File this one under Things We Actually Like.

Estonian composer and lover-of-silence Arvo Pärt has teamed up with Norwegian architects Snøhetta to curate a sound-and-space tour of Lower Manhattan called To a Great City. The project is the latest iteration of stillspotting nyc, a Guggenheim initiative that invites architects, artists, composers, and city-dwellers to explore the relationship between space and sound.

The self-guided tours will stage five works by Pärt in five Manhattan spaces identified and slightly altered by Snøhetta. According to Design Boom/NotCot, the project begins on September 15. Click through for more information.

Pärt is famous for his ideas about reduction and monotonality. His work is a systematic exploration of how to distill or reduce sound to its most essential. Yet somehow, the Estonian composer always seems to speak with warmth and humor, which bodes well for To a Great City. His collaboration with Stillspotting seems obvious, since the project is meant to frame and distill the relationship between space and sound. Explains stillspotting’s website, “Reduction certainly doesn’t mean simplification, but it is the way—at least in an ideal scenario—to the most intense awareness of the essence of stimuli.”

Apparently, the 3-hour tour will take visitors “along the periphery of ground zero,” where participants “may encounter a green labyrinth created by The Battery Conservancy, reflect in an underground chamber at Governors Island National Monument, and enter otherwise inaccessible spaces in landmark skyscrapers.”

We’ll be covering To a Great City in September, but to get more familiar with Arvo Pärt, check out Björk interviewing him below, listen to a short piece of his on Design Boom, or check out Stillspotting’s website.

by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

posted in field trip

tagged arvo part, guggenheim, new york, Snøhetta, stillspotting, tours

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