The Sound of Silence: Valuing Acoustics in Heritage Conservation

Abstract

This paper explores the reasons behind the omission of historic acoustic values from heritage assessments in Australia. Best practice dictates that all cultural heritage values associated with significant places should be assessed in order to make informed conservation and management decisions. However, the multisensory nature of aesthetics has been reframed in guidance documentation in ways that run counter to the primary frame. Conventions that have developed around the way places are assessed also work against comprehensive identification of values. As a result, the consideration of aesthetics in cultural heritage is limited to contemporary visual qualities. Furthermore, because the assessment of historic value takes a diachronic rather than synchronic approach, we have little knowledge of the places past communities valued for the sounds they experienced there. Research into landscape preference and acoustic ecology highlights the importance of identifying the inherent acoustic dimension of places and the role sound plays in developing a sense of place. Two landscape areas in Western Australia's south-west with historic acoustic values, the Boranup Sand Patch and the Lower Reaches of the Blackwood River, illustrate how historic soundscapes can provide insightful contrasts and resonances with contemporary values, and how vulnerable such places are when the sound of place is overlooked in land management policies.

Landscape and well-being: a scoping study on the health-promoting impact of outdoor environments

“…Finally, there is also a need to sharpen current landscape definitions, and to take into account that landscape is perceived with all senses. Literature on ''soundscapes'' (Adams et al 2006;Atkinson 2007;Carles et al 1999;Ge and Hokao 2005;Gidlöf-Gunnarsson and Ö hrström 2007;O'Connor 2008;Raimbault and Dubois 2005;Yang and Kang 2005) and ''smellscapes'' (Porteous 1990) call attention to this multisensory conceptualisation of landscape. Comprehensive definitions of landscape which include multi-sensory aspects of perception are important also in terms of empirical operationalisation of concepts, the evaluation of their validity and comparability of study results.…”

“…Empirical as well as theoretical work suggests that landscape is linked to a dual perception. On one hand, landscape is experienced physically in a multisensory manner, in particular through sight, hearing, touching, and smelling: Landscape, from this perspective, is a conglomerate of different types of ''scapes'', such as soundscape (Adams et al 2006;Atkinson 2007;Carles et al 1999;Ge and Hokao 2005;Gidlöf-Gunnarsson and Ö hrström 2007;O'Connor 2008;Raimbault and Dubois 2005;Yang and Kang 2005) and smellscape (Porteous 1990). On the other hand, landscape is also a matter of individuals' perceptions and trajectories: this means that landscape as an analytical concept is characterised by an inherently dialectical relationship between physical reality and metaphoric and social construction.…”

Urban Stream and Wetland Restoration in the Global South—A DPSIR Analysis

“…In general, the targets of urban river restoration differ from that outside cities by integrating more societal goals [16,18] and they may be part of urban redevelopment. One important goal of any urban hydrosystem restoration project should be the creation of encounter sites of humans with nature, where they can experience the sounds, silence, smell, visual and tactile appearances of nature [13,81,189]. The empathic experience of this encounter is elementary for the development of a "care" relationship and may be the driver of future engagement for further restoration projects [190,191].…”

Beyond noise mitigation: managing soundscapes as common-pool resources

“…The importance of park soundscapes as a resource have been addressed in research on park visitor experience (NPS 1995), landscape perception (Carles et al 1999), natural soundscape values (Fisher 1998). Unimpaired or high-fidelity soundscapes have been found to provide several benefits to humans, such as improved health (Stansfeld and Matheson 2003), cultural and historical connections (Torigoe 1995;O'Connor 2008), sense of place (Schafer 1994), and aesthetics (Fisher 1998). Researchers and NPS are also interested in soundscapes reflecting of environmental quality (Pijanowski et al in press; in review).…”