Bars • Electronic music

It is difficult to speak from a standpoint that puts two such different disciplines on the same table, one whose material is stone, the very essence of weight, end the other developed through sound waves, is there anything more intangible? However, the two have always had an on-going dialogue: the dissolution into air being the architect's ultimate fantasy and the creation of images the musician's.

Music ends up filling spaces with materials that ere unmanageable for an architect or a builder. On the other hand, image and space can fill the abstract sense of sound, make it tangible, give it a stage. Just by looking at the most important music halls in the world from the Scala to the Sydney Opera House, we can see that architectural design stretches to almost volatile limits when faced with the Challenge of designing a building where sound and space meet. This idea is just as prominent in interior design and within the world of popular music. Bars and nightclubs ere a great example of this dichotomy and have turned into experimental grounds for many young contemporary designers. However, we find the same mix in leisure areas, which appear more and more in homes, hotels and places where we go to relax. Music has made itself present in all these spaces. These places have been designed with listening to music in mind and at the same time music has been composed, produced, and distributed in order to be listened to in these places.

This section is a visual journey through the various contemporary spaces where music noticeably adds to the feel of the place in terms of environments, textures and sensations produced by the meeting of these two worlds, Rather than an exhaustive catalogue, we offer a sampling that shows a great variety of atmospheres, styles, end functions. We present the relationship between music and space on the small scale of chill out as a paradigm because it contributes to this idea in terms; of seclusion, sensuality, and the relationship between the world of touch and the world of sound. In order to explain our point further a short introduction to the world of ambient electronic music and its relationship to space is necessary. More than a decade ago, the electronic music explosion marked the beginning of a trend that would end up influencing all other styles of music, and would leave its mark upon many other disciplines including art, design, fashion, and of course, architecture. This is not the first time this has happened in the history of popular music, but it is undeniable that in this case the relationship has been especially close.

While these influences have sometimes produced merely anecdotal crossings, the vitality of each one of these areas and their intense interrelations, have also generated new styles, which, some more so than others, have come into full bloom in the popular culture of this new century. In the first raves and clubs this atmosphere began to boil and chill out, an often forgotten sub genre, began to grow and mature alongside this new ingredient we now call, ‘club culture’.

Space and music ere confused starting with the name of the genre: chill out, the expression that originally referred to the Place where the party ended has been passed on to the type of music, inverting the tradition in which music gives names to buildings, as is the case with opera to sight an obvious example. How many compilations have these two words stamped, on the cover? Chill out, the musical genre, certainly got its name from the space where music known by many names was played: reggae, dub, electronic, ambient, lounge, etc. We could say that the whole branch of the electronic music subculture, along with the design of the spaces, developed out of this primary need for a relaxing, secluded space with slow beats, in juxtaposition to the dance floor.

However, when we talk about chill out, in regard to music, we are really talking about ambient. We can trace ambient back to several origins, perhaps the must illustrative being Muzak. This expression comes from the name of the company Muzak Inc. that. in the 1950's, began lo offer piped backgroud music to be used in spacca such sa elevators or waiting rooms. The idea was just to give a bit of atmosphere, provide background noise that would not distract from other activities but would cut through that uncomfortable silence often found in such places. We could say, in order to emphasize the relationship between music and space, that Muzak provided its clients with ‘furnishings of sound’.Sound becomes an element of design that makes empty cold impersonal places more inhabitable. We certainly ere not defending the quality of these productions, and we ere not even sure that the recordings themselves are not just so impersonal as the places they attempt to improve, but we ere talking notice of this initiative as an interesting beginning.

As far as more serious, artistic initiatives go we must mention some important composers who have explored the possible relationship between the composition of sound and space such as Erik Satie with his Musique d’ameublement, Katherine Stockhausen, and the omnipresent John Cage.

The word ambient itself, which is how we describe the musical genre, brings us back to another example of a word that refers to a place but also talks about sound. The ambiance is the most intangible part of a space, but when we talk about the ambiance or the atmosphere of a space we ere certainly talking about a specific place. The genre is a prolongation and also, as we shall see later on, a development of muzak. The name of the genre comes from Brain Eno, one of the most important figures in pop music since the 1970's and ex-member of Roxy Music. Ha has influenced major artists such as David Bowie, Talking Heads, and U2. The story goes that when ha was in the hospital recovering after being run over by a cab, a friend came to visit. She left harp music playing at a very low volume. Unable to get up and turn up the volume himself and dazed by the painkillers, Eno discovered the richness of those barely audible sounds and the expressive power of interspersed silences that occurred when the notes did not reach his ears. Under these conditions he decided to use these discoveries in his own compositions and invent what would come to be ambient music.

The first ambient album was Music for Airports, released by Brian Eno in 1978. It is no coincidence that we encounter space and sound together again in the title of this early record. The title is not metaphorical either, proof of which is the concert held in 1998 for the 20th anniversary of the album in Stansted Airport in London designed by the British architect Sir Norman Forster. An orchestral performed cuts from the record. It is indeed music meant to be in the background, to blend in with the surrounding noise. People walking through the airport are the perfect audience because airports ere all about impermanence. Although Eno laid the foundation for the genre in 1978, we would have to wait another decade for it to really be put into practice with the arrival of labels like Warp and the birth of techno.

"Ambient Music, must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular: it must be as ignorable as it is interesting," Brian Eno. This quote is taken from the liner notes of Music For Airports (1978). Ambient can be defined, in juxtaposition to other genres, by its quest for atmosphere instead of stories, spatialness instead of rhythm, textures instead of progressions, camouflage instead of exhibition. We ere talking about a type of music, a mood, that feels the future coming on, or at least dilates the present moment until it becomes immeasurable. Not long after the arrival of acid house on the scene, at the end of the 1980's (to be precise, in Ibiza, in the summer of 1989, known as the summer of love), acid jazz, due to a loose association of ideas and concepts, came into style in London. This style, among the most ephemeral you can imagine, crossed hip hop and jazz and opened the doors to a whole avalanche of styles, call them what you want, down tempo, trip hop, lounge. etc., which formed another facet of the music today known as chill out, actually closer to genres like hip hop, jazz and soul than straight electronic music represented basically by ambient and its various sub genres. Here is the version the record label Warp offers on its web page about the beginnings of ambient:

“The Rave scene came along in ‘90/’91 and the clubs moved on, leaving Warp still intent on releasing sophisticated music, but finding 12" sales dropping and increasingly feeling that the format didn't allow enough time to let the artist's vision shine through. By early '92 Warp had hatched a plan born of frustration. They would compile an album of the best electronic music around, music that was too subtle to breathe between the hardcore anthems but if given time would reveal its own incredible emotive power. The album was called 'Artificial Intelligence’. The sleeve featured a spliff-smoking robot crashed out, in his armchair, with reference-point records scattered on the floor, Kraftwerk ‘Autobahm, Pink Floyd ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ end audaciously their own classic ‘Pioneers of the Hypnotic Groove’. What started out as a musical protest became a musical movement and brought the next wave of artists to the label. Polygon Window AKA Aphex Twin, The Black Dog, Autechre, Speedy J, FUSE; all went on from having tracks on the compilation to releasing full albums on the label and kick-starting the ambient movement. So successful was the scene that it brought Warp's next Top 40 single with Aphex Twin's ‘On’ in late 93 and peaked with the release of his album ‘Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2’ which entered the UK Charts at No. 11 in March 94. Major A&R people were sent out with the words ‘sign ambient’ ringing in their ears. Warp recognized the death-knell and wondered what to do next.”

This might be the most important label from the beginnings of ambient. Founded in Sheffield in the early 1990’s, they released work by important producers like Autechre, Aphex Twin as well as compilations, among which the Artificial Intelligence series stands out. The collective, Design Republic, which uses architecture as a recurring theme, designed a large number of Warp album covers. And there is a reason why industrial buildings appear on the cover of their 10-year-anniversary compilation, such buildings served as inspiration, or at least formed part of the immediate surroundings when the label began. Basic Channel is a label of cult fame in the techno-world whose references, in a certain way, reflect the large urban wastelands of post-1989 Berlin. Another project that deserves special mention is Archittetura, produced by Caipirinha Productions where music and architect meet on common ground. In their own words, Archittetura is defined as “a mixed media project which explores the synergies between the worlds of contemporary architecture, electronic music end film.” The sound part of the project consists of various musicians assigned to create a soundscape for specific architectural projects, ranging from Nicholas Grimshaw's Waterloo station, to the city of Brasilia planned by Oscar Niemeyer.

The light, comfortable spaces that are presented in this section were painstankingly designed to provide complete comfort, but it was not always like this. Like so many other phenomena of popular culture these spaces started off in underground circles. Back then subdued lighting and a few cushions gave ravers suitable surroundings to take a break from the overwhelming rhythm of the dance floor and reenergize. The cooing of soft, abstract sounds allowed the ravers an escape, mental trips through various colors, textures and profound landscapes created by this music's evocative power. From an architectural point of view, one of the most important things electronic music bought with it was the retaking of spaces. Be it in rural spaces, as it was with outdoor raves, or in cities, where people began to hold parties in alternative spaces as opposed to conventional clubs, especially in abandoned industrial buildings which became the ideal surroundings for this music made with machines. So a whole new era began, a whole generation of clubs located in old warehouses, banks, apartment buildings and factories. Later, inverting the process, designers tried to recreate such spaces. From this point of view, we can say that electronic music's greatest contribution to architecture (although music might just have been a part of wider movement) was valuing old, abandoned industrial buildings and incorporating them to the world of new technologies. Chill out rooms began to develop alongside these industrial party spaces. They were almost always decorated in more detail and with an emphasis on lighting and comfort; this was the place to relax and the best place to communicate with other people. The music might have been ambient in origin, or a mix of styles in which dub, an instrumental version of reggae laced with lots of studio effects, was almost always present. Dub found continuity in electronic music produced far and wide, from its native Jamaica to Berlin and Vienna.

So, from the depths of a dance scene this ‘sofa music’ scene came about. Soon there after lounges, bars, chill outs, whatever you want to call them, began to appear, where DJs, who liked these chilled rhythms and lower frequencies, did exactly the opposite of what their techno counterparts had done, that is they kept their audience as settled down and relaxed as possible.

Not all the projects you can explore in the Travel section are directly related to this musical background, but they can all be grouped within this concept of chill out spaces. So although most of the projects were specifically designed as chill out spaces, the section also shows exceptional places that somehow relate to this aesthetic. Some projects use this style to achieve a certain atmosphere in a small comer of a larger space. We also present spaces, native to certain cultures, which due lo their function and feel provide references for contemporary designs. In the quest for an analogy between space and sound, we have tried to present the projects thematically not just as individual units. We have grouped the projects in a sensorial way, searching for details, wefts, themes and colors that link one project to the next, the same way a DJ weaves songs together in order to form a set. Having handled these spaces with techniques borrowed from the world of music, maybe we should go back to what Goethe asked: Is music architecture in motion?

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