I recently stumbled across a project entitled Playing the Building which was designed by the artist David Byrne.  The project is located in Lower Manhattan and uses the interior of the Battery Maritime Museum.  ”The project consists of a retrofitted antique organ, placed in the center of the building’s cavernous second-floor gallery, that controls a series of devices attached to its structural features—metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating and water pipes. These machines vibrate, strike, and blow across the building’s elements, triggering unique harmonics and producing finely tuned sounds.”  Guests who visit are invited to sit down at the organ and “play” the sounds of the building.

found this project extremely interesting.  The ability to tie an entire building into a musical instrument is astonishing.  I wonder how it sounds and whether all the different keys are accounted for simply by using the parts of the building’s elements.  It would be an experience, indeed to sit in the building and play this amazing instrument.  It’s also quite artistic.  Like Duchamp’s Fountain piece,  a great deal of artwork comes from simply changing the purpose of something.  An aesthetically pleasing building becomes an orchestrating masterpiece.