University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Sacred sounds and natural grounds: designing acoustic communities within Prairie Style and Organic architectural spaces

Vallier, Nolan Andrew

Content Files
VALLIER-DISSERTATION-2021.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/110783

Description

Title
Sacred sounds and natural grounds: designing acoustic communities within Prairie Style and Organic architectural spaces
Author(s)
Vallier, Nolan Andrew
Issue Date
2021-03-24
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Magee, Gayle
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Magee, Gayle
Committee Member(s)
  • Bashford, Christina
  • Silvers, Michael
  • Deming, Margaret Elen
Department of Study
Music
Discipline
Musicology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2021-09-17T04:04:04Z
Keyword(s)
  • historic musicology
  • concert history
  • sound studies
  • history of architecture
  • history of landscape architecture
  • Frank Lloyd Wright
  • Taliesin
  • Bruce Goff
  • Ravinia
  • Lincoln Park Zoo
  • Prairie Style Architecture
  • Organic Architecture
  • Modern Architecture
  • concert festivals
  • parlor concerts
  • music performance
  • symphonic music
  • sound architecture
  • noise
  • acoustics
  • zoo history
  • zoomusicology
  • music and animals
  • Chicago history
  • Illinois history
  • Wisconsin history
  • spatial analysis
  • soundscape
  • American music
  • avant-garde music
  • intermedia
  • American opera
  • Daron Hagen
  • John Cage
  • Salvatore Martirano
  • John Garvey
  • Arthur Farwell
  • Kirk Nurock.
Abstract
This dissertation examines the relationship between music performance and Midwestern architectural spaces designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and his Prairie Style and Organic Architectural contemporaries. It examines a period of nearly 100-years, from the late 1890s to the mid-1980s, and considers the way music performance has been used to sacralize and elevate the meaning of architectural space. By examining musical influences upon this group of architects and the musical communities that have used their spaces, this work tracks an evolving discourse of the sacralization of space and the naturalization of sound. This work shows that architects fostered musical interests, participated in debates on the effects of urban noise, and even composed their own music. It considers the agency of these architects as “acoustic designers.” My work also considers the role communities have played in cultivating, negating, or preserving sonic meaning within these spaces. I claim that the meaning of these specific soundscapes may be derived through the triangulation of the sonic intent of the acoustic designer, musical performances staged by communities using the space, and the memory of “natural” sounds for particular spaces. My work draws its methodology from concert historians and sound studies scholars. Through detailed archival analysis and historic interpretation of ephemera, I reconstruct the historic soundscapes of four unique case study sites, including: the development of concerts at Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio, Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin (1925-1985); an avant-garde chamber music series at Bruce Goff’s John Garvey House in Urbana, Illinois (1963- 1966); architectural preservation and changing musical tastes at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois (1950-1985); and constructions of “natural music” at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Lincoln Park, Illinois (1963-1982).
Graduation Semester
2021-05
Type of Resource
Thesis
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/110783
Copyright and License Information
Copyright Nolan Vallier 2021

Owning Collections

Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois
Dissertations and Theses [Graduate College] - Music