Vibroacoustic characterization of a chamber music concert room in the context of the urban texture

Abstract

The integrated interpretation of the tangible and intangible dimensions of cultural heritage assets is challenging, since much of the required information is often lost or difficult to find. In particular, when coming to the functional planning of historic spaces or archaeological sites, documental or archival sources are scarce or even absent. Consequently, to support the interpretation of these functional design and planning elements, which are related to the life of communities that inhabited those areas, quantitative methods, such as a physical characterization of site-specific environmental variables, may assume a great relevance, like in the case of the vibro-acoustic properties conceived for specific uses or performances, as theatres, cathedrals or other public spaces. With this goal in mind, we have started a pilot experimental activity, aiming at characterizing the vibroacoustic fingerprint, i.e. the vibro-acoustic site-specific features, of a historic building private chamber music concert room, located in the centre of Napoli (South Italy). This work, based on the integration of different sensors and modelling tools, has allowed to observe the site-specific vibroacoustic features not only in relation to the geometric features of the space, but also in relation to the surrounding urban landscape morphology. Consequently, the results have evidenced the presence of a site-specific vibroacoustic fingerprint, related to how the structure and the surrounding urban morphology were planned. The applied integration of a unifying model, previously validated in the literature, and of broadband vibroacoustic measures, has allowed to evidence some quantitative elements, that, characterizing the interaction between spaces and the people living them, constitute a possible basis for interpreting the heritage intangible components (design according to functional and/or symbolic purposes) in relation to different structural urbanistic and architectural elements (tangible heritage).