01.01.2022 - 31.12.2022

Walking, listening and recomposing everyday sounds of Esch

urbanidentity Zurich

01.01.2022 - 31.12.2022

Disciplines

Architecture, Other

Project Partner

urbanidentity Zurich commissioned by the Environment Agency of Luxembourg

Description

Three routes to discover the art of sound walking chosen by sound urbanist Trond Maag and sound architect Andres Bosshard.

How can we take responsibility for the sound of our city? We teach ourselves how to listen to Esch’s buildings, squares and streets, how to talk to the city, and how the city talks to us. You can put this knowledge into practice at home and explore how to modify your city’s sound while walking, shopping, and meeting people.

The sound experience walks allow residents and visitors of Esch2022 to discover the city’s acoustic environments. The soundwalk guide is collaboratively developed with the project partners as part of their work and research practice related to urban sound. The walk’s collaborative context brings together actors involved in city-making and environmental design to share their work practices.

Walking, Listening and Recomposing Everyday Sounds of Esch shifts the city sound's focus towards a designed and planned quality. It draws attention to active engagement concerning how surfaces, materials, architectures, landscapes, and how people activate these forms, contribute to the sound and identity of a city experiencing significant developments. The walks’ participants will become more aware of the sound of their city by considering how sounds spread and behave in space, and learn to express their listening experiences. In this way, knowledge of urban sound can spill over into everyday city life, taking root and beginning to evolve.

Text provided by the project partner

urbanidentity Zurich

Past Events

01.01.2022 - 31.12.2022

Fading thunders of Belval (sound experience walk)

Walking, Listening and Recomposing Everyday Sounds of Esch comprise three routes to discover the art of sound walking, exploring a specific topic characteristic for Esch's identity and development: City stories for the ear unearths the garden city's acoustic legacy and introduces visitors to contemporary strategies for making cities greener. Memories of the blue noise draws attention to the broken and obscured noises and sounds of the river Alzette, which flows underground the city squares. Fading thunders of Belval immerses visitors in immense dimensions of steel structures contrasting with expansive brick walls, monstrous cranes, and labyrinths of giant pipes that shape and direct today's everyday sounds. The route through Belval is open all day long. Walking is done on one's own initiative.

City stories for the ear (sound experience walk)

Walking, Listening and Recomposing Everyday Sounds of Esch comprise three routes to discover the art of sound walking, exploring a specific topic characteristic for Esch's identity and development: City stories for the ear unearths the garden city's acoustic legacy and introduces visitors to contemporary strategies for making cities greener. Memories of the blue noise draws attention to the broken and obscured noises and sounds of the river Alzette, which flows underground the city squares. Fading thunders of Belval immerses visitors in immense dimensions of steel structures contrasting with expansive brick walls, monstrous cranes, and labyrinths of giant pipes that shape and direct today's everyday sounds. The route through Esch-sur-Alzette is open all day long. Walking is done on one's own initiative.

Memories of the blue noise (sound experience walk)

Walking, Listening and Recomposing Everyday Sounds of Esch comprise three routes to discover the art of sound walking, exploring a specific topic characteristic for Esch's identity and development: City stories for the ear unearths the garden city's acoustic legacy and introduces visitors to contemporary strategies for making cities greener. Memories of the blue noise draws attention to the broken and obscured noises and sounds of the river Alzette, which flows underground the city squares. Fading thunders of Belval immerses visitors in immense dimensions of steel structures contrasting with expansive brick walls, monstrous cranes, and labyrinths of giant pipes that shape and direct today's everyday sounds. The route through Esch-sur-Alzette is open all day long. Walking is done on one's own initiative.

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About

Trond Maag is an urbanist whose practice involves interdisciplinary work that overlaps with artistic practice. An example is 'Struer Lydgartneri', a participatory project to collaboratively explore how sound is propagated and shaped in the city. As part of European Green Capital projects, he contributed to public walks and talks in Oslo and Lahti. He is currently supervising a PhD project at Aarhus University, which involves developing a workshop format for supporting sound-aware urban design practice. He also engages in urban sound planning at the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment.

Andres Bosshard has performed as a musician and sound artist at festivals in Europe, Japan, America and India since 1976. He was artistic director of the Klangturm at the Swiss Expo.02 and the Donnerbogen mit Flüsterkuppel at IBA Hamburg. For his project 'sonicArk', commissioned for Aarhus 2017 European Capital of Culture, he received the Swiss Music Award. He was a lecturer at the Zurich University of The Arts and is currently teaching sound studies at the Lucerne School of Music and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

Together, they provide a working practice that involves active listening combined with walks within urban design processes. They are involved in developing sound-aware cities and a shared sense of empowerment from the everyday acoustic environment by walking and listening.