Architecture and Silence by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

While the walls are not made of solid stone but of in-situ cast reinforced concrete clad in local stone, the project conveys the morphological and atmospheric qualities of stone architecture. It manages to evoke the characteristics of solid stone construction, in which even the thinnest of walls inscribes a strong boundary in place, and the wall’s thickness tells us something about the relative proportions of each space it bounds. The use of wood for the domes emphasizes, by contrast, the solidity and weight of the walls, adding its reverberating qualities to the acoustic events and allowing light to enter smoothly: ‘A silent light without source, except at the heart, where the light is brought to the ground and a bed of ferns, the forest floor within’.19

Different kinds of drawings and images are carefully synthesized to express the architects’ ideas. Three black and white hand-drawn sketches depicting the idea of the building as an in-between zone are placed next to an image of Pärt’s hands expressing the two ‘voices’ of his method (the triadic arpeggios and melodic lines). Key diagrams, black and white again, depict the intentions of the architects in the representation of the four programme domains, the interior and the exterior gathering courts. Black and white plans and sections are placed next to the elevations and external and internal renders in which the black and white stone building is crowned by wooden roofs shown in light brown. A similar approach is followed for the physical model, where two different kinds of wood are used to express the stone walls (earth) and the wooden domed roofs (sky). This juxtaposition of polarities in colour, material and media of design communication enhances the expression of the building as a liminal zone between different entities, a creative discourse between diverse ‘voices’.

In both of the categories a geometrical translation of Pärt’s music or a quite formalistic approach to architecture were deployed, underlining the structure of his technique that is based on a relatively austere mathematical model deeply influenced by his desire to express his religious intuitions. In the entries examined here, the architects debate either directly or indirectly the importance of silence and stillness in their proposals. But why did the entries for a building for the archive of a musician enter into a process of working with these ideas? To answer this question, one should first touch upon Arvo Pärt’s work, the translation of which was so important to the design process.

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