The domestic models of the Futurist house
certainly do not exhaust the broader theme of universal dynamism. More significant examples—true developments of this Italian avant‑garde—can be found in the visions of other European architects, intent on amplifying the social debate around architecture while remaining deeply connected to perceptual investigations of matter, whether chromatic or achromatic, formed or formless. Yet the habitual tendency to intuit “soul” within the psyche, and to involve it in yet another definitional gesture, clarifies neither its effects nor the very name-definition itself.

A new conception of the universe—one that permeates all the avant‑gardes of the early twentieth century and beyond—presupposes the appropriation of “soul” within the architectural field as well. Alongside the development of mechanical systems, with their attendant problems of analogy and linguistic freedom, this appropriation floods the astral spaces of architecture, casting the psychic rules of classical architecture into a kind of golden obsolescence. In classical thought, the human model is defined by its capacity to analogize itself to the eternal dimension of art; in a climate of renewal, however, music undergoes—more radically than architecture—a profound decoding of its basic language, ascending toward higher strata of sonic expression.

Within the history of new sound sources, the Italian example of Luigi Russolo stands out. His Intonarumori, presented at the Teatro Storchi in Modena, reveal through their brief existence the human inability to see “beyond” the limits imposed by a fundamentally corporeal rationality.

With their musical machines, the Futurists sought to regulate Noise—the noise generated by the dynamics of the machine—according to an immortal scale of gradations. Intervals would shift in both numerical and auditory form, diverging from the conventional rules that define musical sound. Yet even more strategic and emblematic is the discourse of Edgard Varèse, who envisioned instruments obedient to thought itself—capable, through an unexpected blossoming of timbres, of yielding to whatever combinations the composer might impose, bending to the inner rhythm of the author. His contributions in the United States are well known: as early as 1916 he proposed the construction of new musical instruments, a project that would later attract both composers and engineers. One should also recall his collaboration with Le Corbusier on the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, for which he created Poème électronique.

The demolition of the massive wall separating music from noise—accomplished by Russolo—mirrors the premise that music is but a partial moment of a universe in formation. Sound-noise transforms workshops into orchestras, expanding through the instrument of art the very concept of motion-labor. The newest techniques for processing sound and voice have produced, within modern musical avant‑gardes, a profound shift in the perceptual conception of sound and the rhythm it embodies. Many authors—Varèse, considered Russolo’s continuator, or John Cage—intercept this natural need through different syntactic methods, yet all conform to the new modern canons. From here one reaches the musique concrète of Pierre Schaeffer, the extraordinary works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, and the metaphysical compositions of Roberto C. Detree, Architectura Caelestis.

The art of noises thus anticipates evolutionary alternatives for music and its grammar: “Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of machines, Noise was born (…) Today musical art, becoming ever more complex, seeks amalgams of increasingly dissonant, strange, and harsh sounds. We draw ever closer to sound-noise. This evolution of music,” Russolo continues, “parallels the multiplication of machines, which collaborate everywhere with man.” (Russolo, Futurist Manifesto, 11 March 1913, The Art of Noises, in Futurismo e Futuristi, p. 66).

From the ideal combination of tram clatter, combustion engines, carriages, and shouting crowds, a psychic element emerges from its physical state; the dream of the Futurist machine began to emit new sonic impulses, awaiting the sensory responses of the modern being.

From "Design of New Words"
Musical Machines Of Futurism by Filippo Lo Presti 1989