Last Wednesday, New Zealand architect and architectural geometer Mark Burry spoke at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He spoke of a project to which he has dedicated 33 years of his life.
Barcelona's famed Roman Catholic church, the Sagrada Familia, began construction in 1882 and is scheduled for completion in 2026 — a staggering 144 years of sporadic progress in spite of the economic, political and social challenges that centuries bring.
Its original architect was Antoni Gaudi, who saw the church to only one-quarter completion at the time of his death in 1926. Gaudi's workshop, drawings and models were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Burry is one of the few who have dedicated their lives, often in the face of loud opposition, to interpretation of the remaining documentation and advancement of construction.
I had become aware of the perilous situation of St. Patrick's Church in Watervliet only a few days before Burry's lecture. I was struck by the similar construction start date — the 1880s for both — and became acutely aware of the tremendous resolve of those who have shepherded them. In the case of the Sagrada Familia, it was a loud resolve of advancement irrevocably mixed with changes in design and construction practices in the 20th century. For St. Patrick's, which is solidly of the 19th century, the resolve was quiet, keeping entropy at bay, until just recently.
Coincident beginnings and resolve aside, I found myself fixated on a subtle aspect of Burry's lecture: his humble, gracious admissions of what we will never know, and what our advanced technologies still do not allow us to do.
Here is a well-kept secret about architectural acoustics. Even with more than a century of development, we're just getting started. There is a lot we don't know and cannot yet do. Our analysis does not yet yield a full understanding or unwavering prediction. Even if they did, our theories of the psychological underpinnings of good sound will likely always remain incomplete.
We document rooms through measurement, and recreate them virtually, but no combination of microphones, computing power and loudspeakers will perfectly recreate the real thing.
Here's what we do know: the materials, geometry and structure of a space fully determine its acoustic character. Acoustic performance is inextricable. There is a conceptual place where massive materials, high ceilings, scales of ornament and room geometry meld to make some spaces acoustically exceptional. We may never be able to fully describe this, but we know it is there.
We know this because buildings from another century, like St. Patrick's, have been handed down to us. Buildings like it are not made anymore.
St. Patrick's is an acoustic gem, not because of what any measurement or parameters would convey, but because its materials, geometry and structure make it so. It is a rare American building that exhibits something that we do not yet understand.
The Watervliet City Council votes on its fate Tuesday night. If it approves rezoning, St. Patrick's will be razed and replaced with an inferior structure.
Consider this, Watervliet: St. Patrick's is your Sagrada Familia. It's time to make your resolve louder, because if you allow it to be destroyed, you will never truly hear it again.
Zachary Belanger is an acoustic designer. He lives in Troy.