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Posted by EDS on May 16, 2008, 8:08 pm
>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Kris Krieger wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>om
>>>>>>:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09/AR2
>>>>>>>00 80 50900228.html
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I kind of like this fellow - he thinks on quite a grand scale, but
>>>>>>has some intereting ideas IMO:
>>>>>>http://www.futurebydesign.org/site.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Before I click on what may be a large file, could you elaborate
>>>>> what these "interesting" (I presume) ideas might be?
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> I rather enjoyed the article, I have always appreciated Saarinen's
>>>> work. His chapel at MIT is excellent, but the domed auditorium
>>>> adjacent has had acoustical and roofing problems and since it
>>>> opened. While you can hardly hear the person on the stage, a whisper
>>>> on one side of the audience can be heard on the other side.
>>>> EDS
>>>>
>>>
>>> THt must be a real distraction - were people at that time unable to
>>> plan or
>>> was it a case of skimming over practicalities for teh sake of
>>> design...?
>>
>> It was, and the idea that we can fix any thing with engineering.
>
> SHouldn't design work hand-in-hand with engineering, tho', esp. regarding
> teh most critical elements of a structure (such as, fro a concert hall,
> the acoustics)...? I'ts not that I don't understand the idea of Artistic
> Vision, but I suppose I view it from the perspective of my background in
> the biological and health sceinces, namely: "A successful organism is
> one that is well-adapted to its surroundsings" - although I also would
> (and do! ;) ) add that beauty is similar. It seems unrealted at frst,
> but not so, in that at least *part* of beauty, for organisms and also for
> human-created structures, includes similar principles of successful
> interaction with the surroundings, IOW, how well the organism/structure
> fits its purpose. Compare "falcon" and "loon" - each has to be
> considered in tandem with its surroundings and purpose, the falcon being
> adapted to (and successful at interacting with) air and its prey
> (pidgeons for the most part), and the loon, water and its respective prey
> (fish).
>
> So, fora building, it seems to me that, using your concert hall as an
> analogy that can be generalized, a building that fails in its purpose
> might be "interesting", but the beauty it otherwise might have would be
> seriously flawed because of that failure.
>
>> Spoke
>> to a professional classical singer years ago who would not sing there
>> after one time. Told me that he could not make his voice "work" with
>> the acoustics.
>
> Makes perfect sense.
>
>> Yes we did know acoustical design since the 19th
>> century.
>
> OK, that's what I'd guessed, but wasn't sure.
>
>> A good example is Boston's Symphony Hall, where the hall acts
>> as a huge instrument itself. (once had the luck to sit in the middle
>> of the main floor during Beethoven's 9th, I remember the hair on my
>> arms rising and vibrating). There were theory's in the 50's and 60's
>> that all that acoustical stuff could be bounced around and directed by
>> floating "cloud" panels. MIT's auditorium and the Lincoln Center Halls
>> were designed as Architect's wet dreams and the acoustical engineers
>> were supposed to fix it with hanging "clouds".
>
> I don't knwo the math, but intuirively, that doesn't seem to me to be
> obvious - IOW, given the way that water-waves work, and teh sense that
> the hanging panels would have their own vibrational frequency that would
> interefere with bouncing non-compatible frequencies, the idea of using
> hanging stuff to force sound waves to do this or that doesn't seme to me
> to be perdictable. It seems like a goofy idea to spend millions of $$ on
> a building using that principle, without first rigorously testing the
> principle.
>
>> Lincoln Center's
>> Philharmonic Hall was definitely very bad. Some time in the late 70's
>> Philharmonic Hall's guts were torn out, and the interior rebuilt with
>> proportions and sound reflection times based on Symphony and Carnage
>> Halls (They are basically acoustical twins, designed by the same
>> acoustical engineer). The resulting Avery Fisher Hall was a great
>> success, and the acoustical control methods are now universally used.
>> There was a great article in The New Yorker magazine at the time the
>> explained in clear terms what was done. I learned more from that
>> article than from any classroom.
>
> I'll have to see whether I can find related info on google, it seems
> interesting.
>
>> What is clear is that if you are
>> going to manipulate the sound waves of a space with an audience, it
>> must have certain solid shapes and any reflective elements must be
>> very solid and cannot vibrate. Other elements that may become a part
>> of the giant instrument you are building
>
> That is an interesting and, as I read it, vital point - a concert hall
> is, indeed, an instrument. I like that observation a lot, I never tought
> of it that way before. Great observation and elegant conceptual point :)
>
>> can vibrate, e.g. the floor
>> of Symphony Hall is sloped, but removable, and it responds to the
>> music, likewise the seats were designed (in 1890) to approximate the
>> sound absorption / reflection of a human body, so that empty seats
>> would not change the timber of the music. Additionally the floor of
>> the stage slopes slightly up towards the rear and there are paneled
>> wood walls splaying out to the audience.
>
> Interesting!
>
>> BTW I am in no way a musician
>> and don't play an instrument or sing.
>
> Not necessary - one does not have to be able to do something, in order to
> appreciate someone else's ability/performance of it or, for that matter,
> to understand the technical aspects, and how those interact with the
> artistic aspects :)
>
>
>
Domes are particularly bad for sound. We attended a service in Notre Dame
Paris that taught me why Gregorian Chat was invented. It practically wound
it's way around the columns and drifted upward with the incense. St. Paul's
in London (domed) has an amplifying system for the priest that delays the
sound to the rear of the church to match the actual time it takes for the
spoken voice to reach the rear, thereby avoiding the echoing. It does work.
I would imagine that St. Peters in Rome might have a similar system.
EDS
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