Title:
Pamphlet Architecture 16:
Architecture as a Translation of Music

Editor:
Elizabeth Martin

Date:
1994

Publisher:
Princeton Architectural Press

Link:
Pamphlet Architecture
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About:
Architecture as a Translation of Music brings together two widely divergent and seemingly incompatible fields. Elizabeth Martin draws closely on the work of composer John Cage, with whom she corresponded at length, and her study brings together ten projects by musicians and architects that explore the language, philosophy and character of both disciplines. Pamphlet Architecture 16 contains analytical drawings, diagrams, and models of the translation of minimalist music theory into built form. Case studies include buildings by architects Bernhard Leitner, Ellen Fullman, Maryanne Amacher, Neil Denari, Steven Holl, and Mangurian + Ray. Martin also looks at the Vitruvius Program, a five-week experimental workshop for school children to explore spatial ideas of sound, noise, acoustics, melody, and harmony, and construction techniques found in the design of musical instruments. Integral to this program is the Music Animation Machine, an animation software that conveys the information about pitch, timing, and instrumentation in traditional musical notation in a way that can be grasped without musical training. By bringing forward the resonances and overhearing the varied mutations of visual sound and acoustical space imagined and installed, Martin gives sense to the numerous ways music and architecture have mutated and challenged one another, and looks to a future of further reinvention.