Music and architecture : the integration of music and architecture as a strategy towards the revitalization of public urban space within the city of Durban.

Abstract

As it stands, the city of Durban appears to contain many public urban spaces that are currently underutilized, and as a result have become dead or lost to the city. The aim of this project is to investigate the likely factors behind this problem, and then subsequently to explore the realm of music as a potentially new dimension towards facilitating revitalization within such spaces. The argument unfolds such that as music possesses the capacity to influence human emotion, and emotion impacts on one's feeling, and in turn perception of the experience, they incur within a space, theoretically therefore, at a certain level, human perception of a space can be manipulated by music. As architecture is the key to shaping the physical environment and the experiences within it, incorporating the influencing factors of music within architectural design, could assist in redefining the perceived properties of a correspondingly designed space. Thus an integration of music and architecture can serve as a combined medium through which dead urban space within the city may be revitalized.