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I was approached this week by a postdoc scholar at University of Michigan with ideas for a project he is working with. He works with the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and is planning a unique project for his 2009 class. The goal is the design of a social, cafe, bar, performance space, with an ergonomic design focused around the guitar. I think he rightfully sees architecture, music, and instruments as having a lot of common priorities and history. Without getting in to too many project details, he's decided to focus the design specifically around the guitar.

Now the goals and ideas are still very general and abstract, but he expressed interest in having me teach a course on the guitar to a group of about 15 students who would be involved in the project. The time, objectives, primary focus, etc., are entirely fluid at this point. The main goal seems at this point to be to give the students a richer understanding of the instrument, partly for specific knowledge of it's functions, but just as much I think as an inspirational guide in artistic feel and aesthetics of the guitar.

Pretty vague, huh.

So ideas abound. First was proposed an eight-week course in which each student would build a guitar. I had immediate doubts about the feasibility of that plan though. I've taught plenty of students to build before, but taking 15 architecture students, most of who may not be musicians, and trying this seems like it could be eight weeks of constantly putting out 15 fires at a time. I would have use of the College of Architecture wood shop, but it's a foreign shop to me without the trade specific tools. I also don't know if that course is what they would most benefit from in relation to their goals. Plus it would involve shutting down my shop almost entirely for that period, which doesn't sound too appealing either.

Then there is the more academic approach in favor over the hands-on building. I've ideas on how to lay out a course focused on history and design, styles and construction techniques that may be more important to their goals. I feel this has several advantages, first being less invitation or opportunity for complications or disaster. Second is the ability to lighten the course schedule to x-days or hours per week, keeping the rest of the shop at least semi-functioning for the while. The course design could be adjusted to fit what is most important within the time permitted - not quite so easy to do with building.

This approach also allows things like needs of performers worked in through a few guest speakers I have in mind. A large part of the ergonomic goal is to create an environment as much for the performers as the guests. I'm sure I could also utilize the Stearns Collection instruments in the evolution and history area. And of course, as opposed to building I would not be forced to focus so much on a specific style of instrument like a flattop steel string.

The person heading this project (a musician and customer of mine) is very drawn to both the immediate aesthetics, as well as the underlying movements and interdependency of the different parts of the guitar. This includes not only the woods, hardware, and setup, but also the electronics, amplifiers, and the performers themselves.

I certainly wouldn't be trying to teach a bunch of grad students about architectural acoustics or how a buttress system in a guitar works. The goal is to offer them a more genuine understanding of the instrument than one can get by simply looking a guitar over.

And no Hard Rock Cafe guitar clocks, or herringbone wallpaper trim. Artistic architecture with the influence from and focus on the guitar.

What I'm asking here is, what points do you see as critical to understand or most beneficial to an architect? What needs to be in the course pack?

I thought the instructor may have been hoping to find more perfect guitar ratios in the vein of Pi or the golden ratio that could be harmoniously reflected in the architecture. Unfortunately there are few solid ratios short of the 12th root of 2 or other tonal intervals that come to mind. Certainly ranges of angles and proportions that design seems to hover around, but nothing with a solid signature formula. He seems to be welcome to teaching a philosophy of the design though, rather than complex formulas.

There's been a tentative meeting set with the chair of the department in a little over a week. Though it's both exciting and a bit intimidating, I'm not nearly as overwhelmed with the idea of lecturing at UofM as I feel I perhaps should be. I hope that's a good sign.

So what does an architect need, in order to understand the guitar enough to reflect it in their own work?

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

For purposes of the building, #1 is understanding how to design a good-sounding room. An absurdly popular bar/venue in my city moved to a new building, and their new layout was designed around aesthetics alone and totally ignored acoustics. They went out of business in short time because you could -not- get good sound in that room, period. Musicians stopped wanting to play there, because they all sounded like...poo...and it was all over.

As for the content of the rest of the course, I think my opinions on that might be unpopular at best

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Where are you David?

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

The people's republic of Ann Arbor.........

Congrats David I could not think of a better guy to take this one on and deliver some real value and understanding.

Thanks Hesh. I'm really quite honored to be considered for this, but I should say this is still very much in the "just an idea" phase. I've heard architects go through that phase as much or more than luthiers do.

Yup, lovely AA. Howard, you were of course the first person I think came to mind in my search for input. Okay, actually I was thinking how glad I was that you were 2000 miles away, as any closer and I'm sure you would have gotten the offer first. This whole idea immediately seemed like it would fit well with you actually.

And Bob, I'm always open to unpopular ideas. I been known to have a few myself.

There's still a bit of a cloud over what the goals of the course are, but I don't think they aim for me to teach the structural or acoustic properties of guitars related to architecture. These students will have the knowledge and resources related to structural and acoustic engineering that far exceed my own related to architecture.

I think it could be more akin to an inspirational retreat. An attempt to understand and be influenced by some peculiarities of the guitar that define it's character. Much of what initially was brought up involved the marriage of different woods to metals and hardware, and even to electronics, then to the air, the ear, the mind and soul.

We talked a bit about the metaphorical descriptions of things like tone and feel, which seem to be so well paralleled in how architecture is perceived and described. I think the main goal would be an attempt to gain a better understanding and appreciation of tone, texture, colors and shapes. How and why these qualities translate from wood and metal to the personal perception of an instrument, and to learn it in a way they can translate to their design.

It's one facet of the overall project. The ergonomics for the performers and audience, the structural and acoustical engineering, all this would be outside of what I believe they are asking of me. I'm under the impression it's more a class with the objective of appreciation and inspiration for the project, from which they take their own interpretation to the design.

My thoughts are wandering on what means would be best to reach this goal. I can understand the desire to have the students build themselves, but I'm not so sure it would be necessary or even the best route. It would also involve so much hum-drum work that wouldn't serve their ultimate purpose. I've thought of building demo instruments of different wood combinations, re-voice an instrument, demonstrate joinery, saddles, all sorts of variables (I would also have access to some pretty darned nice spectrum analyzers and other measurement devices).

History, basic design, trim and inlay styles of course will have to be discussed, but by what means or context I'm not sure of yet.

Lot's of ideas, just kind of mulling them over right now.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

David,

one of the hot topics in modern architecture is reinventing the facade.
Traditionally it has been seen a very static thing that gives the building its outlook
and protects the inner parts. However, today there are a lot of talks and theories how
facades could/should be "interactive skins" with multiple functions and constant chance.

Guitar top (with strings) is both. On the other hand it is (at least may be at) very traditional,
visually static facade. On the other hand, it is very simple interface to reach very complex things, device that transforms simple kinetic energy into sound, that has all the possibilities to touch all the human feelings.

Tell you students to go and find solutions to apply that same potential to the architecture of that place, and let them loose...

Hi David, Newbie/lurker/ first time poster,~~ Just for information sake, one thing to keep in mind about architectural students is that they have the most stick to it attitude I've ever seen and have to build very detailed models out of little sticks and stuff ( sounds a little like a guitar? ) and they work on them into the wee hours of dawn. I thought you might like to know about their tenacity in case you decide to do the build a guitar approach. My first year dorm roommate at college was an architectural student and I had to move out because of his very late nite building habits. I will never forget his tenacity and approach to detail while finishing a project. It took me 25 yrs to develop that much persistence! ~~~~ Jim

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Your approach determines your outcome.

I learned a lot about the guitar by designing my first. I didn't use pre-drawn plans, so I had to come up with my own, and I think your architecture students could do that. I learned things like the top isn't flat, it's ever so slightly domed, and that the neck is set at a 2-3 degree angle, and that the whole box is built to survive expanding and contracting.

Having them draw plans would give them the ability to experiment with traditional or non-traditional shapes and features, and you'd be in a good position to critique their drawings. It would also let them explore whether they can find any "magic" ratios or otherwise incorporate ratios. For that matter, they could incorporate their architectural ratios into places where it wouldn't work musically if they attempted to actually build the instrument, but it doesn't matter because the design is just a concept piece.

If I understand you correctly David your mission is to work with architecture students tasked with designing a performance environment/cafe/bar while utilizing the concepts and physics of how a guitar works. In order to wrap my head around this I find it very difficult to consider anything other than an acoustic guitar.

So...... another way to think of this is that the performance environment should BE a guitar with the goal being that every patron has a center sound board seat. This means that the performance space could be acoustically active or projective as in the case of some famous venues like the Hollywood Bowl (nightmarish mental images of an O*ation here.....).

Perhaps with or without the students each building their own acoustic guitar build one or more guitars that would be built for the purpose of exploring concepts that relate to both an acoustic guitar and architecture. Some things that immediately come to mind are harmonic resonance, conductance, materials science, etc.

It's interesting to me that perhaps the single most glaring conflict in this exercise is that engineers and architects are trained to damp resonance and harmonic vibration where Luthiers learn to promote and control harmonic resonance and vibration. We, in some cases, want vibration to conduct where engineers and architects d*ead these concepts and labor to minimize or eliminate the impact of vibration and harmonic resonance.

For a while now I have been interested in art that utilizes architecture to produce sound not unlike an acoustic guitar. Openings and chambers built into our architecture with strings strung across the medium and the humans are encouraged to pluck their space and listen and feel the sound that is produced. Of course dry wall cannot compare to Adi but you get the idea.

The other thing that is very interesting to me here is that generally speaking a great guitar is often built somewhat close to the edge in terms of structural integrity where a close to the edge approach to architecture would not be tolerated.....for long.....

That is not completely true. "Dead room" is not the optimal way to design acoustics in architecture anywhere else than, yes, for dead rooms. Elsewhere, good acoustical engineering calls for controlling echoes, reverbaration etc. , not defeaning them totally. And damping is just one way to control it anmong others.

David--

First off -- congrats!! This has to be very exciting! For what its worth, the first thing that strikes me is curvilinear design. It is the embodiiment of an acoustic guitar and I full agree with Hesh in that is the most applicable design. The body shape of a guitar is not only functional, but goes back to the primative 'Venus' shape that came very early into humanity. The Venus of Willendorf immediately comes to mind. This shape has many implications that go to our very early senses of ourselves as humanity. The unamplified acoustic guitar is a living room instrument and I could see multiple curvilinear spaces being developed for smaller, more intimate performance areas wthin a single venue. However this all works out have fun and run with it! You will do very well!

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

Consider a multi-functional space that would combine elements of architecture for:
1) A luthier shop area to build guitars
2) Museum area for people to view, play and listen to guitars and learn the instrument.
3) A performance area ...small concert area to see guitarists perform

Combine this project with the school of music to create a world class center for guitar.

Each area could use new and creative spaces to accomplish time-honored activities. It could also be a tribute to tradition as well. That's up to the principals of the project.

I could imagine a luthier being "awarded" the shop space for 4-6 month periods...sort of a visiting professor status where folks could visit and actually watch a master at work. The work space would be the key attraction.

Folks from Gibson, Martin, Taylor and many independent builders could donate instruments to the museum. Find new and different ways in which to show and hear instruments. Award a sabbatical to a guitar virtuoso each year to teach on the premisis and continue to promote interest in guitar.

Guitar virtuosos from around the world could be invited to perform on a regular basis in the small concert hall.

The challenge would be to make all 3 aspects of guitar fully and efficiently functional and yet have them tied together as an integral tribute to both architecture and guitar.

Not much in detail but I believe it would become an attraction for the serious in both disciplines of architecture and music.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

David,

I borrowed a book from my roomate once that spoke about how Gothic Cathedrals were built around the ratios between the notes in certain chords. The architects were sensitive to the emotional quality of each different note and its chords and they would choose the one (or more) that satisfied the location and community to incorporate into the building. This changed the way I think about the connections between shapes and sound in everything. I do agree that across the board there are not universal ratios used in every guitar but I do find it fascinating to map out the shapes that have become the universal models and discover where their relationships lie. It is interesting too to chart through the history of the guitar and show the different shapes that were popular, map their ratio relationships, and then compare it to popular building and artistic styles of the period. On a separate note, I have always been interested in the taper on guitars from back to front. Concert halls generally converge down toward the stage, but clubs and other music venues have a parallel floor and ceiling. I don't know if it would matter but I always think about that.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Thanks folks - good food for thought. I'll keep you all posted if this actually leads anywhere.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

That sounds like a very cool class. I don't have much to contribute besides what is said, but I hope that U of M asks you back to do another course. I would be the first one in line to sign up.

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-Rob Eckert
Ann Arbor, Michigan

David,

A fascinating topic and endeavour, to be sure. After reading posts, I'm left with the impression that what you are able to bring to the experience is the notion of transformation: how you take a bunch of wood and metal bits and transform them through your attentions, into something that is utterly different from what their original nature. Apart, the materials are just wood and metal. Together they are a musical instrument with all that that implies.

Your contribution is probably to facilitate an experience of transforming materials, of manipulating them in unusual ways (ie: bending), and integrating a wide variety of options into a new whole that must operate within fairly narrow limits in order to be successful as a guitar. That success relates to the people using it, and perceiving it; no matter how original and inventive the idea, the end product still has to be used by real people with real needs.

Good luck and have fun!

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

Hardwood floors, try to get old growth quarter sawn for the soundstage, from back east, they have lost of this stuff back there. Design the backdrop with a wooden "acoustic dome", a 7 layered step dome that will enhance projection.

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

Yup. Vague is OK; you can make it what you want. But part of the order is not just vague but a bit obtuse: how does the guitar connect to ergonomic design of a public interior space? We usually hear "ergonomics" with regard to an individual's work station. For a room, I'd guess it's about access, traffic flow, lighting, seating, sight lines, acoustics . . . all the stuff that makes for good interior design of a cafe, bar, performance, etc. space. But those are already standard problems for any architect; what does any of that have to do with a guitar? There are ergonomic issues around the guitar, fer sher, but how do things like bevels, wedges, neck shapes, elevated fretboards, multiscale fretting, soundports, etc., which affect player ergonomics relate to the ergonomics of a room? I have no idea, but that would seem to be the kind of question individual student projects in this bigger project are supposed to answer. If I were you, and I'm sure that I'm not, I would focus on ergonomic developments in guitar design, and challenge the students to expand upon them in a way that relates to the whole interior of the cafe, performance, etc. space. I'd get past the aesthetics of guitar design (i.e., the point is probably not to design an interior that invokes a sense of being inside a guitar, although that could be part of it) and get to what ergonomic guitar design has to teach about room functionality (if anything). Fortunately, you need only to pose the question; the students' job will be to answer it.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

One of the issues that keeps coming to my mind is that there is no 'the' guitar. If you are trying to design a performance space for 'guitar music' then it will need to gracefully acommodate everything from a soloist on a classical guitar to a small jazz group, possibly including a wind instrument, to a band with two or three amplified guitars, and possibly percussion. Movable screens, 'clouds', a flexible floor and seating plan, variable dispersive/absorbtive elements, and other things, will have to be part of the mix. I know this is not what you see as part of your job, but you probably have more experience with the whole range of 'guitars' than most of the students do, and I'll bet they're looking to you for some reality checks.

You can draw a sweet guitar shape using a tapered ellipse (egg shape) multiplied by an hyperbola. I use this approach all the time. Proportions often come close to the 'Golden ratio'.

This sounds likea fun project.

Given that too many architects don't have any experience building anything...and thus they design houses with details where a hammer cannot be wielded, etc...having them make some sawdust is a great idea. When I was "in the trades" the architect was our enemy...designing the unbuildable...

Look into LEDE studio control room architecture...the live end is the stage with lots of varied frequency dispersion; the dead end is where the audience is and especially the back wall.

Read up on how Symphony Hall in Boston was designed...

If they can't build a simple guitar in eight weeks, they're hopeless...I teach a course in building a simple mandolin in four days, and that fourth day is all about setup. The mandos are assembled in three days. Yes, I pre-join tops and backs and sand them, yes, I cut the fret slots, yes, I bend the sides, but the students really get a great experience. Stretch it out to eight weeks and they should be able to build a guitar if they've got a couple of days a week into it.

So what does an architect need, in order to understand the guitar enough to reflect it in their own work?

I like thinking about the big picture correlations between guitar building and architecture. For instance...

A recent new addition to the Seattle airport showcases a HUGE wall of glass, maybe 60' high and 300' long. Tubular steel columns provide the structure and the hundreds of glass panels are suspended on brackets from horizontal cables stretched between the columns. This massive glass wall just seems to float there (all in a major earthquake zone).

It's like a guitar in a few ways. It's shape is elegant and essential for it's function. The structural elements are spare and every piece counts. The parts have to work well together under complex and demanding conditions.

If more buildings shared those elements of guitar design, the world would be a more interesting place.

The other big picture thing shared by architecture and guitar building is the marriage of art, craft, and science. Architects used to be responsible for the artistic concepts, the engineering, and the project management. From my experience, specialization has really taken over in the field and architects have become more about the concept than the implementation (and that can cause the kind of problems that Rick was referring to where they really don't have a good grasp of the actual work of building). The architecture (and the guitars) I like most display an understanding of design coupled with an intimate understanding of the materials and the processes.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com