Patterns and Tonalities in Architecture and Music
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Patterns and Tonalities in Architecture and Music Jannis Athanasopoulos1 Accepted: 16 September 2020 © Kim Williams Books, Turin 2020
Abstract In everyday life, the interdependence of any individual with her or his surrounding environment is self-evident. The subconscious consolidation of spatial orientation by the human being is fundamental to most activities. However, in artistic and aesthetically motivated works, creating a clear sense of spatial orientation is not always the artist’s main intention. Especially in creative activities that are directly related to space and time, such as architecture and music, both spatial and tonal orientation are sometimes brought out, while at other times they are challenged. The use of what is called, in established musical terminology “tonality” and “atonality” and their equivalent ones in architecture, not only enriches the understanding of the regulating mechanisms that are similar in both activities, but helps to describe the means by which the designer of the architectural space determines the kind of interaction between the structured environment and its user. Keywords Architecture · Music · Pattern · Orientation · Tonality · Atonality oυδέv είvαι εv αυτό καθ’ αυτό, αλλά τιvι αεί γίγvεσθαι.1 Plato, Theaetetus, 157a (Plato 1993: 109)
Introduction A broad range of theories from science to philosophy, to psychology and those about perception suggest that life experience is the result of relations (Oppenheim 2005; Felski and Stanford Friedman 2013). There is nothing that can be comprehended or experienced as entirely self-contained or lacking a context. Space or time, the size or value of the matter, even thoughts and feelings, are always evaluated or manifested 1
“Nothing exists as a whole, but it is always done under the influence of something else.”
* Jannis Athanasopoulos [email protected] 1
Kifissias 24, Athens 11526, Greece Vol.:(0123456789)
J. Athanasopoulos
Fig. 1 Spatial orientation
with reference to something else that already exists. The process of interdependence affects any action or thought; thus, the individual is constantly processing relationships in order to feel, function, produce and create. In order to compare, there is a need for a frame of reference, which is found in every human (Bonnes and Secchiaroli 1995: 140; Jonker 1995: 6). Remembrance operates in a comparative manner, it involves every activity from the most insignificant action to the particular intellectual conception, either consciously or unconsciously, by associating personal feelings and experiences. With regards to one’s positioning in place, remembrance helps to build a sense of spatial orientation (Fig. 1). During this process, the individual detects clear reference points, by which to associate his or her positioning with specific elements of space. Setting these reference points is critical, because subconsciously they invoke a sense of security and comfortableness (Janson and Tigges 2014: 212). As these points are being recorded in memory, they help the individual
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