Bernatek, Ruth Elizabeth; (2022) Sound Making Space: the audiovisual architecture of the Polytope de Montréal and the Polytope de Mycenae by Iannis Xenakis (1967-78). Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The polytope projects (1967-1978) were a series of large-scale interactive audiovisual environments developed by the engineer, architect and composer Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), and performed for international festivals and world’s fairs. This thesis shifts existing scholarship on the polytope projects from previous examination of them as essentially musical works, instead seeking to address the spatial, technical and socio-specificity of Xenakis’ works; moving towards a new understanding of the polytope projects as a novel building typology, or audiovisual architecture, that emerges in the late 1950s and acquires legibility as a type in conjunction with post-war technologies. Specifically, it focuses on two of Xenakis’s polytope projects, the Polytope de Montréal (1967) and Polytope de Mycenae (1978). Unlike conventional ‘built’ architectural works, the polytope projects are conceived, designed, executed and experienced as neither purely spatial nor purely sonic works that unfold in time. They thus demand alternative critical and theoretical frameworks for interpretation that account for their sonic and spatial situatedness. I locate new evidence and arguments for the polytopes of Montréal and Mycenae through an interdisciplinary analysis of primary archival evidence–held in the Xenakis Archives–field work, the close reading of texts, and design interventions. Applying an interdisciplinary methodology, this thesis delivers a hybrid research approach that combines architectural history, theory and practiseinformed inquiry. It suggests new possibilities for ‘sounding’ the architectural archive and how one might learn to ‘sound’ material that is typically perceived as non-sounding, proposing Echo as a theoretical construct for the analysis of sound in architecture that is underpinned by both physical principles and metaphorical concepts. Overall, this thesis introduces the audiovisual works of Iannis Xenakis to a wider audience of designers, architectural historians and theorists, and demonstrates the potential architectural and spatial legacies for the polytope projects. By connecting the selected case studies to their broader technological, social, cultural and intellectual contexts I advance an understanding of sound in architecture as an integrated concern, not as a specialized problem. Reflecting on and facilitating new and engaging ways to think about the history of our built environment in relation to sound, and our position within these histories.

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