Pinewood Derby X-wing

The soundscape of modernity: architectural acoustics and the culture of listening in America, 1900 - 1933

Emiliy Thompson
Cambridge, Mass.. MIT; 2004

A history of aural culture of the early 20th Century, tracing the breathtaking development of a completely new hearing and sound culture in America. We learn in detail the development of technological inventions that allowed both new hearing conditions and new sounds. We also learn that the technical solutions that seeks to dominate the acoustics, the sound from the actual room alienated and that all public spaces acoustically lost their original characteristics so that a universal began to dominate all sound.