City Arts

Artists have been exploring the acoustic design of our cities since the 1960s. And yet this aspect of urban life is largely ignored in architecture, construction and urban planning.

Cities have an acoustic problem. The buzz of urban life – the audible expression of their cultural and economic activities – is often perceived as deafening noise which makes people ill.

R. Murray   Schafer

Canadian composer Murray Schafer pinpointed the problem in the 1960s: he noted the progressive loss of acoustic identity in human settlements, where the dominant wall of sound is drowning out acoustic forms, aesthetic diversity and the spatial depth of sound. Before industrialisation and a universal reliance on the car, cities had an acoustic structure based on foreground, centreground and background sound: in the foreground, there was the conversation which the individual was momentarily engaged in, for example; in the centreground, there were the birds in the garden or the blacksmith round the corner, with the cities' church bells or the crowing of the cockerels forming the acoustic backdrop in the distance. Nowadays, cities – which are actually very different in terms of their fauna, flora, climate, topography, cultures and customs – are at risk of all sounding the same.

Toronto Island Sound Map

In light of this development, it is tempting to agree with Paris-based anthropologist Marc Augé, who describes many areas of cities as "acoustic non-places" – locations where the sonic backdrop gives no clues about the district's history or present, its built environment or local culture. Urban streets and open spaces are making it increasingly difficult to people to get their bearings or identify with their localities on the basis of acoustic information. Urban noise obscures the sound of my own footsteps, whose echo could give me information about the size or features of an alleyway. It also drowns out the voices or sounds made by the people working there, which could give me clues about their activity or mood.

Urban soundscapes

Since the 1970s, Murray Schaffer's World Soundscape Project and other initiatives have been working pro-actively around the world to create a more human-friendly soundscape. But visual images dominate our modern cultures, to the detriment of the soundscape projects. In the 30 years since the projects were founded, large-scale analyses of urban soundscapes have been undertaken, with artists like Max Neuhaus, Bill Fontana, Christina Kubisch, Ulrich Eller, Ros Bandt, Andres Bosshard, Robin Minard, Bill and Mary Buchen, Sam Auinger and Bruce Odland creating sound installations and musical interventions to draw attention to the problem and propose innovative solutions for acoustic urban design. However, urban planners and architects have yet to adopt these ideas in practice. They generally rely on ex post solutions to address the problem of noise, such as speed restrictions or noise abatement measures. Even in the rare cases where the urban planners have coordinated their efforts, the focus is still on quantitative aspects, such as reducing noise levels, rather than on qualitative criteria.

Acoustic urban design: a vision for the future?

When compiling the catalogue for the sonic art exhibition "sonambiente berlin 2006", the editors therefore invited three experts from different disciplines to present their vision of acoustic urban design in the future.

Sonic artistic Andres Bosshard pinpoints the problem: "How do we make the shift from noise abatement, which is undoubtedly necessary, to a lively soundscape which we all enjoy and to which we all contribute?" As one of the designers of urban acoustic planning projects in Florence and Zurich, he favours a garden design-based model which does not simply consist of "sound-proofing" public spaces. Instead, he aims to create open, dynamic spaces which evolve through the interaction with their users. Bosshard's "sound garden" changes with the seasons and develops gradually.

According to architect Khaled Saleh Pascha, hitherto untapped opportunities should be explored to reduce noise levels. These include using special building materials to construct facades or building profiles which absorb sound or reflect it upwards. He also emphasizes that urban planning must address the need to create a more individual acoustic profile for small-scale areas of the city. This is possible, for example, by specifically locating the "sound character" of markets, sports grounds etc. within the soundscape on the basis of social usage criteria. He cites the impressive example of Ciudad Abierta which creates acoustic impacts and an acoustic link between indoor and outdoor spaces. In a pilot settlement on Chile's Pacific coast, the meeting room is left unroofed so as to establish an acoustic link with the landscape; some walls have concave forms in order to create a wave structure for the reflected sound; a stream running through the building, wind chimes and a fluttering "roof sail" combine to form a cocoon of sound which reflects the conditions outside.

Urban sociologist Detlev Ipsen creates designs for the composition of urban soundscapes with a focus on urban planning. The "dual soundscape" takes up the principle of contrast, well known in many cities, in which lively and noisy spaces (such as markets) are often located next to quiet and contemplative areas (such as churches or parks). He also suggests positioning some sources of sound in a way which creates a link or dialogue between them. A good example is the foghorns by the Golden Gate Bridge in California, which emit changing patterns of resonant sound over San Francisco.

Upgrading the acoustic

Tube mounted on rail

Sam Auinger / Bruce Odland Harmonic Bridge MP3-File, 2:21 min.

But a shift towards acoustic urban architecture encounters two problems. Firstly, an awareness of the acoustic problems of cities must be created, countering the dominance of the visual, to encourage developers and local authorities to provide funding for acoustic measures. And secondly, to implement these measures, concepts must be developed based on the recognition that sound penetrates people's consciousness far more than visual images. Images can be ignored, for people can turn away and look elsewhere, but they have no defence against sound. Technologies can help, but they cannot offer a complete solution. What is required here are sensitive concepts and creative skill. And the first step is to develop appropriate education and training programmes.