• PARABOLIC POEM

  • The Philips Pavilion •
  

  In 1958 Le Corbusier was too busy working on Chandigarh to focus his attention on a comparably minor commission: the Philips Industries Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Brussels. So Corb outsourced the project to Iannis Xenakis – the renowned Greek composer who at that time was up-and-coming in the architect’s firm – with the assignment to create an “electronic poem”. How’s that for a brief?

   

  As with his musical compositions, Xenakis applied complex mathematical models to formulate the design, coming up with an arrangement of nine hyperbolic parabloid shapes made from pre-stressed concrete and girded by steel tension cables. Xenakis also wrote a composition, Concrète PH, derived from manipulated recordings of burning charcoal. In the main interior cavern, or “stomach”, Corbusier and composer Edgar Varèse engineered a (perhaps overly) complicated multimedia piece showcasing as much new technology as possible: 350 speakers were embedded in the walls, slides and films were projected across the curved surfaces, and 51 different lighting configurations illuminated the space. I (ew)

  Photo: Wikimedia Commons

• COVER

  COVER

  Cover

  Acoustics
• Table of contents

  Table of contents
• EDITORIAL

  EDITORIAL

  Editorial

  Acoustics
• ESSAY

  ESSAY

  The Hear and Now

  Jonathan Bell in conversation with Yasuhisa Toyota of Nagata Acoustics

  Text: Jonathan Bell
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Parabolic Poem

  The Philips Pavilion

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Pump up the Volume

  Arata Isozaki and Anish Kapoor’s inflatable concert hall

  Text: Rob Wilson
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Dead Silent

  Anechoic Chambers

  Text: Susie S. Lee
• ESSAY

  ESSAY

  Aural Prosthesis

  Lev Bratishenko on Arup’s Soundlab and the rise of virtual acoustics

  Text: Lev Bratishenko
• FOUND

  FOUND

  David Byrne

  "Playing the Building"

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  DeafSpace

  Sound Practice for accessibility

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Symphony in Concrete

  Hans Scharoun's Philharmonie

  Text: Sophie Lovell
• INTERVIEW

  INTERVIEW

  His Master’s Voice

  Interview with Edgar Wisniewski, Hans Scharoun's "silent" partner

  Text: Sophie Lovell
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Play it Loud

  Soundsystems designed for supergroups

  Text: Leigh Theodore Vlassis
• FOUND

  FOUND

  Yuri Suzuki

  "Ishin-Den-Shin"

  Text: Elvia Wilk
• CASE STUDY

  CASE STUDY

  Music Boxes

  Vredenberg Concert Hall in Utrecht

  Text: Thomas Dieben
• ESSAY

  ESSAY

  Acoustic Ecology

  Planning urban soundscapes

  Text: Melonie Bayl-Smith
• BOOKMARKED

  BOOKMARKED

  Bookmarked

  Guest reviewed by Carson Chan

  Text: Carson Chan
• KLAUSTOON

  KLAUSTOON

  Klaustoon

  XIV. Intermission: A Vision of the Pneumatic Passage I - Amaphonia

  Text: Klaus
• NEXT

  NEXT

  Next

  Water

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