Architecture Walk Into a Modern House
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in consonance THE COMMON LANGUAGE OF MUSIC+ ARCHITECTURE WALK INTO A MODERN HOUSE. WHITE WALLS AND BUFFED FLOORS. QUIET EXCEPT FOR FOOTSTEPS AND ECHOES. SOUNDS MORE LIKE A MUSEUM THAN A PLACE TO HANG YOUR HAT. BUT TURN ON THE STEREO, AND THAT PLACE INSTANTLY GETS A PULSE. MUSIC BESTOWS LIFE UPON OUR HOMES, TRANSFORMING INANIMATE OBJECTS INTO SOMETHING MORE HUMAN. SURE, SOME MUSIC IS JUST NOISE—A DAILY SOUNDTRACK OF RADIO JINGLES AND ELEVATOR ACCOMPANIMENT. BUT PLAY THE RIGHT TUNES IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT AND YOU’LL MOVE PEOPLE, IN ALL SENSES OF THE WORD. The building itself is part of that harmony. Some songs are designed for stadiums, others for the bedroom. But the connections between architecture and music run deeper than the venue. Look at terminology used by the creators and you’ll see overlap: words like rhythm, accents, theme variation. Architects and musicians often speak the same language. View the two art forms through the lens of modernism, and you’ll observe more common DNA. Both embraced new materials, questioned assumptions, and stripped down structures to their cores. “Before the modernist period, a cutting-edge musician tried to make melody and harmony even more expressive,” said Jack Sheinbaum, a professor of musicology at the University of Denver. “But then, the questions change to: ‘Wait a minute, why do I even need melody and harmony?’” STORY BY: KEVIN JANOWIAK Architects asked similar questions and rewrote the rules over the last 65 years. Why not break down the barrier between indoor and outdoor space? Why not put a kitchen in a living room? For example, look to the Denver Art Museum (DAM) with its jutting triangles and deviant geometry. “The museum is very abstract and jarring,” said Michael Knorr, an architect based in Denver and Las Vegas. “It reminds me of electronic composers at midcentury who used atonality and didn’t follow formal structure.” Daniel Libeskind, architect of the DAM extension, was once an accomplished pianist and accordion player. And so he often invokes musical analogies when describing his projects, calling them precise and emotional compositions where one wrong note can ruin the mood. Of course, music and architecture do not always run on parallel rails. A saxophone solo requires a very different skill set than designing a high-rise, but their growth comes from the same petri dish of culture and technology. IMAGE: “Album 14” Pioneers in both fields became modern by pushing boundaries. Dip into Danae Falliers musical history from modal Jazz to Hip-Hop and you’ll see that creativity Courtesy of the artist evolves faster than we do. and Robischon Gallery danaefalliers.com 66 SUMMER 2014 | MODERN IN DENVER modernindenver.com 67 MUSIC+ARCHITECTURE: IN CONSONANCE VELVET UNDERGROUND // WHITE LIGHT / WHITE REBELS WITH A CAUSE LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE HEAT (1968) Picking your favorite album is harder than picking your CUT THE CHORD you would hear in your There were many modernist pioneers but This attack on pop sensibilities is favorite child. And anytime you rank artists of any kind, Let’s start with the Jazz life was only the music few matched the massive strides of German- relentless, a brutal sludge of guitar American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. distortion and feedback. Recorded you’re asking for a fight, or at least a vigorous debate. album that everybody of your generation, but So, don’t consider these pioneering musicians and now we have all of music His abandonment of flourish created a tidal wave in only two days, “White Light / knows about, “Kind of of influence over the avant-garde and, eventually, architects to be a definitive best-of list. Instead, look history at our fingertips,” White Heat” shows a band fully Blue” by Miles Davis. mainstream culture. With efficiency as his muse, divorced from Andy Warhol. Its to them as fine examples of risk takers and boundary he said. In other words, his aesthetic trickles down into every detail, like pushers. These iconoclasts probably wouldn’t do well And let’s start at the sloppy experimentation and “anti- postwar musicians the Barcelona chair designed with Lilly Reich. beauty” paved the way for avant- together as roommates. But as a group they broke beginning of that record. carved out a distinction His pared-down “skin and bones” concepts garde Rock and Punk to come. ground and built modern wonders. The first track “So What” dot the international landscape, with a heavy lives up to its defiant between popularity concentration in Chicago. and quality that survives KING CRIMSON // title by subverting IN THE COURT OF THE DAVE BRUBECK // traditional Tin Pan Alley today—a new ambition JAZZ AT OBERLIN (1953) CRIMSON KING (1969) song structure. Normally, beyond concert and Blues chords are the building This live album of Jazz standards album sales. was recorded years before Brubeck horns lead the melody, blocks of Rock. But this tinkered with time signatures. But but Davis freezes them landmark prog album used it’s far from a paint-by-numbers That unconventional atypical construction materials in a two-note loop, while instead: military music, Jazz affair. Listen to the subtle solos the bass lines are thrust streak led to natural allies and you can hear great forces at noodling, Classical antiquity and to center stage. Skip with architecture. Miles Psychedelic bluster to name a work: BeBop shifting to Cool Jazz Davis met Bruce Goff, and a younger generation along to track two, “Freddie few. It’s modern music that can for the ride. Freeloader,” and you’ll a largely self-taught sound old, with room for both Mellotrons and harpsichords. hear an abstraction that chair of the School of CHARLES MINGUS // Architecture at the > breaks Blues conventions; MILES DAVIS // PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS chord progressions are (1956) BITCHES BREW (1970) In the title track, Mingus and his thrown out the window. Davis reinvents himself adventurous musicians evoke the “It’s an intellectual again—out with Cool Jazz, in story of prehistoric man. But the modernist exercise,” said with an electric orchestra and improvisations and tempo changes supersized rhythm section. Sheinbaum, “but it’s still Although unpalatable to some of are highly evolved. Arrangements beautiful and enjoyable.” were taught by ear, yet structured his followers, the wild grooves into movements. The lesson: created new strains of funk and Why did Cool Jazz fusion. Listen carefully and you Jazz compositions can be both University of Oklahoma. “Jazz is like a river,” Knorr organized and open-ended. musicians want to be can hear Davis give instructions Far from smoky clubs said. “You can go off on to his crew on the fly. different? Partially on the coasts, Jazz interesting tangents that ORNETTE COLEMAN // because for the first time, icons performed private are not strictly bound by THE SHAPE OF JAZZ TO musicians in the 20th PATTI SMITH // concerts for Goff and the course of the river. I HORSES (1975) COME (1959) century acutely felt their As a founding father of avant his students. Goff dotted think modern architecture This debut album launched place in history, argued garde Jazz, Coleman has a the prairie with eclectic is the same way.” Smith from New York club Sheinbaum. “Before darling to the poet laureate of polarizing reputation. Anytime and organic homes, but you ditch chord changes and the 1950s, most music Punk. Garage Rock is recast for he also experimented ROCKING THE BOAT hormonic structure, you risk a grittier age, starting with her sounding abrasive. But this with player-piano rolls. The sea change snarling take on “Gloria.” It’s a prophetic album ushered in a Goff didn’t bother with eventually flows from Jazz frenzied assault on gender roles new era of jazz soloing, one proper musical notation; into Rock music, spilling and tired Rock clichés. more like a flowing conversation FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT he simply sliced triangles over into the roots of than a set script. Arguably America’s most cherished and circles into the paper Punk and New Wave in architect, Frank Lloyd Wright was as prolific rolls and let the piano do the ’70s. Modern music as he was influential. With a voracious the work. It was music again flips expectations RAY CHARLES // work ethic and boundless imagination, he designed visually—an MODERN SOUNDS IN COUNTRY left an indelible mark via residential, office, and flips off protocol. AND WESTERN MUSIC (1962) religious, hotel, and mixed-use structures. adventurous mix of Think of minimalists like With a melting pot of sleepy He’s synonymous with the Prairie School of careful planning and the Ramones, armed with Country classics spiked with Architecture, but Wright’s organic Fallingwater random results. three chords, two-minute Gospel, Charles broke down racial residence and Eusonian homes also show songs, and one cohesive barriers in music. This album that geniuses can evolve. His internationally How did it turn out? fashion sense. The lesson: flew off the shelves, a crossover celebrated Guggenheim Museum in New hit at the height of the Civil Rights York City further cemented his legacy and “Not too bad,” Michael You don’t have to be a Movement. The songs may be playfulness with shapes. Since Wright’s Knorr said with a laugh. virtuoso to have a band. about loneliness and heartbreak, death in 1959, he’s had many imitators but He heard them at an You can use brute force, but “Modern Sounds” is ultimately few detractors. OSCAR NIEMEYER about common ground. exhibition in Washington rattling off anthems like a D.C. Goff wasn’t trying to machine gun. But simple Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer was obsessed with curves, a natural trait born from a country of crescent beaches and the snaking Amazon emulate Miles Davis.