Architecture and Music

I’ll start by quoting an anonymous author (n.d.): “music is what feelings sound like”.

Architecture and music have always been linked. Many authors have stated this relationship between architecture and music, such as Oscar Wilde and Schelling, but I would like to highlight the case of Goethe (1836), who, in a conversation with Eckermann said: “Architecture is "frozen music"… Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.”

This is why architecture for music has something special, something that makes music stop in time and architecture flow like a harmonious liquid, ending up in a whole which includes all the beauty of both arts. 

I think the best known case is the Sydney Opera House, by Jørn Utzon. Although he didn’t do the interior, the exterior is a beautiful metaphor of the sailboats which cross the bay of Sydney, made of a concrete structure, covered by bright white and cream tiles.

The Casa da Música in Porto, by O.M.A., is another example of great architecture for music. It is a building built in concrete made of a mixture of Portuguese Portland cement and blue sandstone. The interior has a wide range of textures and colors. The different rooms want to transmit different sensations, depending on the colors, the music and the way they are furnished. The main concert room is made of wood coated in gold leaf, remembering the Baroque art. 

There are many other examples of poetic architecture for music. But not only music and architecture, the conjunction of the arts make beautiful creations. A case of this is Le Corbusier, being an architect, painter, sculptor, designer, urbanist and writer, he wrote the Poem of the Right Angle (1947-1953), where he “conceived the creation and intervention of the artist in the world as a unique act in which architecture and art had a deep involvement” (Minerva, 2006).

~Nina

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Listening to: Nocturne Op.9 No.2 by Chopin