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

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).

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Musicology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2021

Author dc:creator

• Vallier, Nolan Andrew

Contributors dc:contributor

• Magee, Gayle
• Bashford, Christina
• Silvers, Michael
• Deming, Margaret Elen

• John Cage
• Salvatore Martirano
• John Garvey
• Arthur Farwell
• Kirk Nurock.
• 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

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright Nolan Vallier 2021

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

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

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/110783