The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 (review)

In The Soundscape of Modernity, Emily Thompson takes up architectural acoustics at the end of the nineteenth century, when it had become clear that neither the ancient prescriptions of Vitruvius nor anything developed subsequently was effective in taming the acoustics of large public spaces such as concert halls. Thompson begins with the story of Wallace Sabine, a Harvard physics professor who undertook the task of finding a remedy for the faulty acoustics of a campus lecture hall and who applied the empirical methods he learned from that experience to shaping the acoustics of Boston's Symphony Hall. The methods of architectural acoustics, the expectations regarding the aural environment, and the ways of perceiving that environment all changed dramatically between that moment in 1900 and the opening of New York's Radio City Music Hall late in 1932. Thompson examines this period from different perspectives in charting the technological developments and other social forces that drove these changes.

Sabine began by seeking to quantify what he heard and to give explicit meanings to concepts like reverberation and the acoustical properties of materials. He expressed the results of his painstaking experiments as a simple equation that related reverberation time—a critical measure of the extent to which reflected sound affects what is heard in the space—to the volume of the space and the ability of materials to absorb sound and damp out multiple reflections. Then, given the task of providing acoustical advice on the design of Boston's new Symphony Hall, he was able to show how to match its reverberation time to that of two existing concert halls deemed ideal by the builder. The culture of listening that had developed when Symphony Hall opened was not static, however; over time, the desired acoustics of a concert hall would be recognized as a matter of taste and subject to change.

Sabine's pioneering work provided a starting point for others who sought to understand and control sound in interior spaces. New problems, such as noise, and new opportunities, such as the development of electronic instrumentation for measuring sound, also became part of the agenda. The new discipline of architectural acoustics developed slowly along with the emergence of a new class of practitioners, who, with industrial partners, broadened the range of tools available. Urban noise began to get public attention at the turn of the century. Thompson provides a thorough survey of the issues concerning noise control, including engineering strategies, new materials, the use of electronic measuring instruments, and the eventual failure of political noise-abatement efforts in the 1930s. In place of abatement, acoustical technologies—especially the use of noise-reduction products in construction—were turned to the task of keeping noises out of interior spaces.

During the 1920s, radios, amplified phonographs, public address systems, and sound movies introduced listeners to the electrical reproduction of sound; they gave new meanings to the act of listening. Electroacoustic technologies also added another dimension to control of the soundscape. The connection between sound and space could now be severed and recreated electronically as needed. Thompson cites construction of the enormous Radio City Music Hall as the culmination of these trends. The Music Hall was largely a failure as a performance space. Although it demonstrated the power of electroacoustic technology and provided an example for future, more modest, installations, it failed to achieve the sense of intimacy that was sought in its design. It was too big, too much of a good thing in troubled times, a technological marvel in a period when faith in technology was being shaken.

This meticulously researched book leaves one wanting more, not because of any omissions by the author, but because her powerful portrayal of the history of architectural acoustics pauses—as did the field—in 1933. Thompson's...