Musical Reverberations - Unit Summary 2

Music.

Music is within our absolute souls. For many of us, it drives us. It is the passion that leads many men to their greatest achievements. It is also a part of architecture. It is a part of what the architect desires, hears deep within.

Music reflects the surfaces that the architect decides to use to convey the music that is inside of him. It is intertwined with it all.

But, all of this is not a steadfast rule – none of them are. Even as the rules are becoming realized and are being made, we are setting out to break them from day to day. The rule that music is what it is to architecture will change overnight, and the next decision will be arbitrary.

Even with things being arbitrary now, however, everything is still interconnected. As we progress forward and make new rules and find new things, we are still making connections everyday to the things of the past. Everything goes back to the classical. Every time.

But this is only really the story in the west. We are really the only ones that have such an intense desire to bend and break the rules – we are the only ones who want to make everything that has been before, not be again. In the east, there is absolutely no push to bend or break any rules. In the east, there are really no rules at all. They have decided to stick with what they know works. And it has continued to work.

As time goes on, the world is growing. Europeans are moving west, and America is found and founded. And the whole reason for coming west was to become independent. However, up until then, the basic rule for design that had not been broken yet was that we were still looking at the classical and using it for the “modern.”

This presented it’s own set of issues. We couldn’t follow the classical style directly without maintaining the European ways. So we, as Americans, had to figure out how much of the classical style we could get away with using, and how much we had to add to it and modernize it in order for it to become our own.

With the American Revolution comes some more revolutions, all of which make us question the architecture and design that we have known.

Revolution changes everything, even the music. And this is where the reverberations bring us back around in a full circle. The reverberations of design have been going on and on for many, many years now. The music of then has a great influence on the design of now. The designs of then inspire the music of the now. Everywhere we go, it is all intertwined, the reverberations are still happening, and we are forever learning from what has happened, and making the best of it for the learning of tomorrow.