If the Walls Could Sing: Bringing Barcelona’s Oldest House to Life with Sound

Abstract The expression “if the walls could talk” is used to describe a place with such a rich history that, if its walls could share what they have witnessed, they would tell endless stories. That is the case of Casa Adret—deemed the oldest habitable house in Barcelona—and Ashmorot, the soundscape composition created for it. Although not literally making the walls talk—or sing, to paraphrase the idiom—the piece succeeds in evoking a sense of Casa Adret’s bygone soundscape through the reflection of sound from its walls. Ashmorot is an electroacoustic work for computer, narrator, pandero cuadrado, and violin, characterized by its combination of a found-sound soundscape with an imagined historical one. The work’s central feature is its use of surface transducers to sonically activate the historically significant space in which it was performed. This method of amplifying, projecting, and resonating sound proved highly effective in creating an immersive acoustic experience. Moreover, it offers a particular perspective on soundscape composition—one that produces the sensation that echoes from the past are coming to life and reverberating in the present.