domenica 30 maggio 2021

The Architectonics of Music

DAEYANG GALLERY AND HOUSE

by Steven Holl Architects

Daeyang Gallery and House by Steven Holl Architects from Dezeen on Vimeo.

The private gallery and house is sited in the hills of the Kangbuk section of Seoul, Korea. The basic geometry of the building is inspired by a 1967 sketch for a music score by the composer Istvan Anhalt, “Symphony of Modules,” which was discovered in a book by John Cage titled “Notations.”


Three pavilions - one for entry, one residence, and one event space - appear to push upward from a continuous gallery level below. A sheet of water establishes the plane of reference from above and below.

Istvan Anhalt, “Symphony of Modules” |  Daeyang Gallery and House

After passing through a bamboo formed garden wall at the entry court, ascending steps into the entry pavilion bring the viewer at elbow height with the unifying sheet of water. Here, at the center of this place is an inner feeling with the sky, water, vegetation and the reddened patina of the copper walls all reflected in different ways.

The red and charcoal stained wood interiors of the pavilions are activated by skylight strips of clear glass that are cut into the roof. Sunlight turns and bends around the inner spaces, animating them with the changing light of each season and throughout the day. Like a cesura in music, strips of glass lenses in the base of the pool break through the surface, bringing dappled light to the white plaster walls and white granite floor of the gallery below.

Exteriors are a rain screen of custom patinated copper, which ages naturally within the landscape. The Daeyang Gallery and House is heated and cooled with geothermal wells.

Photos by Iwan Baan

Concept watercolor by Steven Holl

from Steven Holl Architects: The Architectonics of Music

The relationship between music and architecture has been for several years now Steven Holl’s research instrument of choice at Columbia University, by which he pulls his craft and its rules back to a central position aimed at developing the full potential of architecture.  Music, like architecture, is an immersive experience – it surrounds you. One can turn away from a painting or a work of sculpture, while music and architecture engulf the body in space. “Architectonics of Music” records the sixth in a series of studios taught at Columbia University on music and architecture. They are part of a larger project to develop cross-disciplinary, inspiration-provoking work on new architectural languages. Taught with architect Dimitra Tsachrelia and composer Raphael Mostel, this studio began with a four-week experiment translating a music excerpt into space, material and form. In the first half of the studio, six teams of two students selected works of 20thcentury composers with an eye to the geometric potential of translation to architecture. The second half of the studio focused on transcribing the language experiment at the Center for Contemporary Music Research in Athens, established by Iannis Xenakis.

The students chose from three potential sites for their experiments. Research into music and architecture moves forward at a time when architecture pedagogy is diffused, worn out. Schools of architecture today seem directionless. Postmodernism and deconstruction have passed into history, while the euphoria of technique in “parametrics” promises a lack of idea and spirit, and neglect of the importance of scale, material, detail, proportion and light. Yet we continue to see potential in future architecture as open to experiment and as connected to spirit. While we ask, “What is architecture?” we also ask, “What is music?”