Architecture without walls: how sound became the foundation of space

These days, we all know that sound has a big impact on how we see space. It's not just about its traditional role anymore, it's a game-changer in how we see landscapes and environments. More and more artists and curators are now focusing on sound in projects that are specific to a certain place and are not based in regular art institutions.

When you walk into most contemporary art exhibitions, your eyes immediately start to scan the space: walls, artworks, lighting and spatial relationships. If there's any sound at all, it's just seen as extra. We've had centuries of visual dominance in how we understand and curate space. But something fundamental is changing.

I think this change can be seen as 'acoustic architecture', where sound isn't just an additional layer on top of space, but a key part of how the space affects the experience. These aren't just exhibitions with sound. They're spaces that wouldn't exist without sound.

The Walls

I think this change can be seen as 'acoustic architecture', where sound isn't just an additional layer on top of space, but a key part of how the space affects the experience. These aren't just exhibitions with sound. They're spaces that wouldn't exist without sound. Museums were designed with objects in mind. Back in the 20th century, the white cube gallery came about as this 'neutral' space, with blank walls, controlled lighting and silence. Everything is optimised for viewing, but nothing for listening. As the artist Christian Marclay has said, most exhibition spaces are designed using 19th-century ideas about how things should look, with walls, lighting and how things are placed being the most important things. They don't have the words or the skills to work with sound. With sound, you can't just 'hang' it or contain it like you can with visual works. It leaks, overlaps and interferes with other acoustic layers. This uncontrollability often makes sound a bit of a problem or a disruption in exhibition spaces.

The problem goes beyond logistics. When we focus on sight over the other senses, we're basically encouraging a certain way of enjoying art that's more distant, intellectual and controlled. You can close your eyes if you don't want to see the image. You cannot fully close your ears.

For a while, this was seen as a weakness of sound art. But what if this is actually its strength?

Sound as curated pathway

Consider Christina Kubisch's Electrical Walks. People wearing special headphones can pick up on electromagnetic fields, which show them the hidden sound systems in cities, like buzzing transformers and humming cash machines, as well as the electronic networks that are hidden in urban spaces. There are no gallery walls and no set routes. The city itself becomes the exhibition, with sound making it legible.

Alternatively, consider Darren Almond's Live Sentence, which streams ambient sound from inside a prison directly into a museum gallery in real time. You can hear distant voices, clanging doors and footsteps echoing down corridors, which give you an insight into the everyday acoustic texture of incarceration. The 'background' becomes the work. The soundscape becomes the architecture.

To me, this shows a bigger change in how we think about curatorial practice, moving from arranging objects in space to designing conditions for listening.

Choreographing attention

In traditional exhibition-making, curators structure visual journeys: which artwork you encounter first; how long you linger; and the spatial relationships that create meaning. In my view, sound-based curation operates similarly, but through temporal and acoustic design rather than physical walls.

Dutch artists Strijbos & Van Rijswijk create GPS-triggered sound compositions in which specific audio plays based on your location. As you walk through Amsterdam, sounds fade in and out: historical recordings near a bridge, layered voices in a market square and silence in transition zones. You are not following a prescribed path. Instead, you navigate an invisible sonic architecture that only exists through movement.

This is what I mean by sensory pathways: curators designing not just what you see, but also how you listen, move and orient yourself in space. Sound becomes the organising principle, shaping perception and experience.

What This Changes

When sound becomes as important as the visuals, a few things change.

Space isn't neutral anymore. The environment around us, including the sounds we hear, has a big impact on how we move and focus. Rather than being the usual thing, quiet is chosen as a way of showing what's on display.

The audience becomes part of the show. You can't just passively observe acoustic architecture. You have to move through it, navigate it and complete it through your presence and choices.

Curation isn't just about objects. It's about more than just what's on show - it's about how people experience it, how they engage with it physically and ethically.

New accessibility emerges. Sound-based work can reach people who don't know much about art history or who feel left out by traditional art spaces. It's more about engaging with your body and senses than just thinking about it.

How it can work

We're still finding out what's possible with 'acoustic architectures'. Most of the research in sound art focuses on big gallery exhibitions or individual artists. But over time, there's been more and more focus on how to put together sound experiences in different situations, like city streets, nature, online platforms and mixed spaces.

So, what if we carry on researching how curators can work in acoustic design in the same way they learn about lighting and spatial arrangement? What about putting sound studies and curatorial theory together to record experiences that only exist through movement and duration?

These questions matter because they're about more than sound art as a specialised category. They're about expanding how we think about space, how perception shapes meaning, and how we encounter art with our whole bodies rather than just our eyes.

Listening differently

Architecture without walls doesn't mean formlessness. It's about understanding that structure can be temporary, that boundaries can be flexible, and that what holds space together might be more about rhythm, duration, and attention than concrete and steel.

This isn't about replacing visual art. It's about realising that we experience space with all our senses, and that listening is as much a part of our bodies as looking ever was. So, when we stop seeing sound as an extra or additional element, we discover it was structural all along.