Arvo Pärt Centre & Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos

The ideal audience would have already visited the Arvo Part Centre, but for me, who has never set foot on Estonian soil, the book is a strong invitation to see the building in person, hear Part's music fill its spaces, and take in the beautiful landscape beyond the roofscape.--John Hill One of the project categories -- or filters -- on the website of Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos is roofscape (the others are light, material, landscape, geometry, and history). One of the eight projects in that category is the Arvo Part Centre in Laulasmaa, Estonia, the subject of a new book. The building shares formal similarities with some of the other roofscapes, namely the piercing lightwells of the earlier Joanneumsviertel in Graz, Austria, and the Contemporary Art Center in Cordoba, Spain. As depicted in the aerial on the cover of the new book-length case study, the cuts in the roof are the Arvo Part Centre's most striking aspect, at least outside of the heavily wooded site near Lahepere Bay. No building is just its form, its architecture. Accordingly, this book is presented as five books in one: a book of photographs, a book of draft and scores of composer Arvo Part's In Principio, a book of quotes, a book of architectural drawings, and a book of essays. Of course, A Common Denominator is a single bound book (only a booklet with German and Spanish translations of the text is separate), but the design and layout of its 212 large-format pages draws attention to the multiplicity of its contents and gives the five-book book a noticeable rhythm, as in the spreads below. The book starts simply with a quote from Part: I could compare my music to white light which contains all colors. Only a prism can divide the colors and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener. Empty musical staffs are on the following page, next to four sheets of vellum with dots, lines, and other drawings that start to express the building devoted to the Estonian composer. The drawings on these sheets, as visible in the first spread below, overlay the staffs and express an interaction of music and architecture. These two books -- of In Principio and of architectural drawings -- are found six more times in the book, situated between the photographs, quotes, and essays of the other books. Just as the initial quote by Part puts great weight on the spirit of the listener, the short essays, un-captioned photos, and layering of drawings across musical notation do the same, but for the reader. This is not a building monograph that tries to explain everything. Rather it leisurely presents the building in words and images, inviting the reader to get from it what they put into it. The ideal audience would have already visited the Arvo Part Centre, but for me, who has never set foot on Estonian soil, the book is a strong invitation to see the building in person, hear Part's music fill its spaces, and take in the beautiful landscape beyond the roofscape.--John Hill "https: