Music and Architecture: A Cross between Inspiration and Method

The different aspects of architectural design and music that act in support of one another have governed the inspiration and utilization of music in design education. This paper describes a Basic Design Studio assignment that involves visualizing music by organizing linear and planar units using basic design principles, with the aim of contributing to the transformation of conceptual thinking to physical formation by the integration of domain material taught in basic design courses. Dealing with music as a design tool, the study relates the perceptional and structural analogy between music and design and discusses its contribution to basic design achievements. The visual expression of the products and the manner in which it relates to appropriate basic design principles and elements qualities are evaluated in the context of organization, abstraction and uniqueness. The assignment given to the students to conduct this evaluation strengthened their ability to transform abstract thinking into physical representation, helped them to understand multidimensional thinking and how to engage in creative thinking, contributed to their architectural education and improved their study skills by giving them experience in coordinating design elements, principles and materials, all of which served to stimulate improvisation and reflection of emotions. From the results of this study, it is recommended that music, which has similar approaches and principles to those of architectural design, can be used as a tool in design and architectural education to support different phases of the creation and expression process.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2023

This study investigated the relationship between music and architectural design creativity. It examines the potential benefits and challenges of using music as an inspiration in the design process, as well as the influence of different types of music on creativity.The study was guided by a theoretical framework that integrates theories of music and creativity, with a particular focus on the function of music in enhancing operations that underlie creative thinking. This was strengthened with case studies of architectural edifices inspired by music, around the world. Purposive sampling was used to engage participants who have experience in architectural design, music, and education. Data was collected through questionnaires and the analysis included thematic analysis and descriptive statistics. The outcome of the study shows the benefits of using music during architectural design included; increased creativity, improved focus, improved concentration, and reduced stress and anxiety.It was also revealed that the selection of music used during the design process can be based on personal preference, random selection, genre-specific playlists, curated playlists and mood. While challenges such as music have been considered as a distraction or noise and personal preference differences for music genre existed when a team worked together in the studio. The implication of this is particularly relevant for architects, designers, and educators who can benefit from the use of music to enhance their creativity and optimize the design process. Hence, the study assertsa holistic approach to inspiration for architectural design that incorporates the use of music as a creativetool.

The common ground that architecture shares with other disciplines of design and planning, as well as its relation to all forms of visual arts, is evident and granted. This shared ground and the reciprocities that all inter-disciplinary relations suggest are being efficiently –and inevitably– utilized for educational purposes. For many courses in the architectural curricula, instructors and students find many opportunities to compare concepts of architecture with those of visual arts. However, one can also observe that such comparisons and relations mostly tend to be experienced through the products of such fields. The relation of art works themselves to architectural concepts becomes so boldly apparent that the comparison of the processes of artistic creation and architectural production remains secondary. On the other hand, architectural design also shares a lot with other compositional arts that does not operate on visual terms, such as music and literature. The vocabulary on composition shared by all these disciplines with concepts such as texture, rhythm, and etc. opens up further possibilities for educational experiences on the process of creation. In this paper, such an

The Architecture of Music - Design by Analogy, 2016

Music has the potential to evoke some of our deepest emotions and drastically alter our moods simply through specific combinations of notes. Architecture too, should have this potential. This thesis aims at investigating the secret of emotion in music, as it is an attempt to draw an analogy that may help to create a deeper architectural experience. A great musical composition is like a dream. When it is convincing in its narrative it draws you in, and makes you believe in its reality, stirring emotions within you for no apparent reason. When you look deeper into the nature of a musical composition, like musicologists have been doing, you discover testable, psychological devices are applied in order to create a greater emotional response from the listeners. By studying the work of Beethoven, I believe that I can translate these aural devices into visual and tactile ones, in the form of a housing development in Auckland city. Housing developments suffer from problems of monotony, due to their repetitive and modular nature. This project seeks to provide an alternative to these monotonous schemes by using a piece of music as a design brief. Highly architectural pieces of music are already perfectly balanced in their blend between variation and repetition, and are therefore great for regulating order. I have chosen my own piece of music, the Pathetique sonata by Beethoven, as inspiration because of its complex architecture, and because there are many professional analyses of it from which to study. My goal in this thesis is to reveal the wealth of architecural ideas hidden within highly structured pieces of music.

When music and architecture are found in one sentence, it is hard to picture a scene or a field where both are related. It would surprise many people how architecture and music are connected in such meaningful ways. On the surface, they're both disciplines, that require precision and cannot settle for approximation (Libeskind). For example, if a set of walls or columns are not designed exactly alike to hold a floor or any solid form, the whole building would be ruined. The same applies for music; every musical note must be played correctly and on time. So clearly, they both require mathematics in terms of calculating time for music and measurements for architectural forms (Libeskind). Also, some philosophers in the past discussed the link between them like German philosopher Fredrick Von Schelling who has a famous quote that says "Architecture is music in space, as it were a frozen music." What Schelling was trying to say, is that architecture is the visual form of music. We are involved with music by listening and dancing to it, while we are involved with Architecture by inhabiting it. If we were to pause a musical piece from playing, we would lose our touch in all ways, but architecture is right there in front of our eyes, we can see its rhythm, unlike music where we listen to the rhythm (Winters).

Book, 2022

At a time when technology has unleashed architects to design the most extravagant tangible forms, could questioning the concept of form in an abstract medium like music, which lies in the territory of idea, and incorporating its ephemeral qualities into the spatial realm lead to a reconsideration of architectural form? -- Isben Önen's insightful book offers a new view of the relationship between the histories of Western music and architecture. It demonstrates both the profound overlaps and divergences between the two fields, presenting a wide-ranging understanding of the development of each field. This is cultural history at its best: richly informative and deeply engaging. (Christopher Long) -- Throughout history there has been a constant fascination of architects with music. Isben Önen, an architect and a musician himself, sets out explore the formal correspondence between his two fields of expertise, from Vitruvius to Leon Battista Alberti; from Gabrieli through the enlightenment, to Alban Berg and all the way to Renzo Piano’s and Luigi Nono’s contemporary Prometeo. This uncommonly vast and profound piece of scholarship is of interest not only to musicians and architects but also the non-specialized public. (Liane Lefaivre)

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2015

This paper is about the relationship of music and art which are components of the basic design applications over arts. For architectural education, to deal with art as a tool and the experience of benefiting from this tool in the design phase is considered as important. Therefore, the situations of music being used as a tool in solving design problems are exemplified in this study. Pallasma said "In the silence of a Gothic cathedral, we remember the last sound of a Gregorian melody". He emphasized how close the relationship between the sound theme of music and architecture is. Its relationship with sound and architecture in the upper scale and its relationship with music and architecture in the lower scale, similarities, common or differing sides have been emerged as two areas which have been questioned all throughout the history. These similarities, common or differing sides host up almost infinite number of concepts and features in themselves such as rhythm, repetition, body, composer, designer… In this paper, the relationship of music and architecture are discussed in terms of the said similarities, common features and differences. Sample area of this discussion is the basic design course in

2005

This paper presents some results of an interdisciplinary project where we brought together geometry, architecture and music. This combination enables a visual and audible approach to the formal thinking of sciences. Geometry has the role of formalization and mediation of the relations between architecture and music. Pythagoras' ideas about harmony and proportion impressed the formation processes in music over many centuries. In architecture Le Corbusier and Xenakis for example stand for corresponding creations in architecture and music compositions. In the interdisciplinary project we worked together with students of architecture and mathematics of the University of Kaiserslautern and with students of music composition of the Music Academy of Cologne in Germany. The theoretical and historical analyses formed the basis for their own creative works in interdisciplinary groups. The results of the students' creative works were presented in a concert with visual presentations and geometrical objects with the title "Sound-Sights. Seeing Music -Hearing Geometry". Some examples of the student projects will give an impression of the interdisciplinary experiments.

Journal of History Culture and Art Research

Music and architecture are two of the effective components of the lives of human beings which are especially important. However, the link between these two components and their impacts on the understanding of the audience are some of the issues which have not been focused on. This bond is caused by a mutual space. A space which can either be created by a work of architecture or a piece of music. Despite of the previous studies that focused on investigating the different aspects of these two forms of art that link them together, this paper aims to discover and understand the perceptual -emotional relationship between music and architecture further than the preliminary principles that link them. It also aims to find an answer to this question: how can a relationship be established between various linking aspects of these two arts that would be understandable for their audiences?

Belonging, Detachment and the Representation of Musical Identities in Visual Culture, 2023

The field of music and visual culture has diversified, permitting investigation of such hybrid topics as music and architecture – topics that show additional ways to know and relate our music histories, visually. Looking into the literature, music and architecture appears to be a fledgling topic within the purview of music and visual culture. Yet architecture is said to be appreciated primarily through its visual aesthetic, and in many respects, fundamentally connects us with our musical past in its visual presentation. Architectural forms have also revealed more about social and political demands on music cultures as Europeans explored, colonised, and settled more extensively from the sixteenth century. This essay explores the theme of music and architecture through a project called the Piano Mill from the perspective of the architect (Bruce Wolfe) and the musicologist involved (Jocelyn Wolfe). The Piano Mill brings us to a way of artistically, and quite boldly, exploring our musical past, through the artefact of the piano and the combined imaginings of an architect and a composer. We are left with “a strange sense of both dislocation and nostalgia,” the composer, Erik Griswold, concludes.