BDES1020 "Continuous City <Mitchell Page>

Abstract

Venice; a city made rich by its history of commerce, leasing out of its immense naval power and strategic positioning. Not simply financially wealthy, but also a thriving cultural hub where many of the worlds then most noted scholars and artisans studied, wrote of, and lived including Shakespeare, Pythagoras, Giovanni and Gabrieli. Using Venice’s rich and illustrious past of artistic progression and proliferation as my conceptual base, my classically orientated music auditorium, ‘collosale’, has been designed as a tribute to the Venetians once world-leading practice of musical composition and performance; a center for which such a brilliant musical history may be celebrated through concert. Known once as the ‘Republic of Music’, composers such as Andrea Giovanni and Gabrieli were the chief influencers in the creation of the cities signature sound, best described as ‘superposable, immense and collosal’. This information was used as a basis for the specific acoustical characteristics appropriate for the building. I then meshed such acoustical necessities with my ideal architectural form (which was initially designed without regard for acoustical practicalities and only influenced by what I considered my secondary conceptual design basis; water). By combining necessary design features with my inspired aesthetics, my structure grew into a considered blend of function and form.