It’s a commonplace that architecture and music share certain organizational elements: patterns, motifs, rhythm and repetition as structure. What’s less common is the presence of music
in architecture. As a challenge, I designed floorplans for houses in the shape of a grand piano, guitar and French horn.
Certain musical elements are carried through the layouts. A five-line music staff inlaid in the floor runs the length of the entry hall into the great room of the piano house; a central courtyard resembles the body of a guitar, with a round fountain where the sounding hole would be.
A circular dining room occupies the heart of the guitar house, with six lines inlaid in the floor extending from the dining room to the fireplace and outlining the base of the neck.
The most ambitious plan is the French horn house. The tubing pattern forms curving counters and inlaid flooring throughout the main living area. The mouthpiece is a planter in a private garden for the master bath.
These were just whimsical experiments to work within the constraints of musical forms with curves. I’ll explore how music affects design in real buildings in another post.
Tags: architecture, art by Jon O
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Following up on my previous post, I’ve tried to find examples of music as a direct influence on architecture. Apart from concert hall design (which is concerned primarily with acoustic properties), there are surprisingly few examples. The Experience Music Project in Seattle, designed by Frank Gehry, has a Tower of Music built from guitars, drums and keyboards in its lobby. Part of the building’s unique shape seems inspired by a melting, surrealistic red bass with a grid of frets. [Read more →]
I’ve written before about how the earth makes music: the deep flute-like tones produced by volcanoes, Japanese instruments that use falling water to create music, sound sculptures triggered by geologic phenomenon… Gerhard Trimpin, a German-born sound artist who lives in Seattle, has designed installations over the years that use nature and the earth to produce music. An early piece was a water fountain in which drops of water, timed in complex rhythmic fugues, dripped into glass receptacles. More recently, he was inspired by a Seattle earthquake. Wired reporter Hugh Hart describes how Trimpin tuned in to the sonic chaos that ensued. “I had tympani hanging on a catwalk that started to move back and forth, got out of control, and smashed to the floor,” Trimpin recalled. That was the inspiration to use seismic data as musical material. 
