CAN MUSIC of A PARTICULAR REGION BE REFLECTED IN the

Can music of
a particular
region be
reflected in
the region’s
architecture
?
Mahmoud M. Riad, Architect/Principal, Riad Generations Architecture
Many scholars have discussed the
relationship between architecture and
music. Some discuss architecture
influencing music, as the evolution
of western classical music is largely
based on acoustical conditions of the
performance space. Others discuss
music influencing architecture, as the
use of music – or music theory principles
- in the design process has the ability to
expand the designer’s creativity (either
through synesthesia or algorithmic
design methodsa). However, most of the
discussion is aimed at understanding
the common values and characteristics
between both arts, like proportion or
rhythm, and not necessarily that one
art directly influences the other. While
these discussions have mainly used
western music as a foundation, the
research presented in this article aims
at investigating these relationships in
a non-western setting, transforming
such correspondence ideas between the
two arts into a regional study. Music
would be used as a cultural identifier,
to unlock "hidden dimensions" shared
in the region’s culture, to produce an
architecture fitting within the cultural
context.
The case study site chosen for this
exploration is historic Cairo, between the
Fatimid Walls, as this research calls for
a deeper understanding and evolution of
Cairo's heritage. For the past two centuries,
Cairo, like many third world major cities,
has continuously been abandoning its
cultural heritage and embarking on a
process of westernization – starting with
the Parisian inspired Downtown Cairo,
and fast forwarding to the American
Suburban town configuration, with the
faux Greco-Roman fashion makeovers, of
the 6th of October satellite cities. On the
other hand, those who seek to hold onto
the city’s identity are abusing traditional
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motifs in a manner that breeds cliché and absurdity; either by rejecting any claims for
architectural evolution, implying that the entire run of what they define as “Islamic
Architecture”b has been forever immune to development; or others who imply principles
of defamiliartization and critical regionalismc rather superficially, exploiting certain
forms used throughout our architectural history (domes, minarets, or even ancient
Egyptian temple facades) without fully understanding the circumstances of which such
forms were used in the first place.
The following article will attempt to address the issues of aesthetics and authenticity of
the oriental / Arab spirit (ruh el sharkeya) as cultural elements, in light of the authors
recent thesis exploration and research, titled Architecture: Music, City, and Culture,
at the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, University of Maryland,
which explored possible connections between Egyptian / Arab music and Egyptian /
Arab architecture. This research and exploration attempts to provide designers in the
Egyptian and Arab world with abstract design processes that are not form based but
principle based. This article will document the first steps that were conducted in this
ongoing investigation.
Some of the initial experiments in applying architectonic form to music were through a
series of animations. Since all research on this topic use western music as a reference, it
was felt that comparing a western music piece with an Arabic piece was vital. The pieces
chosen were Pachelbel’s canon in Dmaj, and Um Kalthoum’s “Alf Leila we leila”.The music
was translated into a visual lexicon using two methods: rhythmical and algorithmic.
The rhythmical method assigns a column form for each note played and uses the time
duration of the notes to adjust the spacing between them– in other words, applying 3D
forms to the sheet music, yet it doesn’t distinguish between the musical instruments
in the piece. The algorithmic method assigns a specific value to each instrument and
attempts to emulate the performance of the instruments by emphasizing the musician’s
performance attitude, through musical techniques like vibrato and dynamics.
Figure 1: Visual representation of Pachelbel's Canon in Dmaj
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Figure 2: Visual representation of Um Kalthoum's Alf Leila we Leila
Pairing these animations together was found to be very revealing. The initial expectations
were that the differences between the music in respect to rhythm and musical intervals
would be apparent in these animations… They are not… What is apparent however is
the extent to which the musical structures differ. The Canon piece is very cyclical in
nature, there is a simple chord progression acting as a central unifying element, and the
themes and variations are being applied on to it - whereas the Arabic piece is much more
episodical, consisting of various movements with different musical forms. Both musical
structures are very typical to their musical regions, as the cyclical nature of the canon
and fugue was introduced by J.S. Bach in the 17th century, and the episodical nature
(known in Arabic as Fasil) was originated in ottoman court music. The comparison
could be then made between this idea of musical structure with some of the architecture
of the same period - the Central “big room” space of Palladio, to the series of courtyards,
or episodes, of the ottoman house.
Figure 3: Comparisons between Palladio's Palazzo Antonini in Udine and Bayt al Suhaimi
in Cairo, paired with their respective visual animation representations
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The linear sequences of the abstract animations start to suggest movement through a
path along the built environment. Such analysis animations could also be conducted
on real paths and streets, in order to translate it to the same abstract visual language
of the music animations. The street chosen to perform this task on is al Mu’izz street in
Cairo, the main thoroughfare and most preserved street of the historic city. Through
the analysis, nine different zones were identified. Each zone is an episode, with its own
identity, texture, and thresholds upon entering and exiting (the boundaries of each
zone are often signified by an opening of a certain view vista, usually a minaret, which
is often accompanied by a significant change in street width and a dramatic change of
character).
The next step in this process becomes site selection. The street has not been subject to
any significant urban planning reconstruction ever since the Ottoman Empire (1517 –
1798), and many historic buildings have been torn down, before it could be established
as a historic monument, to make way for disturbingly ugly low income modern housing
units. The ongoing masterplan process starts off by highlighting a few soft sites that can
be torn down and replaced by a series of urban design interventions. Each one of these
interventions would deal with the macro-function of the street, which is now a public
museum of Islamic culture, as well as the micro-character of each zone, all using ideas
of Arabic music in design generation.
Figure 4: Existing site plan with zones highlighted along with proposed thesis masterplan
The first zone, the moqadema / introduction, was the first site picked for further
exploration, in hope to return to the street later in the process. Using the episodical
ottoman house as a paradigm, the proposed building is set to explore ideas of the maqam
in Arabic music. The maqam is the foundation of all melody in Arabic music, while the
tetrachord is the most basic element of a maqam (a maqam is usually formed by two or
more tetrachords). Each tetrachord has a unique pattern of intervals and rules for how
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you move between notes, thus maqams have very different kinds of structure, feel, and
importance in music than western modal scales. These tetrachords and maqams are
in the center of this architectural exploration, as the project is taking these basic units
through juxtaposition, seeing how they interrelate in architectonic form.
There are many maqams, but the ones that I have chosen to focus on in this exploration
are Rast, Bayati, Hijaz, Saba, and Sikah; the same five that are traditionally used for the
call to prayer in Islam. Due to the structure and spacing of their musical intervals, each
of these maqams have different characters and personalities that can be translated in
architectonic elements: proportion, surface treatment, light, pattern, acoustics, materials
etc. The intent of this exploration is to create 5 different spaces that correspond to each
of the characters of these maqams, dictating the proposed building to be organized
around five clusters of rooms. The most contributing factor that led to the generation of
character is the application of the maqam interval proportions onto the vertical surface
of the rooms. Spatially, each room is manipulated to emulate the character of each
maqam. Upon entering the Northern gate, one finds themselves inside the Rast room.
The decision to place the room right in front of the gate was due to symbolic reasons,
as Rast being the most celebrated maqam in egyptian music, used in most nationalistic
and many folkloric songs.
Figure 5: Space based on the Rast maqam
The Bayati room is the room with many attitudes towards space, adhering to the notion
that Bayati is the maqam where many variations occur; scholars don't agree on a distinct
character, but many agree that the maqam has different flavors.
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Figure 6: Space based on the Bayati maqam
The Hijaz room has a very distinct and clear difference between the smaller and larger
spaces, adhering to the Hijaz maqam interval pattern size (1/2 - 1 1/2 - 1/2).
Figure 7: Space based on the Hijaz maqam
Saba, the maqam attributed to music of sadness, is designed to utilize acoustics to
create a vast echoing room, with a minimal source of light creeping into the building
from the dome.
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Figure8: Space based on the Saba maqam
Figure 9: Space based on the Sikah maqam
Finally, the Sikah room serves as a tight gallery space, peeking views into all the rooms,
adhering to the notion that the Sikah maqam has the narrowest range, and the Sikah
tetrachord is commonly paired with most of the other tetrachords, out of the five in
Arabic music.
Furthermore, during the research phase of the thesis, Architecture: Music, City, and
Culture, a number of studies were done using maqam intervals as visual proportion
systems on a number of minarets along al Mui’zz el din street. Proportionate systems
have been used throughout history as a form generator, and the following figures are
an exploration to test out if maqam intervals could serve as a useful design tool. On the
figures below, the first minaret iteration on the furthest left is the actual minaret, which
is then sectioned off with intervals to match a common maqam. The actual minarets all
fall under approximate correspondence to one of the maqams, and the next iteration
next to it depicts the minaret had it followed the ideal interval proportions of the maqam
(notice how very miniscule the change is between the actual and ideal iterations). The
following four minarets are stretched and distorted, depicting how each would differ in
character according to the maqam interval proportions being applied onto it. It should
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be noted that this does not mean that these maqam intervals were explicitly used in the
design process, but it is further proof that such proportionate systems exist beyond the
realm of Arabic music, and could be manifest in other aspects within the Arab culture.
Figure 10: Maqam analysis on the minaret of al Najm al Deen Ayoub mosque
Figure 11: Maqam analysis on the minerat of Bab Zuwaila
Figure 12: Maqam analysis on the minaret of al Barquq mosque
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The continuous challenge of this thesis
is the re-evaluation of the Islamic
architectural motif, while proposing a
different approach, one removed from all
religious justification, in understanding
abstract ideas within the Islamic culture,
promoting a process of modernization
that is devoid of westernization and true
to the authentic oriental spirit, al rouh al
sharkeya. The initial hope of was to find
clues within the region's attitude towards
aesthetics within the arts and culture, to
help push the architectural evolution in
a direction worthy of competing within
a global contemporary arena, while
still retained of cultural authenticity
and identity. This new paradigm of the
architecture has yet to be tested, as
what the thesis path lead to instead was
a method of deconstructing music to get
a better understanding about a region's
culture on issues that may have previously
overlooked or taken for granted. The result
architecture is meant to be conceived as
what critical regionalism would consider
a defamiliarization of music. Through
the use of proportional concepts of the
maqam, the visitor is challenged to
experience Arab music, and subsequently
Arab culture, in a strange – unfamiliar
way, slowly being more conscious of
its meaning. Unfortunately, much like
architectural globalization, there has
been a process of musical globalization as
well, and these concepts of maqams are
in danger of extinction. Therefore, such
defamiliarization of the musical concepts
only work then with repeat visitors,
after students and scholars come and
study these maqams over extended
periods of time, the building starts to
reveal itself. After such connections are
made, the student goes back out to rest
of the city to make further observations
within the urban native architecture - in
hope to understand themselves better
as Egyptians... in hope to understand
themselves better as Arabs.
occurring in the limbic system of the
brain, that means the mapping of one
sense onto another – examples of this
could be seeing colors when exposed
to sounds, or colored letters (For more,
see Cytowic, Richard E., The Man who
Tasted Shapes, G.P. Putnam's Sons,
New York, 1993). Algorithmic design
processes entails assigning specific levels
for each individual element in the design
equation, and let the resultant form be
dictated by the algorithm.
b It should be mentioned that many
scholars argue about the validity of
using the name “Islamic Architecture”.
As opposed to Renaissance Architecture,
that has an explicit canon of ideals and
principles, brought down by Alberti,
Palladio, Michelangelo …etc, such design
guidelines do not exist on Architecture in
the Islamic world as a whole, but exist
on a regional level. That is the reason
each region within the Islamic world
has it’s own autonomous character. For
more, see Frishman, Martin / Khan,
Hassan-Uddin, The Mosque: History,
Architectural Development & Regional
Diversity, Thames & Hudson, London,
2002.
c Defamiliarize” is a term used by Victor
Shklovsky, a member of the Russian
Formalist group in revolutionary Russia.
The concept was used as an artistic
technique of forcing the audience to
see common things in an unfamiliar or
strange way, in order to enhance the
perception of the familiar. The concept of
“Defamiliarization” in critical regionalism
is addressed in Tzonis, Alexander,
and Lefaivre, Liane, paper on Critical
Regionalism at the first International
working seminar on Critical Regionalism,
in 1989, College of Environmental Design,
California State Polytechnic University,
Pomona (Proceedings edited by Spyros
Amourgis)
[email protected]
ENDNOTES
a Synesthesia is a sensory phenomenon,
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