Acoustic environment of Andalusian cathedrals

Publication date: July 2016
Source:Building and Environment, Volume 103
Author(s): Lidia Álvarez-Morales, Sara Girón, Miguel Galindo, Teófilo Zamarreño
The growing interest over recent decades in acoustic behaviour of heritage buildings has been triggered by the focus on providing new information about their cultural character. Cathedrals form an essential part of Europe's cultural, architectural and artistic heritage, and the preservation of their sound is of major importance for the safeguarding of their singular ambiences. This work describes the acoustic aspects of the main cathedrals of Andalusia, which constitute vast places of worship currently viewed as multifunctional enclosures capable of housing a large audience. Following a methodology based on measuring the monaural and binaural impulse responses, acoustic parameters are determined that are associated with the various uses and areas of each cathedral. The monumental size of these buildings and the characteristics of the materials used in their construction render cathedrals highly reverberant spaces. Results confirm that both the distribution of the early reflected energy, and the acoustic characteristics of reverberation, spaciousness, strength, and clarity set for favourable transmission of spoken or sung messages and music, exhibit a remarkable dependence on sound-source location and its areas of influence.