Harmonic Registration

Description

Music and Architecture are often compared in loosely aesthetic ways, making connections between the nature of composition in both fields, but this analogy serves a purely philosophical end. This thesis aims to bring back the diminishing world of harmony, proportion and order to architecture through a retelling of the musical analogy and a new definition that prioritises tangible experience of such harmonies.

The thesis tracked the history of harmonics to its recent decline and considered ways that we could think about harmony that begin with human optics and mentalities, rather than it’s divine origin.

The universal ideas put forward here have been manifested in a new GAA club for the town of Mountbellew in Co. Galway. Harmony can exist anywhere once there has been proper consideration for a building’s parts, systems and their interrelationships.

In this field in Galway, downpipes and expansion joints become classical colonnades, and plasterboard, pvc and linoleum are all used to make a beautiful place that from time to time will spark a sense of harmony in its users.