes can feel like magic. So it's incredible how we can plan for those moments through a building's design.
I think it's the fabric everywhere, usually they have huge panels of it along the walls which absorb the sound so it doesn't echo or bleed from theater to theater, so it's very womb-like and meditative
I really enjoyed this video being a musician who plays mostly acoustic instruments this all makes so much sense to me. Some of my favorite spaces are the Philharmonie in Berlin. I love the way it offers the ability to “ tune” the space by adjusting panels suspended from the ceiling to suite the type of performance taking place. Another Hall I’ve developed a fondness for is Hill Auditorium on the campus of University of Michigan the Shell design of the back wall of the stage really amplifies and distributes the most minute sounds around the entire Hall. I’ve loved the acoustic of every old European church and cathedral I’ve ever been in especially in regards to how the spaces work so well with the pipe organs in the spaces.
I played many concerts at Hill Auditorium while in my high school orchestra!
@@stewarthicks Oh WOW! What an incredible experience to have in high school. I was in concert band and chorus. Our auditorium was less than ideal for music performance, honors band performances were always in gymnasiums. Extremes
Having worked in the music industry for some years, the role of sound in daily life is made more obvious when you step in to a studio designed for almost zero reflections. The effect of zero sound is almost painful to the ears and you can feel the sound stop as soon as you make it. Your eardrums are used to the sound of pressure waves hitting so much so that the temporary absence is deafening. I love the idea of the train above the school. Integrating what might be a nuisance sound of the train into a closed space that might be usually designed to exclude outside sounds. Making the person inside the space forget they are inside and reminding them that there is an outside still going on without them. Again , great piece.
I love this! I often talk about the importance of soundscapes and people look at me like I’m crazy. I don’t buy a clock unless I like its tick and chime, I test whistling tea kettles and ringing kitchen timers whenever I can before purchasing. I went out of my way to find a microwave with a bell instead of a beep, and I’m incredibly fortunate that the dryer my house came with also has a bell signal. My first car had a physical bell instead of an electronic chime. I am a huge advocate for enclosing kitchens in walls with doors. Otherwise these ‘open concept’ designs make the entire house sound like a kitchen (with the fridge humming, the echo of a tile/hard floor, and cooking/washing sounds when somebody is busy). Windy days are magical (albeit chilly) with 19th century single pane windows. And who doesn’t love a good door creak on a stormy night? My “dream house” will be as passive in its design as possible to avoid unnecessary mechanical noise (the ugliest noise there is, imo). One of my ideas is to have an extremely reverberant central atrium with vents near the ceiling that let in natural sounds like birdsong and rustling leaves. It would be arranged so that direct sound does not reach floor level and so the occupant only hears these sounds after several reflections. I think the effect would be magical! Anyhow, thank you for validating my antics. 😅
Alright, I agree that sound is important, but it seems like for you it's the only factor 😂
I'm a musician... What can I say? 🤷♂️
I had to move a small refrigerator out of my bedroom because i could hear it. It was very noticeable. I understand your viewpoints. An open-concept does make a living room sound like a kitchen. Notice how modern architecture disdains carpet and therefore the spaces echo.
@@BigBirdy100 heat transfer refrigerators (as opposed to condenser) are woefully inefficient, but completely silent. 😉
Hi Stewart! I just wanted to comment and say I got served your videos by the algorithm a few months ago, and then Professor Jayne Kelley showed us your videos in her class. I’m excited to have you present to us!
Always wanted to do architecture, but the education never happened. Now that I'm an old man, I'm getting the education. This is good stuff, keep up the good work, professor!
I'm an audio engineer and I approve this message. Excellent vid once again, Stewart!
I design loudspeakers I created my home to have 3 rooms with varying degrees of refection absorption and sound leakage. I also designed this home to be passive solar and geothermal it doesn't go below 50f without heat in winter and if sunny can get up to 80f if it's below freezing out. I cool 2200sqft with 1 bedroom-sized AC unit.
Which room(s) are your listening rooms?
This is quite possibly the only comment section ive ever seen that has consistantly been filled with positive, intriguing, engaged thoughts. Well done.
11:49 Glad to you included the Philips Pavilion designed by Iannis Xenakis (Feat. Le Corbusier). I studied Xenakis's research of using music theory as a form generator for architecture, and there were fascinating results that deserve more attention in the academic field. There are hidden relationships between geometry and waves of all types. His studies highlighted forms that revealed themselves when musical scales were compounded, harmonized, and syncopated. Nothing is new, just undiscovered.
Excellent video! One of the most acoustically pleasing spaces I've ever experienced is the "Volcano Room" inside Cumberland Caverns in Tennessee. This natural space is used for concerts and featured in a program carried by some PBS stations called Bluegrass Underground, ( they play all kinds of music, not just bluegrass). I estimate that the space can seat approximately 500-600 people and the natural rock formations make a great reflective surface for sound waves. If you are ever near Pelham,TN, check it out. There are you tube videos of concerts, but you have to experience it live to get the full effect.
I wonder how the sound changed based on how many people are present.
@@pamelah6431 I'm sure the crowd helps to soften the reverberations. It was packed when I was there so no way to compare the two. I would describe the space as very balanced acousticly
@@stevevice9863 the audience can make a difference but this is typically accounted for in the design of the space. All that padding on your chair in a movie theater or concert hall is to approximate the absorption provided by a seated person so the room performs the same empty vs full.
I was a musician from middle school all the way through college (not doing much playing these days). As an architect, I always appreciated the correlation between Music and Architecture.
architecture is frozen music , music is liquid architecture
Great video! I agree the building/room is the instrument. In the city where I live, there are old grain silos that have been repurposed into performance venues. When they were built no one thought that they'd eventually hold concerts in the space so the sound experience is extraordinary and challenging, at best, to perform music in. The reverberation is disconcerting. I haven't performed there yet but hope to someday with the knowledge that the space IS the instrument and to "play" the room.
Interesting topic.
I'd love to also see one about acoustics in a more common and practical environment, like homes and office and how that affects people's experiences.
I come across a lot of "modern" building, where I feel that acoustics have been forgotten/neglected to be incorporated in the design.
Another excellent episode, Stewart! Thanks for sharing unique and fascinating locations in Chicago.
*AS A MUSICIAN,* who performs live and in public, assessing and choosing between acoustic environments for their ability to reflect and alter the experience is part and parcel with what I do almost every time I perform. Thanks for your video!
This is one of the many reasons I love audio - it is just so cool how universal it is: you can find it anywhere you look. One of the first instances of this kind of architecture I learned about was the Danish national opera house that uses slits in the interior to enhance the musical experience.
As I am getting into mechanical keyboards I wonder if anyone has tried to do something similar to what the architects in these examples have done, just on a smaller scale.
Where I live seems to work almost as a natural auditorium for air shows. Pre COVID, the Air Force Thunderbirds would do air shows twice a year or so, and everyone knew that the best place to watch them was on the east side of the interstate a few miles away, because you can see all the stunts, and the noise of the engines reflects off the mountains back to you. There's nothing like watching a fighter kick on the afterburners, feel the thump in your chest from the engines, then as you're turning to watch them tear overhead your ears fill with the echo off the mountains behind you.
I’ve had the privilege of standing on the roof of one of the Marina City towers where, facing the opposite tower, a loud clap gets transformed into something wholly other and science fiction like. Favorite noise in Chicago.
Once, at regional orchestra event when I was 14, it was raining that weekend, and there were a LOT of leaks in the auditorium of the HS where the events was being held. We moved to the gymnasium, which had two smaller gyms at ceiling level, that could fill with bleachers, but the bleachers up there were folded to function as walls. A large box, with two smaller boxes above. The sound was amazing. Even audience members commented on it after hearing us perform.
Can I just take a moment to appreciate that every on-screen image that you used was high-resolution? It's the little things.
I had an acoustical experience in Denver back in the 1990's. We were outside on the grounds between the state capital and Denver's city hall for a ceremony that had brought in bagpipers from all over the U.S. and Canada. In the audience, we were listening to speakers up on the capital steps and hadn't really paid attention to the legions of pipers on either side and to the rear of us. At the end of the ceremony a single piper took the stage and played one chorus of Amazing Grace. Touching but then the hundred or so pipers to the left joined in and then the same number to the right, and finally the rear. There was so much sound pressure, my chest was literally vibrating. I can see why there were stories about British opponents retreating in fear upon hearing these overwhelming sounds.
Stewart, 1880 Truro Cathedral was completed. It is HUGE. Architect literally build the Cathedral around the acoustic laws of the Organ. I experienced a perf there live. Most AMAZING sound EvEr!
I am so happy to have stumbled across your channel.
I love architecture never studied it but your channel is helping me understand and read the buildings.
It would be great if you could do more videos on the terminology.
Thank you so much learnt a lot already really appreciate what you do.
Keep going. Xxx
Wow; quite thought provoking, especially learning that music was/is often composed to be performed in specific buildings. I never knew that or anything about the science of acoustics with different genres of music.
Great video! As an architect and cellist, it has always driven me crazy when i'm told any given performance hall has "perfect acoustics".
I love thinking about this kind of stuff. I have been reading this book called Resonance: Essays on the Intersection of Music and Architecture Vol.1, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about this. This stuff is so cool!!
Living in Chicago your videos are so fun
Some years ago I attended a "Stomp!" concert in Guadalajara, Mexico at a modern theater. The exit stairs were around the outside of the auditorium and were metal and in a sort of scaffolding. As the crowd descended these stairs, a rhythm was set so that each person moved one step at a time landing hard and entirely in unison. Making a perfect encore for the performance we had all enjoyed. I do not know if this happened as the audience exited from other performances, but it was very fun to be in for me that evening.
I'm actually studying here at IIT and every time I hear/see a reference out in the "wild" it's so jarring and kind of cool.
All very sound architecture.
Excellent video! This subject is too often neglected in architectural criticism unless the building is specifically intended for music. I am reminded of the travails of New York City's Philharmonic Hall, a.k.a. Avery Fisher Hall, a.k.a. David Geffen Hall. It has undergone numerous major and minor renovations because the acoustics are so bad for music. The first iteration was so bad that remodeling began immediately after it opened in 1962, but this and subsequent adjustments did little to correct the problem. The interior was completely rebuilt in 1976, using Boston's Symphony Hall as an acoustical model but on a much larger scale. Though there was a slight improvement, the results were still unsatisfactory and many guest conductors insisted on using Carnegie Hall for performances. Further renovations in 1992 didn't help much. It is now being completely rebuilt again, with the stage moved forward and audience seating extending across the back of the stage. This arrangement has been successful in some European concert halls, but again, they are smaller. This seems to be the hall's biggest problem. It is too big to have good acoustics for unamplified music. The rebuilt hall is reopening in October. I am interested in hearing the results.
One of the most amazing yet problematic acoustical environments I've ever been in is NYC's Cathedral of St John the Divine. It is HUGE -- purportedly the largest Gothic-style cathedral in the world. The interior reverberation is 11 seconds! Some musicians, like the Paul Winter Consort, have used this feature very effectively. However I have been to large diocesan services there with the cathedral filled, and during hymns the congregation at the back of the cathedral ends up a measure or so behind those positioned up front. CHAOS!
i am so majoring in architecture from this channel
Hi Stewart! I thought this video was absolutely brilliant!!! Thanks for sharing.
It's rare in my experience for an architect to speak confidently about acoustics, so I really appreciate him taking a swing and mostly knocking it out of the park. The explanations and examples were layman-friendly without being patronizing (appreciate going as far as including the Bolt region chart). Overall really good intro video on the subject and hope to see a part 2! Maybe about acoustics in everyday spaces? This one seemed pretty focused on performance spaces.
My two minor quibbles as a practicing acoustician:
1. Yes, acoustics is an engineering discipline and yes there are "acoustically perfect rooms". The question is always what your definition of "perfect" is (criteria), and how much precision can you design with. His main point, that there is no singular definition of perfect for all rooms, is absolutely correct, but let's give the few hundred years of academic research and engineering development some credit where it's due rather than imply we can just "feel" our way to a space that works for the given program.
2. Architecture absolutely shapes the local soundscape, if we think of architecture broadly (city planning, specific buildings, economics of land development, policy choices, etc.). However the way this is explained in the video could be misinterpreted that a soundscape is mostly determined by the specific buildings around it. While this has some influence, I fear that most people will jump to the conclusion that urban noise etc is a problem of hard buildings reflecting noise when the true solution is noise control at the source (tire noise, combustion engines, etc.). The reason I point this out is that the general populations understanding of a problem can impact policy, so I think its important to focus on the actual problem.
Music being made for a particular space reminds me of a nerdy article about beer and wine that was (is) crafted to be poured into a particular shaped glass. It impacts air, flavor, fizz, etc.
I hope you read my comment. Very interesting video. I'm from VENEZUELA and there's a building here famous for having excellent acoustics. Experts say it has the best acoustics in the country. It's called Aula Magna de la Universidad Central de Venezuela, you can check it out. What gives it its excellent acoustics is the "clouds" on the ceiling, which are particular structures that help the sound bounce in a very efficient way while making the interior of the building look beautiful. :)
Also, the clouds were made by alexander calder so they’re works of art
that wasn't Nietsche, that was Goethe... ‘Music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music’
I always tended to think that only acousticians would debate whether a concert hall had defective acoustics. Like others before me, I experienced it first hand when sitting in the "cheap seats" of Alvar Aalto's Finlandia Hall in Helsinki. Sat at the back, the balcony above stretches so far out that most classical music sounds muffled. Not being able to correct all its defects, by 2000 the city decided to build a new concert hall nextdoor.
What a great video. It's always nice to get some different point of views on topics one is involved with. Keep on going!
Favorite industrial sound, working at Wal-Mart stacking metal grating (4"x4" grid with 4" flanges on two sides, 1/4" gauge). After sliding the top grating its vibrations, metal against metal, reverberated (or, resonated) through the other gratings. Sounded similiar to "music of the planets" on You Tube channels.
An oriental person saying mung, as in mung bean. Sound reverberates in their mouth cavity.
Okinawan Expo hall with a sloped wall and thin sheets of water rolling down it. Similiar to a large room of Pachinko machines.
Ambulance siren echoing between tall buildings two in the morning. Distance subway train approaching station coupled with compressed air before it.
One more, Tom Petty's line from "American Girl" " ... hear the cars roll out on 441 like waves crashing on the beach." Highway 441 runs though Paynes Prairie, a marsh. When the car tires roll on the asphalt the sound echos over the shallow water likes waves breaking in the humid night air. Primordial feeling.
Thanks for covering this topic! My favorite is probably red rocks amphitheater though it's more of a mix of natural/human made space.
Are you referring to the one in Southern Utah, I listened to a great bagpipe group there, or there may be another red rock that I'm not aware of. Edit. I got my names mixed up. Tuacahn was the one I went to. It just seems like everything in St. George is named Red Rock. Haha
@@cgduude You should definitely check out Red Rocks out in Colorado if you get the chance. Super cool music/entertainment venue.
I work in a museum that built in 1904 for World's Fair. The main hall designed has huge Archway. Which branches into galleries by other archways. You can stand any corner of main hall and hear conversation other side of building
My favorite acoustical space is Orchestra Hall in Detroit. It and many other theaters around the world were designed by C. Howard Crane. It has been analyzed for its ability to propagate music to every seat in the house. I have been seated in every area of the auditorium and while the sound in the top of the balcony is different than the visceral blast of sitting directly in front of the orchestra, the music can be thoroughly enjoyed from any seat.
I should add that the first time I saw the Detroit Symphony was in the old 1950s fan shaped Ford Auditorium on the riverfront in Detroit. It was the most uninspiring concert I have ever seen. Without the shoe box shape of traditional auditoriums that allow for the sound to develop, it was like the music was moving past you.
This video makes the principles governing acoustics in building design easy to understand. Thanks so much.
My favorite "sonic accident" in architecture is the whisper spot in the Old House Chamber in the US Capitol where, the story goes, John Quincy Adams could hear the other party strategizing from across the room.
As someone who's played that beginning piece (the Vivaldi) in an orchestra in a bad acoustic environment, this video has kinda opened my eyes
Stewart, I have a career already, and your youtube channel has me wanting to go to architecture school. You put out amazing content.
Thank you!!
The Egg in Albany NY is a wonderful architectural space acoustically and visually. I am always in awe every time i visit for a concert. If you havent been i highly recommend it!
I don't understand much about acoustics except the bare minimum. Feels like I learned some new concepts here.
Linked this video to my musical inclined friend
Can't complement enough this sorely needed understanding of acoustics in architecture. I say this with 30+ years' experience of sirens, radios, alarms, flatulence, belching, and snoring gratuitously amplified in badly designed fire stations. (Yes, badly designed common sleeping areas amplify the sound of nocturnal body functions. But not to worry, the people using them are only trying to sleep!) One day at work in a brand new fire station, the principle architect of its design firm showed up for a walk through. When I brought up an aspect of how sounds traveled in the brand spanking new building, he said it had never even occurred to him to consider acoustics. Then he said building design can't affect the sound characteristics of a building anyway. Good to know.
In thermen Vals by Zumthor he designed a lot of different rooms for different experiences. One is a small chamber that is only accessible through a almost claustrofobic passage. But inside the chamber you have a very clear and long echo (probably due to the hard materials and the height of this chamber). But experiencing a church like echo in such a small place felt very relaxing and enjoyable.
Would definitely recommend!
There's a church in Brasilia (Brazil's capital) that has this huge, circular almost triangular-shaped wall, going from one side of the church to the other. If you whisper in one of the ends, people on the other end will be able to hear you loud and clear, even though they're 10 meters away. I have no clue why that's inside a church, but it's really cool.
The wigwams of indigenous Americans, traditionally floored with pine boughs and involving surprisingly complicated architecture, often strike me as warm, comforting spaces. The sphere, imagined as the whole and split by the earth, offers a uniquely intimate space while recalling a connection to the larger world around you, and I think acoustics have a lot to do with that. Think blanket fort, with the lights off.
It's really funny he mentioned Weird Al because I can remember as a kid in the 90s listening to Dr Demento and either Dr or Weird Al talking about one of his albums or demos, saying that the vocals on tracks had been recorded in a bathroom because of the acoustics! Some goofy thing that stuck in my head all these years. Great Video!
those first two minutes were mind blowing. ty stew!
Hi Stewart - that performance space was amazing. Simple materials but used in a way that is both functional and interesting. Thanks for a future trivia question - What do David Byrne, Weird Al Yankovic and Chris Lowe have in common?
favorite acoustic space: 10 years ago, Fells Point MD USA. there was a marble circular large bench-like structure. in the middle was a marble ottoman-like structure with a copper manhole cover on the top. talking while sitting on the ottoman facing the large circle seat created a strange phenomenon that sounded like you were talking from inside your head. almost like wearing headphones. sadly “the circle” no longer exists.
There is a perfect book! God's Word is flawless. 😊
The Chinese Pavilion in Stockholm is a rococo castle with an elliptical room in the center. It was designed with a domed ceiling to enhance the sound of harpsichord music, and has a light springy metallic reverb. It's also engineered so that when you stand in the focal point of the ellipse you can eavesdrop on whispered conversations from across the room, as all sound waves converge at the focal point. It's a psychedelic experience, and not at all what you expect from such an old building.
Im a first year architecture student and we actually did a variation on the pregnant with architecture thing as our first assignment!
I am glad to have discovered your channel. You have a great way of explaining architectural concepts in ways that laypeople can understand. I never know what to expect when I see a new video from you, but I'm never disappointed.
On many videos regarding home architecture, there is this style of huge flat windows, flat floors without any carpets, tall flat skylines, flat walls, and very square rooms. By following this style, you end up with spaces where no one can talk. Hopefully, this style will learn a bit about acoustics.
I once took part in an artistic 'installation' I guess, in an old Chapel, where you could take a nap on the floor of the Chapel while people played music with weird instruments that I don't know the name of, I think mostly oriental instruments
It was a nice moment and the building did feel like an instrument to me
The tutoring space I work in just got redesigned, and for awhile we weren't sure what purpose these odd panels on the walls and bird-like structures hanging from the ceiling were, until we realized that they muffle sound just enough to give the open floor plan a feeling of privacy.
Vendôme metro station in Montreal, has an intentionally designed tubular art piece that hangs in the ceiling, the air pressure from the trains coming into the station creates a sort of "tune" when the wind pushes through the structure. It's really fascinating!
Autechre is a british electronic duo who actually used falling water on the cover of one of their records. they're music is the most architectural music i've ever heard. It's all about material and space.
César Pelli was the architect for the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, California. The hall has adjustable canopies and acoustic control chambers and curtains which can be adjusted according to the type of music being played. The hall is beautiful and sounds great. It’s really fun to see the hall adjusted for the music to be played. The downside is in the seating: the seats are too narrow and too close together. It’s like flying coach on an airplane. My husband and I are tall, but not overly so. We are very uncomfortable in the fixed seating and must choose to sit in the moveable balcony chairs. Such a shame for such a beautiful space.
I literally was just commenting on how spot on the acoustics are at my local high school’s new auditorium…
I really enjoy your videos. I also used to live in Chicago and sometimes I miss it, so it's cool to me that you use examples around the city.
mind blown. this is SO COOL!
Awesome as always, not sure how I went so long without subscribing. I was wondering do you use your own drone footage or stock clips?
Both
My favorite concert hall is the new Ordway center where the St. Paul chamber orchestra plays. Even in the nosebleed seats, I can see and hear the orchestra perfectly.
Other acoustically significant spaces I like include the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, the Senate chamber in the New York state capitol in Albany, and the amphitheater in Heidelberg, Germany.
Nice to see a shout-out for the Pet Shop Boys.
We could also consider musicians who became architects, the most obvious contemporary example being Daniel Libeskind. His thoughts on the relationship of architecture to sound are worth listening to. Also, the ‘Architecture is frozen music’ quote is normally attributed to the German poet and polymath, J W von Goethe, in ‘Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of his Life’, but it is likely to have been a commonly expressed sentiment in Baroque times.
You deserve more subscribers my friend
My undergraduate research paper was on architectural acoustics in performance spaces. In particular the Santa Cecilia Hall by Renzo Piano and the Walt Disney Concert Hall by Frank Gehry. Fascinating stuff.
I enjoyed getting into the material properties of woods used and that chairs imitate the acoustic properties of people to maintain consistency between practice and performances.
Saarinen's Noyes Dormitory, at Vassar College, is designed as a semi-circle. The complement of the semi-circle is a semi-circle of tall pine trees that complete the circle. There is a spot at, or near, the exact center of the circle that is marked with a concrete slab on the ground. And if you stand at that spot and speak in a normal speaking voice, your voice can be heard by someone in the dorm, and it reverberates loudly back into the outside space in that circle.
I just learned Weird Al got his BA in Architecture at Cal Poly. Cool.
I enjoy the sounds in newer auditoriums. The school I went to had a stage in the gym. I thought it was our microphones sounding bad, but it was probably the gym itself. My kid’s schools have has dedicated auditoriums and I love them.
I like the Yale School of Music, but in future I’m only going to attend choral performances at Woolsey Hall. It’s old and kind of church-like. I went to a band concert there and hated the echoes.
Stairways, the sound that bounces is almost like a auditorium!
I did not know what I clicked on and yet... I'M HOOKED!
The James Turrell Twilight Epiphany Skyspace at Rice University is a must visit. The paint used on the structure has special acoustic qualities. There is a small installation that The University of Texas at Austin.
Genius idea, amplifying train noise into a building. Genius....I bet everyone loves that and sits around marveling about the fact their part of living art. 😮💨
Well I finally clicked this with the new title. Great video
The Muny in St. Louis is one of the best examples of good sound design
Excellent video. Each type of music requires a different kind of acoustical space to be heard to its best advantage. I remember the brutalist Tennessee Performing Arts center used thick cloth panels that would raise and lower around the auditorium according to the acoustical requirement of the music played there, and it actually worked quite well.
Very cool topic, thank you!
man that mccormick center is so sick! amazing vid!
Thanks for this video. I think architecture and acoustics on the human body is highly important. I found a research paper, Soundscape Ecology: The Science of Sound in the Landscape, super interesting read. "Soundscape ecology thus can be described by our working definition as all sounds, those of biophony, geophony, and anthrophony, emanating from a given landscape to create unique acoustical patterns across a variety of spatial and temporal scales."
Well done!
I wrote my bachelor thesis on this topic and good videos in this field are rare. You cover very much in an understandable and entertaining way. I will use this video to educate my friends about what i am doing for living :D thank you!
i think you've got the pacing now! Great video!
Great essay thank you! Another simple example is how pop music radio edits are designed to cut through road noise in a car
Excellent, informative, a favorite subject of mine, how sound affects us.
Was gobsmaked with the acoustics in Lees Chapel at the University of Washington and Lee in Lexington Virginia .
Great video ! Your explanations and referneces are very clear and illustrative. In my opinion you should name silence (control of the background noise) as one of the most important acoustic qualities of a space.