Frozen Eindhoven Music in Stadsmuziek by Akko Golenbeld

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

No wonder, oh, no wonder they say that architecture is frozen music. You understand this phrase especially well when you observe the work of a very unusual organ "Stadsmuziek", created by a Dutch artist Akko Golenbeld.

Despite the aforementioned definition of architecture as frozen music, it is difficult to recall even one example of a real attempt to combine these two types of arts. Perhaps we can only mention the suspended wall of tables created by the architectural company Ball-Nogues Studio for the Herb Alpert School of Music at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music), and even then with a stretch.

But the Dutchman Akko Golenbeld, indeed, was able to combine music and architecture. This artist believes that every city has its own melody, its own music. And you can read it in a well-known way - with the help of a hurdy-gurdy.

He presented such a hurdy-gurdy called "Stadsmuziek" (Urban Music), created by himself, at Milan design week 2011, held on April 12-17.

The outlines of the development of the central part of the Dutch city of Eindhoven, the hometown of Akko Golenbeld, are used as the score for "Stadsmuziek". Reduced copies of houses are protruding parts on the roller of this organ, pressing on the keyboard of the piano with which it is aligned.

As a result, of course, we get a rather chaotic melody without any hints of any harmony. But the city is also a conglomeration of all kinds of noises that are little connected with each other. So it’s hard to imagine any other device that could capture the sonic essence of cities better than the “Stadsmuziek” hurdy-gurdy from Akko Golenbeld.