Cabaret music and architecture - Free Essay Example

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Research Overview There have been some efforts that were made by a number of researcher vis-ÃÆ'  -vis looking at the parallels of architecture and music in terms of rhythm, harmony and the inherent ability to provoke emotional responses of each discipline; however, those researches have not covered all genres of music. One of the types of music that have not attracted a lot of architectural critics, cabaret music, has captured my interest. Given the limited research in the area, this study intends to achieve a better understanding of the relationship between cabaret music and architecture.. Statement of the problem Towards the end of the 19th century, Romanticism reached its limits of expression. Consequently, diverse and experimental music forms began to emerge, which broke away from the mainstream of Romanticism. These included the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, and the surrealism of Erik Satie. The emphasis on irregular rhythms within Stravinskià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s The Riot of Spring caused its first audience to riot in 1913. These followed the experimentation in scales and rhythms of BartÃÆ' ³k. In the performing arts, cabaret songs were intentionally naturalistic in language, theme while certain of its devices, such as the shadow play, were both decadent and symbolist in their use of light, colour and evocative suggestion. Simultaneously, in this period, architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier experimented with new approaches in composing architecture. Purpose and importance of the research This study is valuable in that it might contribute and add to the existing body of knowledge that has drawn out the parallels between architecture and music. Structure of the report The remaining of the report is organised into four chapters that will start from the known intersections between music and architecture to more specifically, the parallels between cabaret music and architecture. The report will then move to discuss the relationship between architecture and other related music disciplines like dance and Non-western musical. CHAPTER 2: INTERSECTIONS OF MUSIC AND ARCHITECTURE The Chapter focuses on analysing selected architectural work that has used music as design inspirations as a way of introducing the topic. Alberti, Palladio and the application of music in architectural design Historically music was thought of as a mathematical science. The idea of harmonies sprung from the process of division. A string that produced a certain tone could be divided along exact proportions to create a note that would resonate in harmony with the first note, creating an overlapping of tones that could be considered beautiful both aesthetically and mathematically. These ideas were developed by the ancient Greeks, but brought into importance during the Renaissance. It was during this time that architecture was thought of as an art that needed a mathematical and therefore scientific basis to be considered objectively. Palladio often looked to musical proportions as a means to achieve ideal proportions in his designs. Basic harmonies such as octaves and fifths were applied to room sizing in all three dimensions, and were also often overlooked to as ornamental guides. The Palladian practice of applying basic harmonic ideas to basic room proportions is a starting point with what can be achieved by translating tonal ideas into the practice of architecture. Renaissance thinkers placed importance on the translation of audible proportions to the visual arts partly because they viewed musical composition as a mathematical science whereas architecture was thought of as a liberal art. In an attempt to give architecture a system of design method, it had to be referenced to a mathematical framework. Leonardo Da Vinci once said that music and painting are sisters, and both are used to convey harmonies. According to him, music achieved this through the use of chords and painting through the use of proportions. Palladio noted within his illustration ideal proportions for room dimensions and other architectural devices. The numbers within the ratios are carefully chosen and are the result of his attempt to fulfill Vitruvian principles. The principle in question has to do with achieving an ideal design. The artists of the Renaissance believed that it was possible to obtain an absolute beauty by following the proportional principles found in nature. In the practice of architecture, this was achieved by allowing specific geometries to define certain forms. These forms then would act as modules that would define and govern the development of the entire structure. Palladio even stated that it was possible to achieve a harmonic building through the use of proportional principles and that it would be possible to explain and evaluate the success of the building using the terms of musical theory. Leone Battista Alberti had taken the music scale and noted that musical theory is important to the practice of architecture because the numbers that are responsible for pleasing harmonies also evoke delight from manà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s eyes and mind. Palladio took this idea and used this harmonic scale as a proportioning system in his buildings. He focused on the relationship found between four strings with lengths in a ratio of 6:8:9:12. When these strings were placed under equal amounts of tension and then vibrated they produced wavelengths of consonant tones, most importantly an octave, fourth and fifth. These proportions are noted in his plans published in the Quattro Libri. Le Corbusier and the Phillipsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Pavilion The growth of subjective judgment slowly did away with the Renaissance search for an absolute beauty, but this did not stop the intersection of musical and architectural ideas. It did change them, leading to new investigations and ideas. Of particular importance is the work of Le Corbusier on the Phillipsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Pavilion. He investigated both the translation of musical proportions to built form, but also the use of acoustics and sound to generate and convey a sense of space. In 1958, Phillips Company, a producer of electronic speakers, hired Le Corbusier to design and build a pavilion for the Brussels World Fair. The Phillips Companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s goal was to show off the capabilities of their latest speakers and filled the pavilion with three hundreds of them. Le Corbusier proposed to give the Phillips Company an electronic poem with which to showcase their work. He worked with a team of Phillipsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ engineers and two modern composers: Iannis Xenakis and Edgard Varase. Xenakisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s role in the Phillips Pavilion was focused on the exterior shell of the building. His task focused on translating the sketches and abstract ideas of Le Corbusier (mainly dealing with geometry and proportions) into a buildable, architectural form. The end result, a curved, hyperbolic not only fulfills the mathematical ideals of Le Corbusier, but also evokes the glissandi of Xenakisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s 1953-1954 composition Metastasis. Steven Holl and the Stretto House Steven Holl took the investigation of a more complex musical idea that of stretto, as a departure point for a house built in Texas. This project focused on using both the compositional and experiential qualities of a particular piece of music as a means to solve the architectural problems presented by the site and the client. The Stretto House, a project by Steven Holl located in Dallas, Texas exemplifies a modern approach to marrying the ideas of architecture and music. While there is more to the project than just this aspect the ideas of music played an important part in the development and implementation of the design. The name of the house comes from the musical term à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“strettoà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Strettoà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? is most commonly used in the fugue and in this context it refers to the theme of the piece being repeated and overlapped by different voices. The decision to explore this musical idea as a mode of design occurs during the initial sketching phase. This phase explored some of the vernacular materials of Texan architecture, specifically metal roofs and concrete blocks. This combined with the need to create shade and producing this via overlapping led to the exploration of the overlapping that occurs in stretto. Holl narrowed the study of stretto to one particular piece of music, Bela Bartokà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Music for strings, percussions and Celeste. The feature of this work is the distinct separation between heavy and light by carefully dividing the percussion and string sections. Holl literally took the basic composition of the music and composed his building in the same way. Bartokà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s work is divided into four movements and its most compelling feature is the aforementioned division of instruments into two models. Holl designed his structure to have four distinct spatial sections and focused the work on two distinct elements: masonry, which mimicked the heavy role of the percussion and curved metal, which played the light nature of the spring section. The result is an overlapping and intersection of several elements. The curved metal roofs overlap with the heavy masonry structure, referred to as spatial dams. The different planes of the building, roof, floor and wall, pu ll space from each other to continue the overlapping effect. The materials of the building follow suit, as do the actual design drawings. The orthogonal plan of the main house drawing stands in contrast to the curvilinear section while the drawings of the guest house reverse this pattern, mimicking the inversion found in Bartokà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s composition. This project was designed around a cohesive idea that can organize and guide the experiential qualities of the space. Holl notes that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“the concept that drives a design like the Stretto House disappears completely in the phenomena of the physical reality and yet intuitively the abundance of the idea may be feltà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. By combining the ideas of music and architecture Holl was able to create an analogue between the two practices. By treating music as something that has a materiality, one gained from its instrumentation, he was able to synthesize it with architecture through his use of light and space. The equation that Holl himself writes to explain this is à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“material multiplied by sound and divided by time equals material multiplied by light and divided by space.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? The key to success of this lies in the distinction that both architecture and music have a material aspect, and this common factor allows parallels to be drawn. To summarize, the practice of architecture and the practice of music have intersected and impacted each other in a variety of ways throughout their histories. These instances can be divided into two distinct categories. The first category involves architecture taking proportional and compositional principles directly from musical theory. Palladioà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s villas ?t into this category as many of the proportions that guided the design were taken from their eraà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s understanding of music and the nature of sound. The second category involves architecture learning from the experiential qualities of music and trying to replicate them in built form. CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW Writer Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe is famous for describing architecture as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“frozen musicà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? in the 19th century. Music and architecture also share similar experiential aspirations. Architectural historian Sir John Summerson notes in his essay à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The vision of J.M.Gandyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? that architecture is an art that is à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“constantly attempting to realize in solid, stable form those effects which music is able to conjure up in an instantà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. He goes on to point out that music and architecture even use a similar vocabulary, specifically the use of mass, rhythm, texture and outline to achieve similar effects such as the colossal. It was Pythagoras who discovered that a vibrating string, stopped at its centre, produced the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"octaveà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢; at two thirds of its length the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"fifthà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢, and at three quarters, the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"fourthà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. From this he developed the series of ratios that result in the twelve tone scale used in western music today. The ratio between the full length of the string and the length stopped, or the ratios between the lengths making different notes have their direct equivalents in the ratios between the sides of the rectangles that have made up much of western architecture in the intervening centuries. Numerous aspects of this relationship between the underlying ratios of music and architecture have been developed and discussed and in this chapter we shall consider the aspects of rhythm, improvisation and emotional response in the light of some of these discussions, and the architecture of Palladio, Le Corbusier, Schindler and Holl. Rhythm Many architects have developed theories of proportion with which to govern and explain their work. These have generated in their turn a significant body of critical analysis and comment. Palladio, like Alberti a century earlier, expounded theories which took up and developed those first proposed by Vitruvius in the 7th Century BC. These were particularly attractive to the spirit of the Renaissance. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“To the minds of the men of the Renaissance musical consonances were the audible tests of a universal harmony which had a binding force for all the arts.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? In the 1930s R M Schindler, developed the ideas of module used by Frank Lloyd Wright in his Usonian houses. Here not only the architectural plans, but also the concrete floor slabs were inscribed with grids derived from the sizes of the materials to be used. Schindler took this pragmatic idea and incorporated it into a system of proportion which he described as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"Reference Frames in Spaceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. The appreciation of this relationship between the mathematics of the ratios and proportions that underlie both music and architecture is of course a purely intellectual exercise. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The analogy with music simply amounts to the transference of an established convention in one art to the purposes of anotherà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? It does not help explain or evaluate the emotional responses that these media can evoke, which is a factor of how the underlying principles are used and manipulated to create the final work. Stretto, the musical term for the overlapping of subjects, and the only strict rule in the formation of fugues, provided Steven Holl with the basis to explore the relationship beyond this intellectual analogy in his à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"Stretto Houseà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. The house is directly inspired by Music for Percussion, Strings and Celesta by BÃÆ' ©la BartÃÆ' ³k, in which stretto is used extensively. It is a choice which is particularly apposite as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ the chief feature of his [BartÃÆ' ³kà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s] chromatic technique is obedience to the Golden Section in every element.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Improvisation In music improvisation is the impromptu or à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"in the momentà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ creation and performance of music as well as spontaneous response to other musicians. It is distinct from untutored or casual composition, in that it requires discipline and a rigorous understanding of the forms and rules in order to be sufficiently coherent to evoke an emotional response. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ improvisation is a performative (sic) act and depends on instrumental technique, improvisation is a skill.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Because the creation of a work of architecture requires rigorous planning and control of all its elements, improvisation is not usually associated with it. The usual view is that architecture cannot be impromptu, it must be planned, detailed and explained thoroughly if all those involved in its production are to collaborate effectively. In his BBC Proms lecture in 2002 Daniel Libeskind confirmed that it is difficult to have improvisation in architecture à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“to have rotating players, to have players interpretà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. He suggested, however, that if the spatiality and materiality is open, then the public can à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ form its own operation on the building.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? This being, perhaps, the closest that architecture can come to improvisation. Certainly the villas of Palladio, with the proportions of their components controlled by a strict series of ratios, and their spaces assembled according to harmonic sequences, must be considered as careful exercises in composition rather than improvisations. Le Corbusierà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s villas too are compositions which follow a set of rules governing their proportions; Le Modulor. Within these cool, intellectual compositions, however, there are elements which are freer in form and which play off against, and highlight, the orthogonal correctness of the remainder. Coming finally to Schindler, Sarnitz observes that as his work evolved à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ the great importance attached to proportion in his early work gradually receded; he never repeats the complexity of the Lovell Beach House.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? This move away from strict adherence to the system of proportion that he himself developed, to more lyrical or spiritual values, is directly analogous to that of a musician who has learnt the disciplines of his instrument and the rules of music to the highest level but feels able to express himself more fully and coherently through improvisation. Schindler, having developed and established his competence in his early work, chose to follow this route after recognising the limitations that a purely intellectual approach can bring to a potentially lyrical art. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Most of the buildings which Corbusier and his followers offer us as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"machines to live inà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ are crude à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"contraptionsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ to serve a purpose. Mere instruments of production can never serve as a frame for life.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Emotional response The emotional impact of both music and architecture is generated not by the intellectual understanding and appreciation of the ratios and proportions that govern the relationships of their parts and overall composition. It is a response produced by the composer or architect or improviser by manipulating the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“material multiplied by sound divided by timeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? and the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“material multiplied by light and divided by spaceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? which Holl proposes as the equivalent formulae for the creation of music and architecture respectively. The power of the piece to move the listener or viewer is in direct ratio to the skill of the creator. Both music and architecture are immediate rather than mediate forms of communication. That is they do not require the intermediation of language. They affect the listener and viewer respectively, of all backgrounds and languages, directly with no need for translation or interpretation. They also both have a physical element to their means of communication. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Music can recall the serenity and grandeur of a seascape; so also, says Viollet, [le Duc] can architecture when it has occasion to give us long, unbroken, horizontal lines. Then he compares the emotional effect of a low broad crypt with that of a soaring knave; he notes the physical reactions of a man in these two settings, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? And both directly affect the emotions and understanding. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The very same numbers that cause sounds to have that concinnitas [a certain harmony] pleasing to the ears, can also fill the eyes and mind with wondrous delight.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? The cool but powerful emotional response generated by the composed serenity and authority of Palladioà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s villas is not simply the result of the principles of proportion that govern the elements of the elevations, but also the extension of these principles to the way that the spaces and volumes are arranged. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ the systematic linking of one room to the other by harmonic proportions was the fundamental novelty of Palladioà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s architecture, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? At the other end of the architectural scale, Hollà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s fugue in the Stretto House generates a similar response in the viewer to that, which stretto in music evokes in the listener, namely à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ excitement, acceleration, fuller realization, a certain indescribable ecstasy with the sensation of heightened simultaneity.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Another aspect of emotional impact, which may be more mundane but is nevertheless worthy of consideration, is the cumulative effect of the music and architecture that surrounds us as distinct from the impact of a particular work. Emily Thompson posits the importance that advances in sound engineering made to the aural perception of life in the early years of the century, giving rise to the phenomenon that is sometimes referred to as the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"soundtrack of our lifeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. The idea of a parallel à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"stage set of our livesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ has been hinted at by author Will Self, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ if Brutalism is heavy metal, then what was Modernism, Schoenbergs dodecaphony? Clearly the Little Englander Palladian nostalgia of the Prince of Wales, the Quinlan Terry partnership, and even Barratt Homes, is of a piece with light classical music: Viennese waltzes, frozen in red brick, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Chapter 4: Improvisation after the Renaissance and after Modernism In the earlier chapter I have established that improvisation in architecture can be considered as the departure of a skilled practitioner from the rules he has mastered in order to express himself more fully or to give coherent expression to new or developing ideas. Albertià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s De Re Aedificatoria (written about 1450) may be seen as the theoretical foundation for the re-establishment of classical order and proportion in the Renaissance. A century or so later Palladioà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Quattro Libri (published in 1570), re stated these classical rules, and his buildings followed them strictly. At the same time, however, other architects were interpreting these established rules with varying degrees of freedom. In his two villas on the Capitoline Hill in Rome Michaelangelo took the conventional Corinthian order, enlarged it and ran it through two stories; something that the Romans had never done. Vignola, in his Castello Farnese at Caprarola, designed an entablature that, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“[I]s a departure from the strict grammar of the antique à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" a departure in the direction of inventive modelling, of designing a faÃÆ' §ade as a pattern in light and shade, a pattern through which runs a play of meaning rather than any precise series of statements.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Giulio Romano was even freer in his interpretation of the rules of antiquity. His Palazzo del Te, with its affected dilapidation and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"droppedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ stones in the entablature and his Cortile della Cavallerizza with its extravagant rustication and twisted Doric finds its equivalent in the developing mannerism of the music of the time. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“In the late 16th century, as the Renaissance era closes, an extremely manneristic style develops. In secular music, especially in the madrigal, there was a trend towards complexity and even extreme chromaticism (as exemplified in madrigals of Luzzaschi, Marenzio, and Gesualdo).à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Chromaticism in particular is an essential characteristic of the mannerist style at this time. It demonstrates a departure from the rules regulating the fundamental ratios underlying musical theory which is directly equivalent to that executed by Romano upon the rules of classical architecture as restated by Alberti and Palladio. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The Pythagorean tone, with a ratio of 9:8, consists of a minor and a major semi-tone; But only the minor semitone can be used in actual music. For this reason, progressions between Bb à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" B natural or F à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" F#, or any other equivalent intervals, are forbidden. When the chromatic madrigal begins to abound in such progressions, it raises a flurry of controversy.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? The relationship between mannerism in architecture and in music may be illustrated by comparing the use of chromaticism by Guesaldo with Romanoà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s use of rustication in the Palazzo del TÃÆ' ¨. On the one hand, Guesaldoà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s madrigals are, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“full of unresolved dissonances, illogical modulations, and chromatic progressionsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. These are used to powerful effect to create, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“disruptive and restless changes of mood, so that the end result is rather like eavesdropping on some unresolvable, private agony.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? On the other, Romanoà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s use of rustication gives the impression that, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Everything is a bit uneasy, a bit wrong.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? It also à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“[R]ecalls ruins [and] ancient buildings left half-finished. But it has great power and this is very largely because of the dramatic use of rustication.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Just as Schindler developed a more à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"improvisationalà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ style in his later works as he became disillusioned or cynical about the ethos of the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"Machine Ageà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢,[38] so Le Corbusier may also be considered to have undergone a major shift following the Second World War. This is exemplified by the chapel at Ronchamp, the monastery at La Tourette and the Courts of Justice at Chandigarh, all of which may be considered to be improvisational, with regard to the strict principles of Le Modulor. Charles Jencks observes that this perceived change in direction was seen to condone a new turn for modern architecture. He lists a range of diverse range of architectural movements that drew inspiration from Le Corbusierà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s later works. CHAPTER 5: CABARET MUSIC and MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE Architecture and cabaret music are closely affiliated, not least because both focus on creating unique atmospheres for a variety of purposes. During the early to mid twentieth century American architecture and cabaret were born out of and represented similar cultural concerns. This chapter considers some of the ways in which architecture and cabaret interact and how cabaret uses principles of architecture, such as the utilisation of space, the division of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"stageà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ space, the distinction between public and private space, and the use of synthesis in design. Examples of Modern architectural designs, including those of Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, built during the thirties and forties will be considered with the aim of identifying shared cultural affiliation between cabaret music and architecture during the mid twentieth century. Cabaret à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" the trend of combining music, dance, comedy, and theatre in a public place à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" was first established in France in 1881. Throughout both world wars and the Great Depression in America, Cabaret afforded a means of relaxation and the opportunity to celebrate, through shared performance, a variety of cultures, talents and tastes. Monmartre, in France, is recognised as the place where buildings were first constructed specifically for cabaret performance. The Moulin Rouge was built in Pigalle in 1889. At the time, the traditional Monmartre windmills were being pulled down at an alarming rate, which accounts for the construction of the large red windmill on the roof of the Moulin Rouge. The turn-of-the-century interior of Moulin rouge expresses the late Victorian Romantic sensibility, just before the introduction of the Modernist Art Nouveau movement. Elegantly and richly decorated, the cabaret setting was described in 1952 as possessing an à ¢Ã¢â€ š ¬Ã‹Å"atmosphere of tawdry luxury [..] much like that of a bordello.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ At the time this would have befitted the styles of music which it was built to stage. Artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec recorded in paint various scenes from this early era of cabaret, such as music-hall singers, women dancers, and women preparing themselves to take to the stage. The flamboyance of early cabaret and the suggestiveness of dances, such as the can-can, paved the way for a relationship between the architectural setting and the music. In the late Victorian era, when more sensual forms of entertainment tended only to be considered as an underground activity, cabaret legitimised more diverse forms of theatre, music and dance, allowing men and women to mingle freely in a public space specifically designed for that purpose. At the time of the popularisation of Cabaret, the pursuit of pleasure had become a popular activity. During the twentieth century new dance halls were erected throughout Europe and in America in order to accommodate the rising popularity of the sociable and edgy form of cabaret entertainment. Cabaret music traditionally involves singing and orchestra, and American cabaret stars included artists such as Eartha Kitt, Nina Simone, and Bette Midler. However, as an art form cabaret declined in popularity during the sixties due to the rising popularity of alternative forms of music, such as rock. Due to the glamour of its beginnings the architectural setting of cabaret traditionally retained elements of luxury, wealth, and flamboyance. On the relationship between Romanticism à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" which the late-Victorian introduction of cabaret was celebrating à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" and the poetic sensibility, Geoffrey Scott observes that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"Romanticism may be said to consist in a hig h development of poetic sensibility towards the remote,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ in that it à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"idealises the distant, both of time and place and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"identifies beauty with strangenessà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. The elaborate dÃÆ' ©cor of cabaret stages, often including plush red or plum coloured velvet, idealise the sensual and were designed to encourage maximum comfort, pleasure and enjoyment of the entertainment. The designs of traditional cabaret stages were such that the audience area was only minimally lit, with the main focus being on the stage. In Modernist architecture there is suggestion that the culture of cabaret at least crossed over into and was in part incorporated into design. With the introduction of jazz and Broadway style music, cabaret became recognised as being seedier than during the years of its Victorian beginnings. We can explore the parallels between the responses of the two arts to the exigencies of the time by looking at three of the distinguishing qualities of cabaret music and architecture. The popular appeal of cabaret Cabaret deals with emotional or sentimental themes that easily evoke strong responses, rather than intellectual concepts that require esoteric knowledge to be fully appreciated. Frank Lloyd Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Usonian homes, built during the 1930à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s and 1940à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s, embody the cultural concerns and ideals of the Modern era, and reflect the complexities associated with the Great Depression of the thirties. During this time, many American families looked to cabaret and its music as the solution, albeit temporary, to the stresses of the quotidian drudge associated with the same economic, social and political forces. Usonian houses were intended to deal with the day to day living requirements of the average American family. A large living room for family life, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“with a big fireplace in It,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? a triplicate bathroom with sections for the man, the wife and the children and enough space for dressing rooms, closets and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“perhaps a couch in eachà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?, and airy bedrooms, all with easy access to a garden. A significant aspect of popular appeal is the recognition afforded to the performer; the phenomenon of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"starsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. In this regard Wright, at this time, was actively marketing himself as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“the possessor of a unique, truly American architectural vision,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? and promoting his reputation as one of the great architects of the century. Variations in cabaret Cabaret offers variety. The subjects of its songs and dances range from tragedy to comedy and its forms from ballad to blues to jazz. It was popular for certain shows to be given to a select audience à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" part of the growing consumer culture in which greater emphasis was to be placed on the needs of the patron. In a similar way that cabaret performances were customised, Wright designed buildings with specific elements for patrons. Scholars have already drawn parallels between the designs of Lloyd Wright and music. For example, as expressed by Brooks Pfeiffer and Nordland, Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s unit system was as an intrinsic part of the organic process of design and construction: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"just as the warp is discipline for a woven textile, and as the scale and notes are disciplines for the composer of music, so Wright used the unit system as a discipline for design.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ The modular unit system, based on rectangular and square units, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"unifiedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"simplifiedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ the construction process, and involved the repetition of components such as doors and windows, with an emphasis on geometric pattern and symmetry. Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s designs were remarkable for their unification of different component parts and ideas, which were directly relevant to the patron. This form of architecture is resonant with the movement of dance, thea tre and music in the form of cabaret à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" which, during the time that Wright was designing and building, was a highly popular entertainment. Usonian houses were Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s response to a problem that faced America during the great depression of the 1930s and the years following World War II: the need for good, moderately priced housing. Wright used the term Usonian to describe the residents of a culturally reformed America and applied it broadly to describe most of the 140 or so houses that he built between 1936 and his death in 1959. They were the result of the application of his principles of Organic Architecture. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Suppose, then, we consider briefly a much broader application of the principles of an organic architecture: the moderate house for the citizen in moderate circumstances. . Five or six thousand dollars seems to be as much as the better part of the average citizenship of the United States can afford to pay for a house and the lot that he builds it on.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Having described in general terms the principles underlying the specific house for Herbert Jacobs in Madison, Wisconsin Wright concludes, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ [W]e are developing building schemes that utilize the economies of standardisation without its curse, using the simple unit system applied to building, meaning buildings put together upon a horizontal and vertical unit system much as a rug is woven on its warp. The implications are as aesthetic as they are scientific and economic.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? These houses provided, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ unique, unprecedented solutions to the needs of American families of the time;à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Although commonly referred to as a body of work, the Usonian houses offered great variety of form, scale and material. They were carefully tailored to the particular requirements of the individual clients, just as the songs and dances would be tailored to suit the particular audience and the mood of the evening. The sensuality of cabaret Cabaret is physically sensual. Its costumes are revealing, its movements sensual. The essential physical characteristics of the Usonian houses are sensual; their close relationship to the ground, expressed and reinforced by their low horizontal lines, and their honesty in the expression of the materials used; timber, brick, render. In addition we should note that as part of the efficiencies that Wright sought to embody in his Usonian houses he adopted a unit system both to set out and to describe the arrangement of the elements of the work. This involved the inscription of a grid, (based on the modular sizes of the materials to be used), on the drawings to regulate the location of the elements of the design, and the incision of the same grid on the concrete floor slab to aid the builder in setting out those elements on site. This grid and the indication of the various elements shown in relation to it, thereby fixing their location in the building, may be considered to be equivalent to the musical stave within which the relative pitch and duration of a note, and thereby its location in the soundscape, are described. Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s standardised system may be equated to the standardised notation system in music, and to Rudolph Labanà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s notation system for dance. It enables a builder to à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"readà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ the drawings in the same way as a musician à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"readsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ the notation on the musical stave, without having to learn a different à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"languageà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ for the drawings used for each individual building. From this it is possible to consider individual Usonian houses as the equivalent of the cabaret songs or dances of an individual performer. Cabaret offers a temporary escape to a world of alternative utopia A Utopia is an ideal world as distinct from an escapist or fantasy world. During the post-Depression years in America cabaret became a sought after form of entertainment and a form of cultural emblem à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" not least because of its celebratory style and the temporary alleviation it offered from financial and social concerns of a country in economic and political disarray. Cabaret stage sets often lent themselves to surreal visual performances which contained elements of the chaotic. The unique mix of theatre and dance afforded a new sort of narrative and image for early twentieth century entertainment. Simultaneous with this development the Utopian buildings of architects such as Lloyd Wright sought to represent à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"utopia as spectacleà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"utopia as the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“world upside downà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. The image of musical performance, which was concerned largely with public space, functioned as an ideological bridge between cabaret and architecture. The construction of stage design throughout early modern theatre also furthered the association between cabaret and architecture. Lloyd Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s design à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"Falling Waterà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ places importance on the movement and the musical sound of the waterfall which is almost part of the structure itself. The three tier ed space bears strong similarities to the tiered stage productions of cabaret during the same era in which some acts involved backing singers or lines of dancers. Cabaret placed emphasis on providing perspective for the viewers, as did architecture on providing perspective in both a functional and creative way. As expressed by Brooks Pfeiffer and Nordland: The term grammar of the building was frequently used by Wright to indicate the individual characteristics that make a building what it is. Just as the flora and fauna of the sea or the desert develop individual characteristics of colour, form, and structure relating directly to their environment, function, and naturetheir grammarso also does Frank Lloyd Wrights organic building develop its individual thematic correctness, proper to its environment, while incorporating the special functional needs and/or idiosyncrasies of its user. This recognition of the importance of synthesising functional aspects of design with the practical was a feature of Modern architecture. Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s designs, most especially the importance he placed on the concrete block, embodied his belief that the future of the democratic system was reliant upon the independent stake of individuals. His invention of the modular system of construction meant that many more families could afford to build and occupy their own homes during and after the Great Depression. Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s work is closely related to other artistic movements, such as New Deal Art and music, all of which sought to provide entertainment for a wider audience and to resuscitate artistic movements which had suffered during the economic downturn. As an accessible form of entertainment, one that was open to all, Cabaret triumphed as a cultural symbol that sought to embody the Utopian dream of the early twentieth century. Le Corbusierà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s designs expressed a need for the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"formal purityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ as seen in the design of machines. During the twenties Le Corbusier adapted his designs to become consistent with the cubist movement, in which the aesthetic merged with his logic in a new and unique way. As Francoise Choay says of Cubism, it was one of the decisive moments of the general revolution, as it sought à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"a truth of the object the way architecture seeks a truth of the function.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ Le Corbusierà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s work was based on the principle of equality, despite the diversity of cultures which prevailed during the twenties. As Choay phrases it, Le Corbusier believed that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"men are all equal, endowed with the same fundamental needs, no matter what their cultural levels; because of this, they all have a right to happiness; this must be assured by the progress of technique, put at the service of the architect.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ ž ¢ In a similar way, cabaret was part of the same cultural movement in which greater emphasis and belief was placed on the significance of the individual, but also the potential of the collective. Modern Utopian architecture was closely associated with visual cultures, which embodied the increased commodification of the object. Architecture brought about the recognition of space and its function as a commodity of its own; a concern that was also shared by other cultural movements of the time. Like some of the public spaces created by Utopian buildings Cabaret afforded a bridge between public and private space; a versatile space that could be used in a variety of ways and which was extremely lucrative as a commodity of its own. As expressed by Zevi et al, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"the problem of how to represent space [is] far from being solvedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ but its interpretation has traditionally been approached in a wide variety of ways. Principles of Utopian architecture placed importance on proportion symmetry and rhythm in design; principles which are applicable to the understanding and performance of music. When prohibition came to an end in 1933, nightclubs à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" such as The Copacabana, The Diamond Horseshoe or The Cotillion Room became increasingly more popular. Such places often had capacities of hundreds of paying customers, seeking to unite all present through live performance. Cabaret Music and Art Deco Architecture Corbusian modernism is very much a product of its intellectual, theoretical underpinnings and without some understanding of these any appreciation of the works will be incomplete. The more decorative styles appeal more directly to the senses and are more susceptible to an immediate appreciation by the viewer. Cabaret, on the other hand, is not underpinned by a single, rigid, set of rules, (in fact breaking rules and questioning boundaries is more in the ethos of cabaret à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" e.g. the can-can, Bette Midler). à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“[L]ate hours and sophisticated audiences meant all sorts of boundaries could be stretched.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? It is eclectic in its sources, and is properly considered as a part of popular culture, depending on the evocation of an emotional rather than an intellectual response for its impact. It was also pervasive in a way that music had never been before; the music, if not the spectacle and ambience, being available to anyone with access to a radio as part of the developing soundscape of the time. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“A soundscape, like a landscape, ultimately has more to do with civilization than with nature, and as such, it is constantly under construction and always undergoing change. The American soundscape underwent a particularly dramatic transformation in the years after 1900. By 1933, both the nature of sound and the culture of listening were unlike anything that had come before.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Cabaret music was ideally suited to this new technology. It consisted of short pieces which were specifically aimed at a popular market, and the mass distribution of the radio both supplied and fuelled demand for the product. Similarly, Art Deco and Modern buildings take their place in popular culture. They tend to be individual à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"show offà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ pieces within a loose genre rather than buildings that occupy a place in an evolutionary sequence of work developed within, and regulated by, an extensively worked out world view, proportion system or philosophy. The immediacy of their impact is derived from the appearance of their surface and form. This corresponds with the characteristic of cabaret music and dance being relatively short, highly individual pieces, rather than grand works of classical music, ballet or modern dance. The primary function of both is to elicit an immediate response. As a result of this, cabaret music and dance and contemporary popular music and dance as well as decorative or eclectic styles of architecture are representations of fantasy or escapist visions, which entertain by provoking an immediate response rather than thoughtful contemplation. CHAPTER 6: FURTHER RESEARCHES and DISCUSSIONS Musical analogy in composing architecture and its resulted spatial experience Architectural projects impose more extensive limitations and external constraints than any faced by a composer, and these are magnified on larger works making the clear and literal expression of any musical inspiration extremely difficult. Where the purpose of the building dictates a sequence of movements through it, however, this may be considered analogous to the movements in a symphony or concerto. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“There has always been a close relationship between music and architecture, in terms of structure, pattern and aesthetics, even though sound ultimately describes immaterial spaceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. The composition of the elements of architecture is just as susceptible to formal analysis as a musical composition. Indeed as Tzonis and Lefevre state, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The isolation of formal aspects and their independent analysis is necessary, however, if one is interested in understanding architecture as a coherent system rather than as a haphazard collection of shapes and details.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? However the actuality of architecture as a three dimensional object present in space over an extended period of time, in contrast to the transient presence of music in both time and space imposes more extensive limitations and external constraints than any faced by a composer of music, making the clear and literal expression of any musical inspiration extremely difficult. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Contrary to tragedy or music, architecture is seen most frequently in a reversible way. One can return to the end part of a building and make it read as the beginning; one looks at a building from right to left and vice versa. The same convention does not apply, however to the top and bottom parts. They are not accepted as equivalent; their arrangement is not reversible.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? Taxis, or the orderly arrangement of the parts, is the first level of formal organisation to be considered. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Taxis divides a building into parts and fits into the resulting partitions the architectural elements, producing a coherent work. In other words, taxis constrains the placing of the architectural elements that populate a building by establishing successions of logically organised divisions of spaceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. This is clearly exemplified in the Usonian houses of Frank Lloyd Wright with their unit system based on a three dimensional grid derived from the module of the materials to be used. This not only generates efficiency in the use of materials and their placement by the builder, but also gives the houses themselves a great harmony and coherence. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“[Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s structural vocabulary] consists of a three dimensional field of grid lines through which the solid elements of the building are slid and located, the use of the grid allows what is implied by the perceived form of the building to be as important as what is explicit. It is this quality that gives the houses their perceptual richness and meaning,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? It could not be said that the taxis of the Usonian houses was inspired by a specific musical form. Smaller projects, such as individual houses do, however, potentially afford greater control, and we have seen how Stephen Holl took inspiration from a specific piece of music and the Stretto form in general in designing the Stretto House. Sequential movement in music and spatial experience Where the purpose of the building dictates a sequence of movements through it, however, this may be considered analogous to the movements in a symphony or concerto. etc. Examples of buildings where an experiential sequence is imposed would be a church, (gate, precincts, portico, nave, chancel), mosque, (precincts, courtyard, ablutions fountain, narthex, prayer hall) and concert hall, (precincts, lobby, foyer, auditorium). As progress is made through the sequence of spaces, attention is gradually directed to the event in prospect, concentrated and finally brought to a focus on the climax of the altar, mihrab or stage respectively. Smaller projects, such as individual houses potentially afford greater control. We have seen how Stephen Holl took inspiration from a specific piece of music and the Stretto form in general in designing the Stretto House. Another form that offers relative freedom to the architect is the temporary exhibition pavilion. At the Philips Pavilion at the World Fair in Brussels in 1958 Le Corbusier conceived a piece of architectural sculpture to house a son et lumiere. Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s principal designer was the architect and composer Iannis Xenakis, who had also worked with Corbusier on the projects at Ronchamp and La Tourette. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The exterior of the Pavilion was based on the parabolic curves that Xenakis had discovered in mathematics and which he used to structure his early musical works, such as Metastasis; it was a symphony in swooping steel and concrete, and seeing it today in photographs, it still looks like the future made fleshà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Whether the musical inspiration can be read directly in the resulting building is uncertain, and probably not necessary for the appreciation of the architecture. In this case the fact that the design is based on hyperbolic paraboloids is obvious but the relationship to Xenakisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ music would be apparent only to those familiar with the composerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s work and the fact that he was involved with the design. Non-Western music and architecture The idea of a parallel between music and architecture does not appear to have been as extensively considered in relation to non western musical systems and the architecture of the corresponding cultures. There are a number of possible reasons for the consideration of the parallels in western culture. The belief that proportion is an expression of a universal harmony may be peculiar to western culture. It may be argued that it is specifically a product of the Renaissance when art and science were developed in parallel, often by the same people. The architect, exemplified by Palladio, Leonardo and, in England, Christopher Wren, was regarded as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"Uomo Universaleà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ during the 16th and 17th centuries. A wealthy Church and powerful States provided patrons for which the expression of the buildings they produced was of great symbolic significance. In addition there was a pool of individual patrons who not only had the money to build and a desire to leave a lasting monument to attest to their status and power, but also had an intelligent interest and understanding of the contemporary developments in science and the arts and their consideration as complementary pursuits. Music theory had become formalised, with a standard system of notation by the 14th century, thus rendering it susceptible to intellectual analysis as well as aesthetic appreciation. There are also a number of possible reasons why this parallel has not been developed to the same extent in other cultures. Architecture may not play as important a role in the other culture. In China, for example, painting has traditionally been the pre-eminent art form. Music developed an important ritual function since being advocated by Confucius in the 5th Century BC, whereas architecture was held subservient to merely human needs or being designed followed the cosmic principles. Court, monumental and religious architecture may use a more direct form of symbolism which overwhelms any consideration of a relationship with music. With regard to Indian architecture Bannister Fletcher observes, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“ in the East decorative schemes seem generally to have outweighed all other considerations, and in this would appear to lie the main essential differences between Historical [Western] and Non-Historical [Non Western] architecture.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? although this à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"regionalistà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ view has been challenged by contemporary critics such as GÃÆ' ¼lsÃÆ' ¼m Baydar Nalbantoglu and Chong Thai Wong. The music may be less formalised, or so complex as to defy formalisation. It may lack a standard notation or have several or developing systems, such as the Ome Swarlipi system in Indian music. This complexity and diversity may militate against a coherent and comprehensive analysis of the musical forms and a comparative analysis of the relationships between music and other forms of expression within that culture. Dance movements and Architecture The most apparent common characteristic of architecture and dance is that they both occupy and describe three dimensional space; dance transiently and architecture more permanently. Although the primary purpose of the space occupied by a building is functional, architecture is also capable of gestures analogous to those made by the human figure and typically used in dance. The sweeping parabolas of the Philips pavilion by Le Corbusier and Xenakis may easily be compared with the drama of a dancerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s out flung arm or high kick. The pinnacles of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings (figure 14) are expressive architectural gestures rather than functional spaces and are used to complete and extend the forms of the building, increasing their height and dominance in the skyline. The work of the choreographer and the architect is to organise the use and expression of the space by the dynamics of human movement and gesture, and the arrangement of solid and void respectively. In dance, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Every movement and every space has its own dynamics. In a choreographic work it is the different choices made by the choreographer concerning space, and the dancers relation to space, that conveys the dynamics to the audience. Rudolf Laban created a geometrical figure he called the Icosahedron, which shows the different directions the dancer could reach out for. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? In Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Usonian houses, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“[Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s structural vocabulary] consists of a three dimensional field of grid lines through which the solid elements of the building are slid and located, the use of the grid allows what is implied by the perceived form of the building to be as important as what is explicit. It is this quality that gives the houses their perceptual richness and meaning,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬? In both forms it is the degree of control and the skill and sensitivity with which it is exercised by the choreographer or the architect that determines the ability of the work to evoke an emotional response in the viewer. This may be the heart-stopping thrill engendered by a spectacular leap or the primal sensual response to the low horizontal lines that connect Wrightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s houses so strongly to the ground they spring from. Conclusions In conclusion, the parallels between architecture and cabaret are best understood by placing both art forms in their shared cultural and historical context. During the Modernist era both embraced the principles of rhythm, synthesis and performance in different yet intersecting ways, although architecture did so as a structured discipline rather than purely an aesthetic or entertaining art form. What both art forms share is the importance of building and music being accessible to a wide audience and providing an affordable service and entertainment to cultures which at the time still epitomised and strove towards the Utopian ideal. This research has pointed out some possible parallels between cabaret music and architect. Learning about their similarities would be a useful way of expanding the design repertoire. This study has confirmed the notion that architecture can become more experientially enriched by studying the perspective cabaret music has on the common aspects the two shared .