Sound-Exploring a Character-Defining Feature of Historic Places

Sound: Exploring a Character-Defining Feature of Historic PlacesAuthor(s): Jonathan GunderlachSource: APT Bulletin, Vol. 38, No. 4 (2007), pp. 13-20Published by: Association for Preservation Technology International (APT)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40004807 .Accessed: 30/06/2011 14:43

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Sound: Exploring a Character-Defining Feature of Historic Places

JONATHAN GUNDERLACH

The study of sound in historic

settings can stimulate new

approaches to preservation.

Fig. 1 . Proximity of Chatham Village to Pitts- burgh's Golden Triangle. From Chatham Village promotional material c. 1980.

Imagine the presence of an interstate highway adjacent to your bedroom window. How long would it be before you moved to a quieter corner of your home? The ability of sound to alter and shape the character of space is unques- tionable. Sound is also fleeting and lives on only as memory. It has no permanent presence (recordings are analogs of sound events, not the events them- selves), which makes it problematic for a field called preservation. At the same time preservationists know well that permanence is only a matter of perspec- tive. With enough time even bricks and mortar crumble. The three-part study that follows examines sound as a character-defining feature of historic places. First is a discussion on the science of sound, hearing, and the soundscape. Second is a history and description of Chatham Village, Pennsylvania, where the study took place. The soundscape study forms the final part.

Sound, Hearing, and the Soundscape

Sound is an expenditure of energy in the form of the rhythmic displacement and return of air (or another medium) by a vibrating object. When struck, a tuning fork begins to vibrate, and the tines oscillate. As the tine of the fork moves forward from its original position, it bunches up the air molecules nearby, creating an increased air pressure (compression). When the tine returns to its original state, the bunched mass of air molecules return to their normal state. That same mass of molecules then expands and creates a negative air pressure (rarefaction) as the tine travels in the opposite direction. The rapid, repetitive motion of the tuning fork thus creates cyclical changes of air pressure that propagate outward and impinge upon the ear. A sound is heard.

Every sound has two essential compo- nents, amplitude and frequency, and is often measured in decibels. Amplitude is the amount of energy imparted to the sound wave. Frequency is the cycle of compression and rarefaction of the sound wave, which is perceived as a tone and measured in hertz. The decibel (dB) is the logarithmic ratio of a measured sound pressure to the sound- pressure level at the threshold of hearing (0 dB), or 0.0002 dyne/cm2. In human hearing the threshold of pain or sensation happens between 115 and 140 decibels.

The logarithmic scale is used to reconcile the extreme difference between these two thresholds, which is also known as the dynamic range of hearing.1 To illustrate this difference, think of the ear as a scale able to weigh a human hair and a 30-story building with equal ability.2 If the ear perceived light instead of sound, it could see a 50- watt light bulb thousands of miles away. ' In other words, it would take a sound 10,000,000,000,000 times louder than a sound at the threshold of human hearing to cause physical damage to a typical ear. If the ear were any more sensitive, it would be able to perceive "random movements of air molecules."4 It does not however, perceive all sounds equally.

One's sense of hearing is subjective. The ear constantly adjusts to the environment. In loud situations the ear becomes less sensitive. Known as a threshold shift, this effect may remain temporarily when one moves quickly from a loud to quiet setting. Extreme cases of prolonged exposure to loud noises may damage the ear and cause a permanent threshold shift. The ear distinguishes a range of tones between 20 hertz and 20,000 hertz, although the range shrinks with age. Tones of similar energy content have different perceived

13

14 APT BULLETIN: JOURNAL OF PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGY / 38:4, 2007

intensities. The ear favors frequencies in the middle of the range, which it deems louder than low-frequency or very high- frequency sounds of equal energy content. When compared to a mid-range frequency of equal amplitude, a high- frequency sound will be perceived as the quieter of the two. To illustrate further, ultrasonic frequencies may have a high energy content, but they are silent to human ears. In short, the unweighted decibel measurement does not necessar- ily correspond to the loudness perceived by the ear.

To account for this discrepancy decibel measurements are often weighted to differentiate areas of the frequency spectrum. Two scales are often used, each with its own advantage. The A scale (dBA) best mimics the perception of the human hearing by empha- sizing the middle frequencies and is a better measurement of perceived loudness. The C scale, on the other hand, better measures lower-frequency sounds that may not be perceived to be loud but may have sufficient amplitude to damage one's health. Both scales are used often in municipal noise ordinances, which communities may reference when considering sound preservation in addition to noise abatement.

Sound is temporal and ephemeral. It is tangible but seems intangible. We feel it but cannot touch it. It is a vibration that "dissipates, modulates, infiltrates... becomes absorbed and deflected by actual objects, and fills space surround- ing them." Here art historian Douglas Kahn is arguing that other than music there had been no art form based on aurality until the late twentieth century and that its evanescent nature makes it a problematic as a subject for history.5 As in art and history, efforts at evaluating sound as an environmental feature have paled in comparison to the evaluation of the visual aspects of those subjects.

The neglect of sound as a subject of study is rather curious in light of sound's pervasiveness. Even before birth the body hears. Sounds from the outside world mix with the mother's voice, heartbeat, and moving fluids to create an intrauterine symphony.6 Unlike our eyes, our ears have no lids to shield us from unwanted sounds. Even in the vacuum of space one may not be deaf to the sound of one's own heartbeat.

Fig. 2. Aerial view of Chatham Village, 1956. The 19-unit apartment building is at the top. At the top right is one of the roads that bound the village. From Chatham Village Pittsburgh, June 30, 1956, promotional material.

There is a body of literature, however small, that seeks to address this over- sight. Some of the earliest were noise studies that addressed health concerns of the increasingly loud urban environment.7 Later on others paid more atten- tion to more sonorous qualities. Of particular interest is Raymond Murray Schafer's The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, which set forth a popular scheme for classifying sounds. Because he figures so prominently in soundscape studies, this book is worth a short review.

Schafer uses two schemes to classify sounds. The first is based on a sound's physical characteristics and described them as either low fidelity or high fidelity. Low-fidelity sounds are continuous ones with a constant amplitude and narrow frequency range: think white noise, mechanical hums, or traffic along busy roads. They are generally human- made sounds that convey little information and form the acoustic background or ambient sound level. High-fidelity sounds are the opposite. They are discreet and information rich. The high- fidelity sound of a horn or siren cuts clearly through the monotonous thrum of traffic, alerting the listener to the sound and direction of alarm or emer- gency. Schafer's second scheme classifies sounds into three groups according to

their cultural connotations. Schafer borrows the musical term keynote to describe sounds that act as reference points and "outline the character of men living among them." For a maritime community the sound of the sea may be a keynote sound.8 The second group is signals, which are foreground sounds that have specific meanings. Train whis- tles, clock chimes, and ambulance sirens are examples of signals. The third type is soundmarks, an acoustic equivalent of a landmark.

Various soundscape studies have used this classification system. In another landmark publication, Five Village Soundscapes, Schafer and others studied five rural European towns by charting keynote sounds, signals, and soundmarks, making sound recordings, and creating isobel maps. Like a topographic map the isobel map uses contour lines to delineate areas of specific volume over a particular area. The result is an acoustic snapshot of the ambient sound level over a geographic area during the "late evening" in all five cases.9 J. Douglas Porteous and Jane F. Mastin conducted a similar study in a community on Van- couver Island in British Columbia using isobel maps and sound inventories.10 Unlike the Five Village Soundscapes studies, Porteous and Mastin describe

SOUND: EXPLORING A CHARACTER-DEFINING FEATURE 15

their method for making their isobel maps. They posted listening stations at regular 50-foot intervals over their study area. In a slightly different approach, Barry Truax charted the level of sounds heard in a rural setting over a 24-hour period in one study and ten natural sounds over the course of a year in another.11 They show times when species' vocalizations peak and overlap each other. The results may help confirm the idea that animals vocalize over specific frequency bands particular to their species. This "niche hypothesis" suggests that human noise is more con- sequential than previously thought.12 Michael Southworth examined the perception of sound from the standpoint of the blind and deaf. Based on observations made by groups of blindfolded and earmuffed volunteers, Southworth created maps of the downtown Boston that identify areas of strong and weak sonic and visual character.13

The variety of methods used to study the sounds of place reflects a variety of disciplines, interests, and aims of the researchers. Schafer is a musician, Porte- ous a geographer, Krause an ecologist, and Southworth a professor of city and regional planning and landscape architecture. Yet all the studies share a number of qualities. The key ingredients are a defined geographic space, an inventory of sounds heard, and a measurement of the ambient sound level. Less well developed in these studies is the dimension of time. The various sound maps are accu- rate only at the time of day or season they were made, although Southworth addresses this in part with a chart com- paring relative volumes of distinct and indistinct sounds during a weekday and weekend day. Still, these studies are important and form a foundation upon which to build.

An attempt to further develop these ideas and to tailor them to the practice of historic preservation was tested through a field study in a small neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This study is more exploratory than scientific and is meant to investigate ways of researching and documenting the sonic character of historic places. Chatham Village was chosen because it is relatively small and well documented, retains a high degree of architectural integrity, and is historically significant.

Chatham Village, Pennsylvania

Master planning for Chatham Village, a 45-acre community atop a hill that overlooks the south bank of the Monongahela River, began in 1929 (Fig. 1). Built by the Buhl Foundation, a local philanthropic organization, the village was a limited-dividend, for-profit enterprise intended to address in part a city-wide housing shortage. Planning consultants Clarence Stein and Henry Wright guided a group of talented individuals to design the village using Garden City principles. The design team included local architects Charles T. Ingham and William T. Boyd, landscape architects Ralph Griswold and Theodore Kohankie, and Pittsburgh city planner Fredrick Bigger. Stein and Wright were heavily influenced by the ideas of planners Ebenezer Howard and Raymond Unwin, which they incorporated into the design: townhouses, common greens, natural areas, and proximity to schools, community cen- ters, recreational spaces, and retail stores. These elements were arranged to maximize green space, separate auto- motive and vehicular traffic, and include a large number of residential units.14 Construction occurred during three major phases from 1931 to 1956. The original Stein and Wright design was completed with the second phase of construction in 1936. During the final phase, in 1956, the Buhl Foundation added an apartment building intended for use by long-time residents who wanted to remain in the community but desired smaller living spaces. It is archi- tecturally less successful than the rest of the village and is not an original part of the Stein and Wright design (Fig. 2).15

Today Chatham Village is a National Historic Landmark significant for its history as a progressive housing development and for its design.16 Although the original design was wholly complete by 1936, the period of significance (1929-1956) spans nearly three decades to include all the planning and construction activity by the Buhl Foundation. The result of philanthropic efforts pro- moting moderate-cost housing and social reform of the times, Chatham Village balanced the financial require- ments of a large-scale housing project with an intimate, human-scale design

that incorporated large amounts of green space and made innovative room for the automobile. The village was an unqualified success popularly and finan- cially for the Buhl Foundation. Occu- pancy has remained at nearly 100 percent since it inception and produced a 4.5 percent annual return on its original investment.17

The Buhl Foundation eventually sold the village to Chatham Village Homes, Inc., a non-profit cooperative corpora- tion and the current owner. Due in large part to continued single ownership, the village's historic fabric has remained virtually unchanged since its initial construction. This high degree of integrity is unmistakable. In fact the most conspicuous changes are asphalt paving (originally concrete), speedbumps, and the mature landscape. Other minor changes have occurred, but one must have an eagle eye to spot them. A number of units have been remodeled to make room for central air-conditioning systems. Metal grilles on the street- facing facades (most painted to match the brick veneer) are the only telltale signs that such modernizing has taken place. Decisions that guide exterior changes are handled by the cooperative, which uses its bylaws to regulate certain activities, including alteration of the building fabric. One example is the prohibition of satellite television dishes.

The details of dishes and grilles are no simple minutiae. The village is intended to be experienced on a human scale (Fig. 3). Clumsy efforts to adapt to modern times could easily clutter such an intentional and thoughtfully designed space (Fig. 4). The architectural configuration compliments and refines the natural topography, integrating the shape of the land with the building designs. The designers pushed the road to the periphery and made the courtyards the central feature. Groups of townhouses ring the courtyards in "re- verse front" configuration: that is, the front door faces the inner courtyard, and the backdoor faces the street. Be- cause the site crowns a hill many of the townhouses are embanked. Their lower level exits toward the street and is used for parking garages and utility rooms (Fig. 5). The lowest living floor sits above the road but even with the inte-


Fig. 3. A courtyard in Chatham Village. Photograph by the author. Fig. 4. This view illustrates the sheltering quality of the village's courtyards. Photograph by Diana S. Waite.

rior courtyard. The townhouse groups act as retaining walls for the courtyards. One result of their nested arrangement is that a person is able to walk the entire length of the developed portion of the village and cross only one road.

Rather than dodging cars, one walks through courtyard after courtyard of meticulous landscaping. Red oaks, white oaks, pin oaks, elms, maples, dogwoods, and yews populate the courtyards in formal and informal arrangements, while London plane trees line the streets. Privet hedges, viburnum, rhododen- drons, and a variety of other flowering plants are also common. In addition the landscape architects chose to retain a number of existing natural features. A small grove of white-oak trees appears tall and mature in a photograph of the village after the 1936 construction phase. In a different area they built a retaining wall to protect another oak tree, dubbed the William Penn oak, thought to be over two centuries old. Buffering the developed acres, a greenbelt wraps around the southern end of the village and includes a wide variety of native and nonnative species added by 1937.

The Chatham Village Study

An early promotional pamphlet pro- claims that Chatham Village was designed "for the motor age, retaining the convenience of this age without its din and danger." It describes the develop-

ment as "a rural repose amid urban advantages" where homes are "insu- lated from each other by sound-proof party walls" and "parks and play- grounds displace noisy pavements fraught with dangers."18

It is impossible to recreate the sounds of the village from its earliest years. Through accounts like the one above, it is possible to sketch an idea of the soundscape from its historical period of significance from 1929 to 1959. Al- though there are few original accounts of the early years of the village, it seems that the first promotional material was not wholly exaggerating. Sounds of the early village are what one might expect - those of a quiet residential area. The first generation of residents consisted of teachers, clerical workers, researchers, and professionals of moderate income.19 Young families were the norm, and there were many children. Residents who moved to Chatham Village in 1960 recall that about 70 children then lived in the village. The neighborhood gath- ered for seasonal community activities during Easter, Independence Day, and Labor Day, among other less-formal occasions. The village was host to a variety of colorful sounds. A local tradi- tion began in the 1950s, when the community invited a bagpiper to play on the Fourth of July. On other summer days grounds crew clipped, trimmed, and pushed their five-bladed reel mowers, and in the winter they shoveled sidewalks by hand and sanded them (power

equipment was not used outside until 1957).20 In the early days it was common to hear the sounds of "hucksters" selling fresh produce, baked goods, and flowers from the backs of trucks. Nearby in an adjacent city park, live band concerts were recorded for broad- cast across the city. The park was also the site of annual fireworks displays.

According to residents' accounts Chatham Village remains a quiet place to live. At times, however, there have been changes in the soundscape. The grounds crew still shovels snow from 96 sets of concrete steps, but they also use blowers and tractors to remove it from sidewalks and roads. The number of grounds workers has shrunk as their use of power equipment has climbed. Once numbering in the dozens, today there are only five crew members. Lawn mowers, chain saws, leaf blowers, and other powered equipment allow workers to move quickly but with addition of a great amount noise. Also unheard in the 1930s were noises from the crowds and the buzzing sound of a blimp from PNC Park and Heinz Field, which carry across the river valleys into Chatham Village. Olympia Park, which lies di- rectly west and adjacent to the village, is also the launching site of a hot-air bal- loons that fly over Pittsburgh. On Sun- days a new community church plays its electric carillon, which is heard clearly throughout the village. A number of residents have noted that traffic heli- copters create a regular din as they


hover over nearby traffic arteries and that airplanes are heard more frequently overhead. A municipal bus route ser- vices a corner at the north end of the village on an hourly schedule, and nearby residents there hear the diesel engine thunder up the hill. It is still possible to hear a train whistle in the distance at virtually any time of the day. Most striking of all is a sound that today is heard much less often - the voices of children. Long-term residents have aged, and their children have moved out, and fewer families have moved in.

Chatham Village is also host to many natural sounds. Deer, turkey, fox, rac- coons, blue jays, cardinals, pileated woodpeckers, and nesting hawks are all present at some point during the year. The greenbelt, which wraps around the south end of the village, slopes over 100 feet down toward traffic arteries in the valley. It provides a habitat for a gener- ous amount of wildlife and forms a buffer against the noise of several traffic arteries in the valley below. Another sound of note is that of oak trees. Before the William Penn oak died c. 1960, it dropped its acorns onto nearby porch roofs with a characteristic crack. An- other oak was planted in its place and continues to drop acorns with the characteristic sound. Also important is the fact that Chatham Village sits 400 feet

Table 1. Field Sound Inventory at Chatham Village, 2006

Number of Mentions

Types of Sounds January February March Total

Birds, squirrels 36 51 158 245

Nearby traffic 17 40 64 121

Distant traffic 34 32 43 109

Wind 76 0 2 78

People 2 12 49 63

Aircraft 9 20 30 59

Dogs 6 29 22 57

Wind chimes 52 1 0 53

Mechanical (power tools, air conditioners, etc.) 9 21 7 37

Train whistle 10 0 6 16

Total 206 251 381 838

above the Monongahela River and is regularly subject to winds, which rustle the abundant landscaping and ring many windchimes.

Because the soundscape is constantly changing, it is important to key the time of occurrence with the sound event. Figures 6, 7, and 8 show these sounds according to the time or season of their occurrence in cyclical charts. Dashed lines indicate sporadic instances. Solid lines indicate regular instances. In addi-

Fig. 5. Elevations of street facades of townhouses (above) and courtyard, or "garden," facades (below). The higher ground on the courtyard facade allows the inclusion of garages on the street side and helps separate vehicle and pedestrian routes. Buhl Foundation, "The Problem of Building Costs and Rentals," Architectural Record 70, no. 4 (Oct. 1931).

tion the author catalogued and classified the kinds and instances of sounds heard during periodic visits to the village. That experience generally confirms the accounts given by the residents and is reproduced in Table 1.

Since a large geographic area is being studied, it is important to gain an understanding of where the soundscape is active. Three ambient-sound-level maps reveal areas of high and low sonic activity. Figures 9, 10, and 11 show the range of the typical volume and establish the threshold level at which characteristic and intrusive sounds must compete. Decibel readings were taken at 179 points around the 16 acres of developed area. In order to record the ambient level rather than discreet noises unrepre- sentative of the area over time, three measurements of sound-pressure level were made about ten seconds apart at each point. Each set of data took about three hours to gather. Afterwards, the average at each point was used create the map of the ambient sound-pressure level.

Dots of various size correspond to the sound level at each point relative to the highest sound level recorded that day. In this way, areas of the village that are consistently loud or consistently quieter in relation to the character of the entire village may be compared. The maximum sound-pressure levels on each day ranged from 62 to 66 dB(A); the


Fig. 6. The daily cycle of sounds at Chatham Village. Image by the author.

minimum ranged from 34 to 43 dB(A). The maps were made on three visits over the course of seven weeks.

It is insufficient to draw conclusions from one map. The soundscape is temporal, and only a series of maps begins to reveal the nature of the space over

time. Although only three maps were created, a few observations can still be drawn. Virginia Avenue, the road that bounds the north end of the village, is the area with the highest sound levels. It is a public road and a stop for a city bus route. The interior courtyards tended to

be quieter than the roads in general. Over time areas across the village seemed to have consistent sonic activity when the wind was not blowing. The January day tested was an exception, due to the windy conditions that created noise in the trees. Field recordings also bear this out.

These maps and charts are a type of documentation analogous to as-built drawings. They document the current state, rather than the historic state, of a soundscape, but they can be improved in a variety of ways. There are other ways to graph inventories of seasonal and daily sounds, but the circular charts are visually appealing and communicate clearly. The circular form may be of limited use in cases where a sound inventory was distributed unevenly. In this study sound charts distinguishing exterior and interior sounds were separated as part of an early classification scheme but retained for reading ease. The ambient-sound-level maps are well detailed, but a wider distribution of data points may by beneficial. Taking fewer sound- pressure-level measurements would speed the time of data collection, giving an acoustic snapshot with a shorter exposure time yet still yielding compara- ble results. In addition a map that showed frequency distribution across

Fig. 7. Seasonal sounds from outside the village. Dotted lines indicate periodic sounds. Image by the author.

Fig. 8. Seasonal sounds from inside the village. Image by the author.


Fig. 9. Ambient-sound-level map of Chatham Village, January 18, 2006. The windy day accounts for the high values, shown as large circles, in courtyards in the south end of the village. Image by the author.

the study area might prove helpful. Frequency spectrograms display sound levels of various frequencies for a given sound. Adapting these to geographic maps will increase an understanding of the acoustic environment. More maps are required. Mapping on a daily or weekly base, while ideal, would be impractical. At minimum, a series of maps for each season would reveal greater detail of annual changes. An- other strategy would be to take sound- pressure-level measurements over a 24- hour period at strategic places through the study area. At Chatham Village this approach might include a location near a road, in a courtyard, or by the greenbelt.

Fig. 10. Ambient-sound-level map of Chatham Village, February 24, 2006. Large values along the north end of the village are consistent with the road noise there. Image by the author.

The soundscape of Chatham Village is significant more for its whole texture rather than any single sound. Previous soundscape studies generally focused on identifying unique, rare, or individual sounds and often used Schafer's classification scheme (keynote sounds, signals, soundmarks). But at Chatham Village this approach was difficult to apply. There were a number of notable sounds, but none of them characterized the village as a whole. The whole group of sounds became more meaningful in the context of the physical environment and the activities it contains. The greenbelt buffers distant traffic noise; the grouped town houses insulate the courtyards; the lowered road system directs the sound of local traffic outward. The activities

Fig. 1 1 . Ambient-sound-level map of Chatham Village, March 6, 2006. A comparatively quiet day, the large values on this day are also clus- tered along the north end. Image by the author.

were of a residential neighborhood living, working, and playing. By itself this soundscape may not seem terribly important: there are many quiet residential neighborhoods. However, Chatham Village is one designed with great fore- thought, as a step "toward more sane liveable communities."21 A tranquil soundscape is clearly part of the Garden City principles that shaped the design.

The soundscape of the Chatham Village could be said to retain much of its integrity. The aural experience today matches descriptions and accounts of the past. A number of new sounds could be considered as being in harmony with the soundscape. For example, the carillon and the crowd noises from the sports arenas add to the village's identity


and acoustic sense of place. On the other hand the sounds of air traffic and powered landscape-maintenance tools add very little to its character because of their ubiquity and volume. These sounds have a slightly detrimental effect on historic integrity. In the case of the power tools, their economic value sur- passes their aesthetic value, so their presence becomes more problematic. They are also vitally important in main- taining the village's landscape, another historically significant feature. At what point does the desire to have a clear soundscape interfere with the need to the cut the grass? Yet it is because of the meticulous care by the grounds crew that the vibrant landscape persists and is able to act as a sonic buffer and a habitat for wildlife, which in turn help form the soundscape. The soundscape, an intimate relationship between sound and place, built environment and natural landscape, loses its integrity when it no longer embodies the qualities that lend it significance.

The Secretary of the Interior's Stan- dards are silent on the subject of sound, though it is clearly a "distinctive feature." The Assessment of Adverse Effect, 36 CFR 800.5(a)(2), includes "visual, atmospheric, or audible intrusions" as examples of adverse effects to historic properties. Recent revisions to the National Park Service's Management Policies set a higher standard by explic- itly including sound as a cultural resource of the parks. Policy 5.3.1.7, Cultural Soundscape Management, states that "culturally appropriate sounds are important elements of the national park experience" and that the "Service will prevent inappropriate or excessive types and levels of sound (noise) from unacceptably impacting the ability of the soundscape to transmit the cultural and historic resource sounds associated with park purposes."

Sound helps define the character of place. It is already written into the existing legal framework and has be- come policy for one of the most impor-

tant preservation agencies. The most pressing questions now are tactical. How exactly does one go about preserv- ing sound? How can one identify significance and integrity of sounds? What's the best way to document it? This study presented one approach to examining sound as a character-defining feature of historic places and attempted to answer some of those questions. More can and should be done. The first step is to begin listen again.

JONATHAN GUNDERLACH worked in a variety of fields before graduating from Cornell University with a Master of Arts in historic preservation planning. He is currently working in the cultural-resource-management field and researching the early career of Clarence Stein's associate Henry Wright.

Notes

1. Sound level (in db)= 10log10 I/IO where / is the intensity of a particular sound and IO is the intensity of sound at the threshold of hearing. Vern O. Knudsen, Architectural Acoustics (New York: J. Wiley and Sons, 1932), 81. Knudsen provides one the earliest and most accessible discussions on subject of modern architectural acoustics.

2. M. David Egan, Acoustics (New Orleans: Tulane Univ. School of Architecture, 1971), 18. 3. Barry Truax, Handbook for Acoustic Ecol- ogy (Cambridge Street Records, 1999), CD- ROM.

4. Ibid.

5. Douglas Kahn and Mark Smith, ed., Hearing History (Athens, Ga.: Univ. of Georgia Press, 2004), 37-38. 6. Tia DeNora, Music and Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000), 77. 7. For more on early efforts at noise abatement see the July 1930 issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and Edward Brown et al., eds., City Noise (New York: Dept. of Health, 1930). 8. Raymond Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (Rochester, N.Y.: Destiny Books, 1994), 9. 9. Raymond Murray Schafer, ed., Five Village Soundscapes (Vancouver, B.C.: ARC Publica- tions, 1977), 38-43.

10. J. Douglas Porteous and Jane F. Mastin, "Soundscape," Journal of Architectural Plan- ning and Design 2, no. 3 (1985): 168-186. 11. Truax.

12. Bernard L. Krause, "The Niche Hypothesis: A Hidden Symphony of Animal Sounds, The Origins of Musical Expression and the Health of Habitats," Explorers Journal 71, no. 4 (1993): 156-160. See also Jeff Hull, "The Noises of Nature," New York Times, Feb. 18, 2007.

13. Michael Southworth, "The Sonic Environ- ment of Cities," Environment and Behavior 1, no. 1 (1969): 49-70. 14. A total of 197 units were built on 16 acres in two phases by 1936. An apartment building was added in 1956 adjacent to the original site, adding 19 more units.

15. David Vater, Chatham Village Historic District, National Register Nomination, 1998.

16. Chatham Village is listed under the Na- tional Historic Landmark themes of Peopling Places: Community and Neighborhood, and Expressing Cultural Values: The Automobile, Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Subdivision Design; and NHL Criteria 1 (Events) and 4 (Architectural Distinction). 17. Clarence Stein, Toward New Towns for America (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1967), 85. For a closer look at the village's significance and integrity see the National Historic Land- mark nomination, on file with the National Park Service. For a full history of the village see Angelique Bamberg, "Planning and Maintain- ing the Ideal Community: The History and Preservation of Chatham Village, Pittsburgh, Pa." (master's thesis, Cornell Univ., 1998). 18. "Chatham Village: A Modern Community of Garden Homes Combining Architectural Charm with Security and Cultured Living" (Pittsburgh: Eddy Press, 1932), unpaginated. 19. Stein, Toward New Towns For America, 80.

20. David Vater, interview with author, March 11, 2006. Vater is a Chatham Village's local historian.

21. Clarence Stein, interview transcript, Dec. 27, 1955, folder 39, box 1, collection #3600, Clarence Stein Papers, Div. of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library. 22. 36 CFR 2.12 further defines audible intrusions as mechanical or electrical equipment or machinery operating above 60 dB(A) at a distance of 50 feet or as an unreasonable noise to a "reasonably prudent person."

Article Contentsp. 13p. 14p. 15p. 16p. 17p. 18p. 19p. 20

Issue Table of ContentsAPT Bulletin, Vol. 38, No. 4 (2007), pp. 1-60Front MatterIs Preservation Technology Neutral? [pp. 3-10]Sound: Exploring a Character-Defining Feature of Historic Places [pp. 13-20]The Development of Finite-Element Models and the Horizontal Thrust of Guastavino Domes [pp. 21-29]Practice Points: 04 [pp. 1-4]Effects of Vitrification on Traditional Terrazzo [pp. 33-42]The Restoration of the Fifth Avenue Facades of the Metropolitan Museum of Art [pp. 45-53]Back Matter

Sound-Exploring a Character-Defining Feature of Historic Places

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