1 t h e m u s i c o f a r c h i t e c t u r e marilyn sheppard2011

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t o t h o s e i n s e a rc h o f t h e s u b l i m e

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Thesis submitted to the faculty of the V i r g i n i a P o l y t e c h n i c Institute and State Universityi n p a r t i a l f u l f i l l m e n t o f t h e r e q u i r e m e n t sf o r t h e d e g r e e o f Master of Architecture o f t h e S c h o o l o f A r c h i t e c t u r e + D e s i g n

s u s a n p i e d m o n t - p a l l a d i n o

j a a n h o l t

p a u l e m m o n s

j a m e s r i t t e r

a l e x a n d r i a , v a2 8 t h o f S e p t e m b e r o f 2 0 11 b y m a r i l y n s h e p p a r d

w a a c

4a b s t r a c t

M u s i c a w a k e s i n u s e m o t i o n s h a r d t o e x p l a i n . A r c h i t e c t u r e d o e s , t o o . A f r i e n d o f m i n e u s e d t o c a l l i t “ A r c h i t e c t u r a l o r g a s m s “ .

What is that “sublime“ moment that hap-pens when you are listening to a live or-chestra and get moved by it made of? Are we capable to achieve an event like this only by using architectural elements?

I realized there is more than mu-sic. A “sublime“ moment could be experienced in many contexts. What did all these had in common?

After listing the common elements that all these contexts had, I be-came sure it had to be with the pres-ence of the Four Classical Elements.

I came to the idea that maybe if I could include Air, Fire, Earth and Water into my project then I might be a step closer to have the users go through a sublime experience.

Music, as a performing art, transports us to distant moments and spaces than those we are in the pre-sent time. A hundred musicians playing Bruckner’s Scherzo could make us feel emotionally moved; it could make us feel joy, anger, anguish, delight, peace, fear, freedom. Music has the ability to change our mood, to make us go through a series of feelings. This, I believe, has to do with how it involves you in it.Arthur Schopenhauer also says: “The effect of music on the mind, so penetrating, so immediate, so unfailing, and also the after-effect that sometimes follows it, consisting in a specially sublime frame of mind, are explained by the passive nature of hearing just described”3. This penetrating component of music, so immediate, of which Schopenhauer speaks, is how the Sublime is experienced through it. Music even elevates the soul of those who are most open to perceive it.

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t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s

d e f i n i t i o n s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6s i t e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1p r e c e d e n t s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4d i a g r a m s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 8m u s e d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1p l a y i n g m u s i c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 8n o t a t i o n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 6f i r s t i d e a s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1t h e s u b l i m e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3d e s i g n i n g w i t h t h e m u s i c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6d e s i g n i n g w i t h t h e s u b l i m e . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6t h e s t r u c t u r e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 7m a t e r i a l s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1t h e l a n d s c a p e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2m o l e s k i n e n o t e s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 5t h a n k s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 6b i b l i o g r a p h y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 8c u r r i c u l u m v i t a e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 9

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“The fundamental phenomenon of sound is its devel-opment in time. Architecture is basically static; time is introduced through changes in daylight, periods of different intensity of noise and above all, through the movement of people. Sound-architecture is in its es-sence an event of temporal development. Space is developed gradually in time. But it is not a space, it is a constant sequence of spaces”.

- B e r n a rd L e i t n e r ( S O U N D : S PA C E )

d e f i n i t i o n s

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m u s i c

c o m e s f ro m t h e G re e k “ m o u s i k e ” ( μ ο υ σ ι κ ή ) , i n re l a t i o n t o a n a r t i n s p i re d b y m u s e s .

m u s i c i s t h e a r t o f c o m b i n i n g s o u n d s a n d s i l e n c e s , i n a w a y t h a t c re a t e s h a r m o n y a n d u s u a l l y t r a n s m i t s a n e m o t i o n .

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m u s i c = a r c h i t e c t u r e ?

s i m i l a r i t i e s

Music and architecture are the only arts that surround you all.

Like in music, architecture makes you live, puts you through a journey.

Search for Harmony in both SYMMETRY AND ASYMMETRY.

Notation: music’s scores [five line staff] and architecture’s plans.

d i s s i m i l a r i t i e s

Architecture is the art of designing through space, music is the art of designing through time.

A piece of played music is an event in time, ephemeral almost. A piece of Archi tecture could last centur ies.

I started thinking about the things that were interesting to me about architecture and about music. Jim Ritter suggested to think about the similarities and dissimilarities between them.

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w a t e rw a t e r

M y t h e s i s q u e s t i o n i s n o t d e f i n e d y e t . H o w e v e r, I d o n e e d t o s t a r t t h i n k i n g o f w h e re t o s t a r t m y re s e a rc h o n m u s i c + a rc h i t e c t u re w i t h i n a n u r b a n c o n t e x t .A p l a c e f o r m u s i c a n d a rc h i t e c t u re t o b e p e r f e c t l y p e rc e i v e d a n d s e n s e d s h o u l d b e i n a l o c a t i o n c l o s e t o t h e c i t y t i s s u e b u t n o t t o o c l o s e , a n d c l o s e t o t h e n a t u re b u t n o t i n t h e m i d d l e o f i t . A p l a c e w h e re o u r m i n d s c o u l d b e o p e n t o b e s e n s i t i v e e n o u g h . . .

My question about the architecture of musiccould be better understood in a place close to the presence of

10m u s i c + a r c h i t e c t u r e + w a t e r

11s i t e

Susan P-P suggested me a site that was hardly notice-able, since it is today part of Fort McNair, a military base. Located in South West DC, the site touches the Wash-ington channel, a body of water within the manmade Haines Point and the Southwest part of Washington DC.

It was a perfect site for the project’s search of the sensitive search of the music of architecture.

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The site is proposed as a link to the historical cultural division of Southwest, DC that had 4th street as main division axis. The site would give the city and the peo-ple a part of what today belongs to fort McNair. This idea has been previously proposed and that is why I decided to use this land to explore how it could be use to create a musical park for the neighborhood and a cultural center for music performance that is unique in the area. The site is about 600’ x 600’, so approximately 360,000 square feet.

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Site4th Street AxisWaterfront Metro StationFort McNairNationals Stadium

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east-west section

north-south section

14p r e c e d e n t s

To understand how other architects approached both, a site with water and a project with music it was important that I started to look for projects that put me to think about my own situation. It is crucial that I fully understand after various analysis what is it that I do admire about them and what is it they add to my soon to be design project.

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Hans Scharoun understood the Berliner Philharmoniker as a musi-cal instrument itself, made from the interior of the music to the out-side. The hall not only has one of the best acoustics in the world, but the intimacy it creates within the audience and bewteen the audience and the musicians due to the surrounding type of seat-ing makes it unique and admirable.

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In the ICA the water element becomes so important that it is actually all you can see from the main computer room.The public plaza is created right next to the water, too, as if the audience was looking at the stage of water.

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In the Norwegian Opera House the approach to the water edge is sharply delimited. There is a sound boundarie that indi-cates the division between what is water and what is solid floor.

18d i a g r a m s

The following are schemes I started draw ing based on the information I had compiled till the moment. I lat-er realized that that wasn’t enough and started all over again, looking at things in a more sensitive way that I had before, and created model 1, an experimental mod-el based on a transliteration from music to the site.

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21m u s e d

After analysing similarities and dissimilarities between ar-chitecture and music, I decided I had to get inspired. By a muse, hopefully. I found in J.S. Bach’s music the inspiration I needed to start studying music with a rea-son. I needed to know what was it about that song that was so moving, how was it composed, graphically?

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a i r o n t h e g s t r i n g

I decided I needed a subject to focus on to begin applying and testing my theories of the relationship between architecture and music. I had found architecture -I had precedents in architecture of the search on its relation to music- but I needed music that transmitted architecure in some way.

I listened to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air on the G string over and over again. I knew there was something secretely hidden in it that would help me find out what music had that compared to the same component in architecture...

First I listened to the music and made a model of the interpretation of the music on the site.

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m o d e l I

Letting myself go as I listened to Bach’s Air on the G string, this model was born. It was a first intent to express in a rather abstract composition the life of musical notes with their high and low pitches, early and reverberant sounds, sounds that live and suddenly die into the water of the model’s site, and in between transparent elements that join each note smoothly, turning them into a melody.

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m o d e l I I

I read the partiture and tried to fig-ure out how those scores would lit-erally transform into architecture...

I gave each of the notes in the par-titure of Air on the G string a differ-ent numerical value and divided the site in an arbitrary amount of squares (1050). I drew a yellow line through 4th street (the one that crosses the site) and started my song notes/wood sticks there. The melody crosses the site North to South, and each note is represented by one of this sticks which height is given by its unique numeri-cal value. The rest of the sticks in the site show how the sound notes die gradually especially toward the water.

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a i r o n t h e g s t r i n gJ . S . B a c h

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I superposed my model on the site’s bird eye’s perspective. I asked myself whether that gave any answers or clues on how to approach the site.The image helped me understand how a project in this site should approach the contact to the water. The answer was rather irregularly.

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How should a music project look like? Was my last model/experiment giving me any answers regarding form? What if the notes died irregularly towards the water? The contact people should experience with water would be gradual.

What if I took my model I and combine it with model II? This image reflects the answer...

But then... What materials does music use? What about a building for music, what senses of which materials should the audience experience?

28p l a y i n g m u s i c

At this point I had more or less understood what were the elements music had in common with architecture. But I still didn’t have a building nor a program. I thought about that climax moment in music. That perfect mo-ment when tens of musicians gather and play with so many different instruments a number of notes in a certain order that together, and perfectly performed, create a piece of music. I wanted to recreate that perfect environment, both acousti-cally and experiencially.But how was music expressed in architecture? My will was to design a concert hall, a place where the au-dience experiences chills when listening to music but also a place where they could be emotionally moved by the quality in the space they walk around, maybe in similar ways that music did. I realized I was fully interested in the similarities between music and architecture, while not so thrilled about the realm of the differences. Similarities would help me more for they would lead my design in a way the users could have similar sensations than those they had when feeling music.The selection of the program and its needs lead me to both a qualitative and a quantitative analysis of the activities in a concert hall. I studied moment by moment, what were the activities people would perform in it. How would people get to the site and how would they move around in it, how much time would be spent in each activity. What would the quality of each one of these moments be? What were sensations involved in them? where therspecial events? Music was for sure “the” event. The main music hall would be a very unique space. But so would the reception or main foyer space, the musicians dressing rooms and rehearsing spaces, the music notation library. This study would show me somehow the relevance of the spaces and hopefully some other hidden answers to some other hidden questions.

This drawing shows how in time and space the audience meets the musicians.

a u d i e n c e

m u s i c i a n s

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The time spent by the audience in general is 3.5 hours each time they go for a performance.

A graphical profile of the notes in Air on the G string drawn after the experimental model (model II)

The journey the audi-ence experiences when attending a concert hall performance.

The journey the musi-cians experience when playing a concert.

p r o g r a mu s e se v e n t s i n t i m e

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accesstransitionthreshold porticoentrance gate

Arrival relates to the feelings of new encounters, uncertainty/surprise, orientation.The place to arrive should be wel-coming, should embrace visitants within a space that will start prepar-ing them for what’s coming next.

a r r i v a l

31 f o y e r

foyer/fire/foyer

The word foyer, from the latin “fo-carium”, derives from fire. It is the heart of a concert hall building.

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Foyer is a place for artists and au-dience to meet up in the moments previous to a performance and warm up in the intermissions.

f o y e r

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d r e s s i n g r o o m sp r a c t i c e r o o m s

Rehearsal means to repeat over and over again one activity to then perform in an event. The term translates into feelings of repetition, regularity, rhythm, pro-gression.

34 m u s i c h a l l

The music hall is the space that holds the most important event in the concert hall. There is a big emotional load included in this mo-ment, were the users could expe-rience from anguish and fear, to happiness and excitement, every-thing triggered by the special com-ponent in here: music.The music hall is directly related to the main foyer space, any other foyers in the building used for in-termission encounters, and many services that help support the main hall.Here is where most of the magic takes place.

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What is that “sublime“ moment that hap-pens when you are listening to a live or-chestra and get moved by it made of? Are we capable to achieve an event like this only by using architectural elements?

I realized there is more than mu-sic. A “sublime“ moment could be experienced in many contexts. What did all these had in common?

After listing the common elements that all these contexts had, I be-came sure it had to be with the pres-ence of the Four Classical Elements.

I came to the idea that maybe if I could include Air, Fire, Earth and Water into my project then I might be a step closer to have the users go through a sublime experience.

t h e s u b l i m em u s i c h a l l

36n o t a t i o n

Architecture couldn’t be built if it wasn’t for its notation means [construction documents]. This form of notation creates a special language that architects and builders share in order to make architecture possible.In music, a similar condition happens. Music needs both com-poser and performer to understand this specific language [music notation] in order for music to exist.

37 m u s i c n o t a t i o n

In music, many of the symbols used as part of the musical language are directly related to parts of the human body.For example, the upper section of the five line staff is intended to be played by the right hand, while the lower one indi-cates it is played by the left hand.Another example are some notes that go ac-companied by a symbol on top of them indicat-ing the note should be played together with the foot pedal pushed only with the heel or pushed only with the big toe.There is, too, a symbol of “breathe“ meaning a singer should take a breake to breathe at that point.

The relationship with the human body indicates how much the language of the music notation is needed to fully under-stand how to perform what was originally in-tended for the piece of music to be by the com-poser.

38 m u s i c n o t a t i o n

Two experiments us-ing architecture notation (section drawings) to ex-press a piece of music (Air on the G string - J.S. Bach).

39 m u s i c n o t a t i o n

Music expressed in an ar-chitecture drawing.

40 g r a c e n o t e s

Grace notes are consid-ered a sort of “ornaments” in music. They are writ-ten by the composer of the piece of music but left open to decide whether to play them to the performer. That way, if played by a dif-ferent performer, the piece of music might be different as well.Grace notes cought my attention for their hidden condition. They are graphi-cally printed as small sized notes with a line across the main note axis line.

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Music notation and architecture notation are special lan-guages in the realm of these arts. Notation systems are the reason music and architecture are able to exist as performed and built. The transmission of the piece from the composer to the performer and that one of the ar-chitectural piece from the design architect to the builder architect is an essential point in common in both arts.My first ideas are based on that concept.

f i r s t i d e a s

42 m o d e l I I I

I decided to take the five line staff from music and lay it out on the site as if the lines were architectural elements. I im-agined the lines as if they were in an architecture plan, and therefore they became walls in the architecture project.They were not parallel to each other, though. As they were part of the physical world, within the city of DC, I arranged them so that some of the lines responded to the South West urban tissue, in the orthogonal cardus-decumanos configura-tion. Other lines responded to the water shore, aligning per-pendicularly to it. I envisioned 4th street corridor as a trans-parent but strong element appearing in the site as a remider of the history of the neighborhood.It would then become the entrance way and axis of the circu-lation to approach the concert hall building.

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“What is music? Music has to do with an enormous dis-cipline. To play an instrument, to read music, to per-form music, requires a discipline. This is one of the con-necting links between music and architecture, because both are extremely rigorous engagements. You can-not play music approximately, unless you’re just play-ing around; if you really want to play a melody, you have to hit every note correctly, and every tempo and every harmony has to be there in order to be audible.And I think that is true of architecture: you cannot re-ally do architecture approximately, you have to do it exactly. And what ties them together in my own expe-rience is the element of time and the element of math-ematics. Both of them really are very exact disciplines, they are very precise, they are both drawn in a certain way, and the drawings, whether they are scores in mu-sic or architectural drawings, connect the music” 1. - D a n i e l L i b e s k i n d , A rc h i t e c t

t h e s u b l i m e

In aesthetics, the sublime has to do with that physical, intellectual, artistic or spiritual object which greatness or vast magnitude cannot be imitated, measured nor calculated.Arthur Schopenhauer says: “Our pleasure in the tragedy belongs not to the feeling of the beautiful, but to that of the sublime; it is, in fact, the highest degree of this feeling”2. In his intent to clarify the term Sublime, Schopenhauer created a very practical list giving examples of each one of a series of levels that go from Beauty to Sublime:• Feeling of Beauty – Light is reflected off a flower. (Pleasure from a mere perception of an object that cannot hurt observer).• Weakest Feeling of Sublime – Light reflected off stones. (Pleasure from beholding objects that pose no threat, yet themselves are devoid of life).• Weaker Feeling of Sublime – Endless desert with no movement. (Pleasure from seeing objects that could not sus-tain the life of the observer).• Sublime – Turbulent Nature. (Pleasure from perceiving objects that threaten to hurt or destroy observer).• Full Feeling of Sublime – Overpowering turbulent Nature. (Pleasure from beholding very violent, destructive ob-jects).• Fullest Feeling of Sublime – Immensity of Universe’s extent or duration. (Pleasure from knowledge of observer’s nothingness and oneness with Nature).This stage gets as close as possible to the unmeasurable, to the infinite and, why not, immortality and perfection.

I came to the idea that maybe if I could include Air, Fire, Earth and Water as elements into my project then I might have been a step closer to having the users experiment the sense of “the sublime”.Then I realized I needed to get into a deep research on what “the sublime“ really meant.

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Music and architecture are similar in the way that they are the only arts that surround you all. Just like music, architecture has this ability that music has to surround you all and to take you through different sensations, a piece of architecture makes you experience a series of emotions; it puts you in a journey. “Architecture is fro-zen music. Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.” - said J.W. von Goethe. Architecture could be frozen music since architecture generates a journey in time, just as music does. Although architecture also generates a journey in the space that it creates. Architec-ture contrasts with music’s volatile component as well, for the former has to be materialized (built) in order to be experienced, and remains through time. Music, on the other hand is as ephemeral as a musical note lasts.

Music, as a performing art, transports us to distant moments and spaces than those we are in the pre-sent time. A hundred musicians playing Bruckner’s Scherzo could make us feel emotionally moved; it could make us feel joy, anger, anguish, delight, peace, fear, freedom. Music has the ability to change our mood, to make us go through a series of feelings. This, I believe, has to do with how it involves you in it.Arthur Schopenhauer also says: “The effect of music on the mind, so penetrating, so immediate, so unfailing, and also the after-effect that sometimes follows it, consisting in a specially sublime frame of mind, are explained by the passive nature of hearing just described”3. This penetrating component of music, so immediate, of which Schopenhauer speaks, is how the Sublime is experienced through it. Music even elevates the soul of those who are most open to perceive it. t h e s u b l i m e i n m u s i c

m u s i c + a r c h i t e c t u r e

“Art is poetry: the emotion of the senses, the joy of the mind as it measures and appreciates, the rec-ognition of an axial principle which touches the depth of our being. Art is thus pure creation of the spir-it which shows us, at certain heights, the summit of the creation to which man is capable of attain-ing. And man is capable of great happiness when he feels that he is creating”4 (Le Corbusier|Precisions)Clearly, Le Corbusier refers to the Sublime when speaking of “the summit of the creation...” What has to do Ar-chitecture to reach the quality of taking its users to feel in the summit of creation? At this point we could go back to Libeskind’s comment at the introduction of this paper when he says to play a real melody you have to actu-ally hit the right series of keys in the right moment. Architecture might be like that as well, then. To recall the Sublime, architecture needs to aim to that “perfect” component that Nature easily expresses, the one that brings every piece together to work in harmony, creating a perfect system, an entity that awes and amazes the spectator.“It is that nature never deviates in its forward march, and everything in nature is striving towards the goal of perfection”... “and all things in all respects have a perfect relationship, perfect analogy and harmony”.5 Says Etienne-Louis Boulée.For a piece of architecture to reach sublimity, it has to be able to touch the user’s soul. It has to make you think of the past, the present and the future, it has to get you angry and happy, sad and enthusiastic, and then in peace and freedom with yourself and the world. It has to reach this perfection and surpass it in a way that makes the spectator feel the will-to-live.In the introduction of his “Architecture, Essay on Art”, Etienne-Louis Boulée expresses: “I will merely state that if Archi-tecture had acquired the perfection attained by the other arts, and if there were as beautiful examples, we would not today be reduced to trying to establish whether architecture has its source in nature or whether it is pure invention. (...) t h e s u b l i m e i n a r c h i t e c t u r e

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The ability to perceive the Sublime through architecture could be achieved by incorporating the presence of the 4 classical elements into the design.Earth, Air, Water and Fire are elemental components of the Universe and the sole thought on each one refers to an infinite quantity of Nature. Perhaps by bringing the presence of these elements to the architecture the Sublime could be somehow expressed through architecture.

The perfection we find in these four elements is brought to architecture to reach the sublime. Bulée, again, writes: “...a sphere is, in all respects, the image of perfection...”7 and then he mentions that because the sphere derives from na-ture, it has characteristics that have an “immeasurable hold over our senses”8. This, once again, refers to that feeling of sublime achieved in this case by a geometrical shape. Boulée expresses in his Architecture, Essay on Art, “let us take a look at some of the beauties of nature and we shall see that we are forced to express ourselves in accordance with the effect they have on our senses”. And John Ruskin, following the same thought, writes: “whatever is in architecture fair or beautiful, is imitated from natural forms; and what is not so derived, but depends for its dignity upon arrangement and government received from human mind, becomes the expression of the power of that mind, and receives a sublimity high in proportion to the power expressed”9. I believe these might be the keys to reach the Sublime in Architecture.

1 “Daniel Libeskind: The Links between Music and Architecture - Commentators, Opinion - The Independent.” The Independent | News | UK and Worldwide News | Newspaper. Web. 08 Mar. 2011. <http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/daniel-libeskind-the-links-between-mu-sic-and-architecture-649764.html>.2 Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation: Volume 1. New York: Dover Publications, 1969. Print.3 Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation: Volume 1. New York: Dover Publications, 1969. Print.4 Etchells, Frederick, and Corbusier Le. Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier (pseud). London: John Rodker, 1931. Print.5 Boullée, Etienne Louis, Helen Rosenau, and Sheila De Vallée. Architecture, Essay on Art. London: Academy Editions [etc., 1976. Print.6 Boullée, Etienne Louis, Helen Rosenau, and Sheila De Vallée. Architecture, Essay on Art. London: Academy Editions [etc., 1976. Print.7 Boullée, Etienne Louis, Helen Rosenau, and Sheila De Vallée. Architecture, Essay on Art. London: Academy Editions [etc., 1976. Print.8 Boullée, Etienne Louis, Helen Rosenau, and Sheila De Vallée. Architecture, Essay on Art. London: Academy Editions [etc., 1976. Print.9 Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. New York: Dover Publications, 1989. Print.

r e a c h i n g t h e S u b l i m e

t h e s u b l i m e i n t h e 4 c l a s s i c a l e l e m e n t s

f o o t n o t e s

Perhaps, you will object, that if indeed architects have not acquired the high degree of perfection that the oth-er artists appear to have attained, this may be because the latter have the advantage that their art is close to nature and consequently more likely to move us”6. In the previous quotations, Boulée’s thoughts on how the feeling of the Sublime seem somehow connected to Nature. Nature transmits the idea of eternity, immortal-ity, and these are related to the feeling of the Sublime. Boulée mentions that architecture might not be as close to Nature as the other arts are. However, architecture might have even more chances to be as close to it, since it is composed of nothing but materials that come from Nature, and recalls it constantly, through materi-als and through every window. These materials could also be grouped into one of each of the four elements. t h e s u b l i m e i n a r c h i t e c t u r e

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The following is a collection of my models and drawings in the study of a design of a building experience that would be a step closer to the feeling of the “Sublime“ through Architecture design.

d e s i g n i n g w i t h t h e m u s i c

47 model IV

With my following model the goal was to understand how to distribute the program on the site. How was the site going to be experience from a visitor’s poing of view. I decided 4th street’s prolon-gation into the site was going to appear as the main corri-dor from where visitors and musicians came into the site and meet to the approach the entrance indoor foyer.Then after that, spaces would generate a sequence as these boundarie lines I created were crossed trough.In this study the main foyer ap-pears adjacent and parallel to the 4th street corridor axis.I would later change this to have visitants perceive the water from that space.

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49 m o d e l V

Study models helped me understand how spaces connected to each other, how ma-terials related to the site and to the uses of the space. They helped me understand the scale of the site and the building.

50

e n t r a n c e f o y e r

51

f o y e r

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m u s i c h a l l

53 m o d e l V I

With this model I started to design spaces, moments, events happening in the concert hall. Events happened all the time, every space is a witness.

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c o n c e r t h a l l

55

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d e s i g n i n g wi th t he sub l ime

The following are my final drawings: plans, sections, views and perspectives and also pictures of my latest models. Together they express my search toward the Sublime in my architecture and therefore; the architecture of music.

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p l a n s

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p

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p

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p

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p

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p

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p

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e l e v a t i o n s

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e

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s e c t i o n s

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ss

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s

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p e r s p e c t i v e s

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p

u p : e n t r a n c e t o a r t i s t s r e h e a r s a l b u i l d i n gb e l o w : r e h e a r s a l h a l l f r o m w a t e r

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p

r e h e a r s a l h a l l a n d p r a c t i c e r o o m s

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p

u p : c o n c e r t h a l l i n t e r i o rb e l o w : m a i n f o y e r a n d f o y e r b a r

73C o n c e r t h a l l w a l k i n g a r r i v a l a t r i u m

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C o n c e r t h a l l i n t e r i o r f o y e r a n d l a r g e s t a i r c a s e h a l l

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l e f t : i n t e r i o r f o y e r a n d l a r g e s t a i r c a s e h a l lr i g h t : u p : i n t e r i o r f o y e r f r o m m a i n f o y e r • b e l o w : c l o a c k r o o m a n d t o i l e t s

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C o n c e r t h a l l i n t e r i o r f o y e r a n d l a r g e s t a i r c a s e h a l l

77t h e s t r u c t u r e

Structure was a tough challenge in the project. The con-cert had to be acourstically designed, and that includes shape of the music hall, envelope, and materials. The height and width of it put me to think in different design solutions for the structure of the concert hall and the meaning of the space. I decided ultimately the structure was a combination be-tween metal and concrete, working both together better for the goal I was trying to reach through design and also worked perfectly structurally.

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s t r u c t u r a l d e t a i l s

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s d

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s o u n d s t u d y

81 m a t e r i a l s

The principal materials picked for the concert hall are:• Weathering Steel for the “music box”, since

it brings that earthy element that reminds us of the progress of time and history in the site.

• Wood for the interior spaces that are most relat-ed to people’s needs, such as services. Wood has also been used as an important element for the concert hall interior as a sound absorbant material. This material has to do with life, it is a live material.

• Concrete: The original “notation lines“ of the project, later born as walls, and bearing walls became concrete, as the roots or foundations of the origin of the project. Concrete has the eternal condition like stone does and reminds the user how important these principles are.

• Light is used in the project as another material. Spac-es have been carefully designed so that natural light takes a important roll in the perception of spaces.

82t h e l a n d s c a p e

Landscape appears as a story that tells about two of the four classical elements: Earth and Water. The other two (Air and Fire) are represented in the concert hall’s interior.

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m o d e l V I IThe four classical elements are brought to the project through the use of architectural elements and their materials. • Water is brought as three shallow pools that people can use

during warm days to get refreshed. This water lies in pools that filter the water from the Washington channel and returns clean. These pools have bridges that work as links from the tree-vaulted public space next to the site to provide a number of different accesses to the new project.

• Earth appears as soil terraces whose geometry patterns fol-low those from the music hall seating pattern. Patterns relate to both; city grid and shoreline by the channel. Terraces of land allow as well to organize the outdoor spaces for their better use for recreational purposes.There is also the possi-bility of using them as for open air public seating for outdoor performances.

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m o d e l V I I I

• Air appears in the intimate foyer when there is no other window that the one in the roof. That skylight makes a obvious but simple connection with the sky, letting light come in the room so magically as the element itself.

• Fire happens in the foyer, the element comes to the project as a story, as it used to be back in the history of this typolo-gy of buildings. Foyer (comes from latin fccarius=fire) is a space where artists and audience meet in the intermission for an interexchange of opinions on what hap-pened during the first part of the spectacle.

85n o t e s

m o l e s k i n e

n e

86t h a n k s

Thanks to my committe; Susan, Paul, Jaan and Jim.Thanks Susan for always pushing me harder, for always identifying what was really important to me, and for me.Thanks Paul for your imagination and the poetics you al-ways help bringing into my architecture.Thanks Jaan for knowing but letting me find it out, experi-ence it by myself. Thanks Jim for being humorous, sarcastic, and passion-ate about my project. But mostly for being always there.Thank you so much Henry for being the best boss one could ask for, for having the patience that allowed me to learn constantly while in the office.Thanks Carol for pushing me to get the real meaning in my project while helping me understand some other things I never notice.Thanks Manuel for BEING THERE ALWAYS. Gracias por tu incondicional compañía y apoyo. Thanks for always letting me free. Gracias por dejarme ser yo misma y por enamorarme con cada detalle cada día. Gracias por le-vantarme en cada mal día y por levantarme aún más en los días felices.Thanks to my family, Geri my sister por ser mi compañera de aventuras toda mi vida, te adoro. Gracias por apo-yarme aún cuando no soy fácil de entender.Gracias mami y papi por apoyarme en cada decisión, por ser parte de mi día a día, por entender mi pasión por la arquitectura.Gracias Alicia y Alberto por ser mis modelos en lo profe-sional y personal. Por ser parte de mi carrera y mi vida.Gracias Viki por compartir mi pasión por la arquitectura.Gracias Nina por tu apoyo moral por sobretodo.Thanks to everyone that help me realize this dream and specially to those who transmitted the love and passion for music and architecture.

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88b i b l i o g r a p h y

All images, drawings and collages are produced by the author. Any borrowed or referenced images comply with the Fair Use Policy of Virginia Tech.

• Baldauf, Hans, Baker Goodwin, and Amy Reichert. Theater, Theatricality, and Architecture. New Haven: Per-specta, 1990. Print.

• Beranek, Leo Leroy, and Leo Leroy Beranek. Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architec-ture. New York, NY: Springer, 2004. Print.

• Blundell-Jones, Peter, and Hans Scharoun. Hans Scharoun. London: Phaidon, 1995. Print.• Boeckl, Matthias, and Ortner & Ortner.,. MuseumsQuartier Wien : Die Architektur = the Architecture. Wien; New

York: Springer, 2001. Print.• Brown, David. Noise Orders: Jazz, Improvisation, and Architecture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2006.

Print.• Cavanaugh, William J., Joseph A. Wilkes, and Gregory C. Tocci. Architectural Acoustics: Principles and Practice.

New York: Wiley, 1999. Print.• Egan, M. David. Architectural Acoustics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. Print.• Hammond, Michael. Performing Architecture: Opera Houses, Theatres and Concert Halls for the Twenty-first

Century. London: Merrell, 2006. Print.• Jormakka, Kari, Oliver Schürer, and Dörte Kuhlmann. Design Methods. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008. Print.• Leatherbarrow, David. The Roots of Architectural Invention: Site, Enclosure, Materials. Cambridge [England:

Cambridge UP, 1993. Print.• Leitner, Bernhard. Bernhard Leitner: Sound, Space. Ostfildern: Cantz, 1998. Print.• Lord, Peter, and Duncan Templeton. The Architecture of Sound: Designing Places of Assembly. London: Archi-

tectural, 1986. Print.• Mehta, Madan, James Johnson, and Jorge Rocafort. Architectural Acoustics: Principles and Design. Upper Sad-

dle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. Print.• Muecke, Mikesch W., and Miriam S. Zach. Essays on the Intersection of Music and Architecture. Ames: Culicidae

Architectural, 2007. Print.• Pevsner, Nikolaus. A History of Building Types. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1976. Print.• Rossing, Thomas D. Springer Handbook of Acoustics. New York: Springer, 2007. Print.• Scharoun, Hans, Yukio Futagawa, and Hiroshi Sasaki. The Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall, Berlin, West Ger-

many, 1956, 1960-63. [Tokyo]: A.D.A. EDITA Tokyo, 1973. Print.• Uffelen, Chris Van. Performance Architecture + Design. [Salenstein]: Braun, 2010. Print.• Vergo, Peter. That Divine Order: Music and the Visual Arts from Antiquity to Eighteenth Century. London: Phaidon,

2005. Print.• Xenakis, Iannis, and Sharon E. Kanach. Music and Architecture: Architectural Projects, Texts, and Realizations.

Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon, 2008. Print.

89 curriculum vitae

m a r i l y n . s h e p p a r d

education2009-2011

2006-2007

2002-2007

2010

2009

Virginia Tech, School of Architecture and Design (WAAC) Master of Architecture II

University of California Berkeley, College of Environmental Design Summer Sessions

2005

Bauhaus Universität, Germany International Advanced Architectural Design (semester abroad) Guest jury: Alberto Campo Baeza

Virginia Tech, School of Architecture and Design (WAAC) Student Exchange program

Universidad de Mendoza, Argentina Architecture and Urbanism (Professional Degree)

Universidad Anáhuac, México Architecture Student Exchange program (semester abroad)

Washington Monument Ground Ideas Competition • wamo.org • semifinalistawards

201120112011

WAAC Awards 2011 • Virginia Tech • Front Line Award GTA

WAAC • Virginia Tech • Crystal Award for Outstanding Thesis Defend

2005 University of Mendoza, Argentina • Study Abroad Scolarship awarded for Best Grades

2003 University of Mendoza, Argentina • Second year Studio project selected by University of Mendoza to be exhibit at RIBA’s Jury

1221 Massachusetts Ave NW • Apt #705 • Washington, DC 20005 • 202.569.2911 • marilynsheppard@gmail.com