SOUNDSCAPE AND SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION

When we return from a good concert of symphonic or pop music, the feeling which lingers within the audience’s soul is always that of having lived a deep sensorial experience, which goes beyond the sole listening of a certain kind of sounds, beyond having entertained oneself in a special place (as are those in which the music is reproduced), and beyond having attended an artistic show. Soon we become aware of the fact that all our senses have been involved into the show: the hearing enjoys the music clearness, the sight the extent and shape of space, and finally the touch the adherence with seats and paths. It then seems to have reached an holistic physical and at the same time spiritual dimension, which hits us in the depth of our mind, our heart and our soul. Our corporeal as well as spiritual aspects then appear finally in harmony between them, while the senses play the metaphysic role of leading the soul towards a deep comfort. Nevertheless the sound, as non material element of the lived space, were not easily quantified, scientific studies, which investigate on the relative propagation processes, provide a valid aid for the acquisition of the needed – but not thorough – data for the comprehension of the phenomenon and of the formal essence which is on its base. However the science cannot fully explain the listening, which is a complex dynamic process, even though a great scientist of the antiquity, Leonardo, had already foreseen some of its premises, which were only rather later ratified by the physical disciplines; in fact he underlined in the first place the existence of a strict link between human experience and reason, sustaining that “La sperienza, interprete in fra l’artifiziosa natura e la umana spezie, ne insegna ciò che essa natura in fra’ mortali adopra da necessità costretta, non altrimenti orprar si possa che la ragione, suo timone, oprare le ‘nsegni.”¹ In particular he makes explicit reference to the hearing sense as what includes all the feelings and harmonize them: “… l’udito, il quale ne rimane più offeso, perché egli vorrebbe accordo, del quale tutti i sensi si intricano.”²