![]() Of course, the relationship between these arts and inspiration is symbiotic. The words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German polymath, succinctly summarized the relationship between the two artforms, “Music is liquid architecture Architecture frozen music.” ![]() In the performance spaces he designed he honed the auditory experience by adjusting the form to amplify sound from the stage into the audience. Windows are situated in such a way to expose carefully curated views only once a person has sunk into a chair lateral to the glass, extending the initial sense of discovery of the space itself into the world beyond as they interact with the architecture. ![]() His entrances are often low-ceilinged and small, giving way to a vaulted room, inducing in visitors a subconscious held breath as they enter the space. Wright used the design principle of ‘compression and release’ in his work to similarly influence feeling and psychology. It can trail its icy fingers along our arms leaving goosebumps in its wake or can overwhelm with joy or sorrow. Music can do far more than fill our ears, the experience sometimes deepening into touch and emotion. Music and architecture represent sensory arenas, extending far beyond mere auditory or visual realms. At the Guggenheim Museum, the ramp wraps the space like a music staff, punctuated by colorful art, the staccato in an otherwise white-grey silence. At Fallingwater, the stacked sandstone verticals are the notes, the concrete cantilevers, the interval. Imagine Wright’s work through this lens, these buildings built to the tune of Beethoven and Bach, Mozart, and Brahms: In the drafting studio of Taliesin West, the earthy red beams become the sound, the tan canvas between them the silence. So is architecture … There lies the great relationship and warm kinship between music and architecture. Wright once observed,“It seems to me that music is a kind of sublimated mathematics. Both music and architecture require a kind of harmony, rhythm created in a playground of place and space, solid and void, chiaro and scuro. The materials of architecture are equivalent to the instruments of a symphony, each an element in service of a larger whole.Ĭlaude Debussy once described music as “the space between the notes,” an eloquent reminder that music is only audible for its lacking. Both are structurally similar, requiring balanced doses of arrangement and texture. Creatives have spent eons examining the likenesses of music and architecture, and even today we turn through the annals of history, holding up the artforms to examine them in fresh light and context. Architects as historically distant as Vitruvius, or as current as Daniel Libeskind, have connected their work to the artform. Wright, though certainly a visionary, was not unique in relating architecture to music. To this day, multiple pianos grace the property, testaments to the musical origins of the space. All were necessities to build the desert outpost. When Wright settled on a location for Taliesin West, his winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona, he wrote to his secretary to bring various tools, drafting supplies, and violins. Included as an area of interest on the application form, many of the apprentices learned to play an instrument and participated in performances. To me, architecture is just as much an affair of the human heart,” Wright ensured that music was a key component of the Fellowship, an essential part of his students’ educations. Reminiscing on his father’s performances, he once wrote, “To my young mind it all spoke a language that stirred me strangely, and I’ve since learned it was the language beyond all words, of the human heart. ![]() His father, William Russell Cary Wright, was a musician and composer. The connection between Wright and music is a strong one, beginning in his most formative years.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |