About me

“As an architectural designer from Shenzhen, China, I am passionate about art and design and pay special attention to the relationship between architectural history and urban history. I am committed to exploring and passing on culture through architectural design, and hope to combine history and modernity through spatial narratives to give architecture a deeper meaning and storytelling.”

“musical storytelling session”

Introduction

This study is based on Glasgow’s urban development context, focusing on the specificity and diversity of Glasgow’s music culture, and thus proposing a multi-functional music culture public building design for how this culture can be passed on and developed.Glasgow’s long history has always been favored by locals and outsiders. However, its rich musical cultural heritage has been gradually neglected during the development of the city, and the aborigines and visitors have little understanding of Glasgow’s title as one of the most musically vibrant cities in the UK, while the honour of “The City of Music” given to Glasgow by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2008 is, to a certain extent, a way of awakening the development of musical culture and further promoting the development of musical culture. Glasgow’s “City of Music” honour, bestowed upon it by UNESCO in 2008, is partly a way to promote music culture, leading to increased visitation by music lovers and economic growth. However, Glasgow lacks a place that focuses on the history of music and music activities in the city to further spread Glasgow’s music culture to the public. Therefore, this design will utilize narrative architectural techniques to analyse Glasgow’s music history and translate it into space, combining it with the history of the site, deepening people’s understanding of Glasgow’s music history through architectural visual memory, and deepening the memory of the place in the experience by combining the diversity of the music and the interactivity with the site, so that they can enjoy Glasgow’s music journey casually and comfortably.

History and Status of Urban Development

Glasgow has a long history of urban development, and records of musical development from the Middle Ages to the present day. The origins of Glasgow’s urbanization can be traced back to the construction of Glasgow Cathedral, while the first recorded musicians from the earliest period are relatively representative of the minstrels and preachers, who used their choirs to convey stories in the form of songs and poems. Cities continued to grow until the 17th and 18th centuries, when missionaries and the aristocracy remained at the center of power, and the development of music was monopolized by power. It was not until the Victorian period that urbanization accelerated and the rapid growth of commerce led to the popularity of the entertainment industry, which in turn led to music receiving the attention of the masses. During this period, many theaters emerged in Gera, such as the Theatre Royal and the Town Hall, and a large number of famous playwrights and opera singers emerged, such as Marie Loftus and Arthur Sullivan. It was not until later that a specialized music school (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and the Royal Scottish Orchestra were established. During the Victorian period, music flourished due to economic prosperity. From 1868 to 1914, Glasgow had 18 concert halls and the number of theaters increased from 3 to 6. The transformation of the city in the 20th century inevitably brought about a change in music, which was no longer confined to the classics but began to take on more secular symbols, such as rock and roll and ballads, as the economic downturn and the city’s industrial depression led to the use of alcohol and music as a means of numbing the senses. Glasgow saw the emergence of music venues such as The Barrowland Ballroom and King Tut’s Wah Wah Hu in the workers’ quarter, as well as the emergence of a number of artists and bands, including world-renowned singers such as Donovan and Lulu In the late 20th century, Glasgow transformed itself from an industrial city to a tourist city, and the development of music became more systematic, both in terms of venues and music education, and Glasgow’s music became more and more important. In the early 21st century, Glasgow was awarded the title of ‘City of Music’, and this modernization and emphasis on music has led to the creation of new iconic venues such as the OVO and the SEC Armadillo. To this day, Glasgow’s musical development has been closely linked to the city’s development, and its musical architecture has been influenced by the times to form its own style. Today, statistics show that Glasgow’s resident population is almost 20% non-ethnic, followed by a large number of non-ethnic students in their 20’s and 29’s, and 57% of Glasgow’s foreign visitors each year, which indicates that Glasgow has a large number of visitors and a young and potentially vibrant population. Passing on Glasgow’s history and culture to them will further promote cultural heritage and development.

Spatial Composition Analysis

The composition of the space is to use Nigel Coates in the book “Narrative Architecture” summarized in the three types of narrative in which the sequence, biological theme narrative as the main design techniques for the design of the space. Due to the analysis of the time and sequence of events of Glasgow’s music history, it can be found that the specificity of the music is concentrated in three historical periods: the Middle Ages to the Victorian period, the Victorian period, and the 20th century to the present. So the architecture will be these major periods of architecture, events, people trajectory for symbolic extraction, and then translate the line surface into the body block. Then it is abstracted to form a spatial structure for combination. It can be seen that the architecture from the medieval church and missionaries around the center of the circle gathering state, to the Victorian theater floor level superposition, and then to the 21st century stage mode of the new building are not used in the form of round polymerization, so the main components of the architectural structure is also concentrated in the circle of the various abstract processing. Its construction utilizes the closed, open and centralized spatial language to produce different forms and lighting effects in different architectural spaces, thus guiding the experience of associative memory. For example, in the Middle Ages, churches were the main gathering place for music dissemination, and the visual effect and emotion given by churches were open and solemn, and the building was constructed by utilizing the soaring windows and the trajectory of people’s actions to form columns and encircling staircases, so that people walked around the circle, felt the open vision brought by the columns, and thus sensed the vastness of the music and the sacred atmosphere, which deepened the memories and emotions for the building and the culture.