Abstract

Composed City
In 2008, Staalplaat Soundsystem and Lola landscape architects started to collaborate on projects that are at the interface of public space design and sound art under the name of Composed City. Sound art as a piece of landscape, and sound design of public space in order to create local identity, evoke play or contemplation, form the main subject of this collaboration. From an architectural point of view, there are very few good examples of permanent art in public space, let alone permanent sound art in public space. Therefore, these projects feel as artistic experiments rather than works of art. And no experiment can stand without a critical review. In this article, two projects are described and reviewed. Although they are very different, the projects share the love for the sound of trains, cars and trees.

• Peter Veenstra (NL) is one of the directors of Lola landscape architects, based in Rotterdam (NL). Lola researches and designs new spatial phenomena in public space.
• Geert-Jan Hobijn (NL) is the founder of the art collective Staalplaat Soundsystem, that has created a multitude of sound installations, moving more and more into public space.

Full text (PDF) p.  466-468