re-framing Fillmore East: Architecture and Music in the iPod City

Abstract

Linked to the concept of the "performance", Architecture and Music serve to inform experiences of a given place. Often this culmination shifts to favor one art in this relatniship. Opening in 1968, the Fillmore East, a music hall in Manhattan's East Village, was the premier venue for live music in the country, embodying the musical and social climate of the era. As a physical space, the Fillmore inspied the rock music revolution; yet in the past few decades. Thrty-three years later, with the rise of the iPod, technology seeks to remove completely spatial elements from the musical experience. While certain benefits have emerged from this mobilized, individualized and de-centralized model, the inherent social aspects of both arts remain, with the role of physical space needing to reorient itself to fit this new musical context. This thesis addresses architecture and music at this juncture in the digital age and situate the role of physical space in an icreasingly spaceless musical world. Sited in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this thesis embraces this burgeoning artist and music community as a network of musical sites and sounds from which to draw creative inspiration and upon which to influence artistic development and community interaction. Focusing on the concept of "performance" and the social interactions between architecture and music, this thesis focuses on the creative "imput" end of artistic development and proposes a facility for the creation, production and performance of music and sound art through blending ideas of the "concert hall", the "black box theater" and the "sonic laboratory". Through a diversity of sonic environments and programmatic elements, this facility provides multiple "vessels" through which one can produce, interact with and transmit sound and music. This thesis asserts that through an active interaction in the processes of music, from the professional to the casual listener, one can begin to re-frame how sound and the built environment interact in this "iPod era".