Spaces
Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing
Aural Architecture
by Barry Blesser and
Linda-Ruth Salter
The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2007
437 pp. Trade, $39.95
ISBN: 0262 026055.
Reviewed by Florence Martellini
58 Dewsland Park rd, NP20 4EG
UK
martellini@btinternet.com
The book is divided in three main sections,
which are as follows:
1. A definition of what an acoustic space
is and the theories underlying aural perception,
especially, those linked to cognitive
psychology;
2. The authors experience as a designer
of electronic audio equipments and the
ways in which acoustic spaces behaviours
can be modified;
3. A return on some of the subjects of
the first part to expand on their social
and evolutionary phenomena.
Unfortunately, the authors undoubted
expertise in the field of electronic acoustics
and the depth of his analyses get lost
in a tedious prose and an apparent lack
of aim for the book. It is not clear to
whom the book is addressed and what the
author aims to achieve. He dwells on the
psychological/sociological meaning of
hearing and, then, on the technical artefact
available to modify the acoustic behaviour
of a space. However, he does not provide
any applicable tool or formula that an
architect or practitioner of space design
could use in his or her job. Although
the book provides some very important
insights in the way people communicate
using sound, one can wonder whether the
designers or restorers of architectural
spaces who are not highly specialised
in the subject would embark or would want
to embark in such a lengthy book, only
then to have to look elsewhere for practical
solutions. This book is the equivalent
of a book on lighting aimed at the acoustic
domain, and it far exceeds in length anything
that this reviewer has ever seen on that
subject.
The author acknowledges in the first few
pages that the human mind is biased towards
visual sensation rather than auditory.
He then embarks on a long journey to try
to convince the reader to train to increase
his aural awareness. There is no doubt
that a considerable richness in perceptual
experiences is thus lost, but one wonders
if the readers, and or the laypersons
living in such spaces, would be prepared
to spend the time to acquire the high
level of proficiency that he continuously
mentions, citing always blind subjects
as examples.
There is a continuous confusion between
the words to affect and effect.
The author always uses the later somehow
either showing that his ear is not as
finally tuned as he might like to believe
or that his editor was not up to the task
to clarify the meaning put behind these
words. Finally, despite the fact that
the book appears to have been written
by two authors the text is all in the
first singular of only one of the two
authors.