Scoring the City
New project mini-site
scoring.city
In partnership with John Bingham-Hall (Theatrum Mundi)
Supported by The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities (TORCH)
This experiment at the intersection of urbanism and experimental music takes inspiration from graphic scores as dynamic forms that could offer new ways of notating the relationship between design ideas, built form, and social life: in other words, between scoring and performing urban space.
Throughout 2019 we hosted four workshops in very different cities with common challenges: London and Paris, two global cities needing to create flexible space to accommodate rapid economic and socio-cultural change; and Belfast and Beirut, cities marked by conflict needing to find common spaces across sectarian divides. The workshops invited architects and composers to explore a site, share their observations, and create scores that challenge the static nature of the architectural blueprint.
The site includes:
SCORES by project participants exploring notations for urban and architectural design.
ESSAYS reflecting on the relationships of scoring, design, infrastructuring, and urban form.
RESOURCES including the workshop handbook.
ACTIONS documenting workshops and other events.
The project was conceived and led jointly by Gascia Ouzounian (University of Oxford / Recomposing the City) and John Bingham-Hall (Theatrum Mundi) with research and coordination support from Fani Kostourou (Theatrum Mundi) and Conor McCafferty (Queen's University Belfast). It is funded by The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities and Theatrum Mundi, and was supported in kind by LCC’s CRiSAP, Belfast Harboour Commissioners, and Plateau Urbain.
Scoring the City follows previous collaborations between Theatrum Mundi and Recomposing the City: the Acoustic Cities Study Day, the Beirut-London exchange workshop Urban Soundscape and the Politics of Memory, and a subsequent edition published by Optophono, Acoustic Cities: London & Beirut.
Contributors: Richard Dougherty, Una Lee, Sharon Phelan, Mhamad Safa, Jonathan Packham, Jake Johnson, Fani Kostourou, Diogo Alvim, Aura Satz, Rennie Tang & Lisa Sandlos, Matilde Meireles, David Buck & Eleni-Ira Panourgia, Carola Moujan.