The Greek temple epitomised such connections for another reason, it was a building type created around musical performance, where the perfect form of the stones literally reflected the sounds of dancing, of flute Presiding over the cosmos, architecture was inevitably designed God fine-tuning the sun, moon, ‘fire, air, water and earth’ Perfect geometrical figures were equated with perfect whole numbers − 1, 2, 3, 4 − and then with the perfect harmonic sounds they produced (called ‘the perfect octave, the perfect fifth (3:2) the perfect fourth’ (4:3) and so on.
COSMIC VIEW GLASS CODE
He and others compared the harmonic results to the rhythms of a well-proportioned building, and the code of musical architecture was born. So far so simple, one could explain these analogies by vibrating strings and, as Pythagoras was supposed to have heard, a blacksmith hammering away with instruments of different size. For instance, as Rudolf Wittkower argued, Renaissance architects saw the cosmic connections in simple ratios such as 1:1 (a sound repeating itself, or the architecture of a square room), and 2:1 (the octave, a string doubled or halved in length, or in building the double-square front of a temple).
The idea was so appealing that many later designers tried to capture the notion with new materials. This order, revealed by mathematics and geometry, was first espoused by Pythagoras who lived in southern Italy, and it led to many Greek temples designed on proportional principles revealing not only supreme beauty but ‘the music of the heavenly spheres’ − either God or nature. Since at least the sixth century BC, music and architecture have been intimately joined by a cosmic connection, the idea that they both are generated by an underlying code. Music is experienced over time, whereasĪrchitecture is grasped as a spatial whole Its spatial proportions of width to height - 1/2.7 - enhance its Notre Dame nave, the canonic view experienced as a whole.
In an era when museums and other building types emerge as a suitable place for musical ornament, and when expressive shapes can be produced digitally, architecture could reach its supreme condition once again and become its own particular kind of music. Their shared concerns can be seen in ceremonial architecture from the ancient Brodgar Stone Circle to concert halls, in structures that heighten the senses and make one perceive more sharply and emotionally. Many qualities unite these two art forms − and quite a few make them different − but it is the former I find compelling today. Indeed architecture as ‘frozen music’ had a long history of tracking its sister, the parallel art of harmonic and rhythmic order. Pater’s aphorism became a good prediction of the zeitgeist and the goal for abstract art in 30 years as the painters in Paris and elsewhere pursued a kind of visual equivalent of musical themes, and Expressionist and Cubist architects followed suit. ‘All art’ Walter Pater famously observed in 1877, ‘constantly aspires towards the condition of music.’ Why the music envy? Because, the standard answer goes, in abstract music the form and content − or in its case the sound and sense − are one integrated thing. Now, through digital expression, architecture can attain new heights of creative supremacy As abstract art forms based on rhythm, proportion and harmony, architecture and music share a clear cultural lineage.
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