Fifteen Pieces for a Soundscape - First Movement was dreamt up and directed by Dutch architect Ben van Berkel of UNStudio, Johan Bettum and Luis M. Etchegorry of ArchiGlobe and architectural writer and philosopher Sanford Kwinter (who provided the theoretical foundation for the project). Comprised of 14 objects that hang in the gallery space or sit on the floor, as well as a series of photographic banners mounted on the wall, the exhibit “attempts to make sense of the evasive interface between time and space in architecture through the logics of music and matter,” according to the press release. It's on view through April 30 at Frankfurt’s Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf.

The hovering creations were designed by students in architecture at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, a post-grad Master of Arts program in advanced architectural design, where van Berkkel, Bettum, Kwinter and Etchegorry are teachers. Over the course of six months, the class found inspiration for their work in geometrical experiments and 20^th century music, particularly work by composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.

"The work for the exhibition builds on the fact that music, like all sound, travels through a medium and can be understood as wave forms," says Bettum. "This view of sound production, propagation and perception allows for analyzing the phenomenon of music in relation to physical matter."

At the same time, however, music can’t be simply reduced to this “physicist's view,” as Bettum calls it, nor can there be a one-to-one relation between music and architecture. Enter Canadian-born Kwinter, who taught the students how to explore the medium of music, looking at the pulses, poly-rhythmic sequences, timbre and interference patterns, and respond to it in three-dimensional form.

The resulting designs are biology-model-esque forms that resemble skeletons of nonexistent creatures, in various materials and colours. Though made with materials like metal and plastic, the designs read as strangely organic; the reaching, tangled strands seem poised to glide through the air like an octopus in water. The banners hanging on the gallery’s walls provide a visual backdrop, scaling the student’s work and creating an atmosphere for their display. "The models span between the temporally determined structure of music and the spatial manifestations of music and architecture," says Bettum.

The beauty of the exhibition’s intent lies in the multi-faceted nature of its elements. As a group, the 15 elements become an installation that the viewer takes in all at once. At the same time, the 14 structures, as individual objects, begin to punctuate the architectural space like holes. However, the structures also interact with each other, changing and adapting the viewer’s attitude toward a creation as they view it beside another.