The Côa Museum and Côa Park, hosts a World Heritage Site comprised of thousands of Pre-Historic open air rock art engravings. Apart from this amazing art collection, the museum itself is a pretty interesting architectural piece located in a beautiful setting overlooking the river Douro and its vineyards and the river Côa, the epicenter of the engravings.
The access corridor feels like a descent into the underworld, like a chambered cairn’s corridor, it is a wonderful architectural sensorial experience before one enters the museum, but it has a mood spoiler, annoying problem. The heart of the building’s electrical power is right beside the corridor and its humming sound cuts one off the experience.
Thinking about this I came out with a solution. To create a sound composition which would incorporate the humming, thus making it disappear, tuning the soundscape to the museum’s theme and space.
I do love the theme of pre-history, specially paleolith and iron age, and this is easily one of my favorite museums in Portugal… so to dwell on these sonic experiences was so rewarding even if I had to listen to that terrible hum for hours until finding the right answer!
Engraving by the river Côa – photo by Mario Reis (Fundação Côa Parque).
Folk & Wild 