This project presents the authentic sounds of iconic architectural spaces to encourage the appreciation of the aural characteristics of designed places, often suppressed by our predominantly visual culture.
Karen Van Lengen, in collaboration with the Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities (Director, Worthy Martin) and the Department of Architecture at the University of Virginia, has undertaken this project to present the authentic sounds of iconic architectural spaces to encourage the appreciation of the aural characteristics of designed places, often suppressed by our predominantly visual culture. After making recordings of the selected spaces, Karen Van Lengen edits the sound tracks into a ‘characteristic’ 60-second sound sample that becomes the basis for further explorations. The Home Page or “Sound Street” is a navigable virtual street of famous buildings, arranged by region, that project their interior sounds onto the street. Visitors may then move into specific buildings to discover three different interpretations of that particular soundscape: a visual animation of the sound drawings, a new musical composition and analytical diagrams of the spaces.