Designer seeks to lessen ‘alienation of modernisation’ by merging music, wood and steel

AMMAN — Merging the sound of working tools and machines with specially designed furniture became the ultimate goal of Basel Naouri, a young architect who plans his maiden exhibition in Amman later this month. 

The exhibition, titled “432Hz” after the frequency which some argue provides a more natural listening experience than the standard 440Hz, will open at Zara Centre in Amman on May 12th. 

“An architect by training, I’ve always worked with raw materials and ‘behind the scenes’ of built spaces,” Naouri said recently, adding that, over time, he shifted his focus to the architecture of smaller objects — furniture — instead of buildings. 

It brought him to Jordanian wood and steel workshops where he immersed himself in the “symphony of wood and steel, and the tools used to reshape and mould them”, he said. 

According to Naouri, the process of working with raw materials to create an item of furniture is harsh, dirty and rough, yet, at the same time, beautiful. 

“Similarly, the music I make and prefer to listen to is on the raw and experimental side, with a focus on sampling and creating alternative sounds,” the architect explained, underscoring that his work and musical background (he plays trumpet and keyboard with Zaed Naes, a Jordanian experimental band) played an important role in building towards the exhibition. 

“I’m aware of the fact that my work and background put me in a unique position to witness the harsh path a chair or table takes before it gets to our homes — a process that we, not only in Jordan but throughout the world, rarely get to experience — so I felt responsible,” he underlined. 

Today, furniture, food, entertainment and everything else comes readymade and packaged, the architect noted, underscoring that “our alienation from inanimate objects is leading to a deeper alienation from the essentials of life”. 

“Realising that I have access to spaces that most people don’t, I decided to include a musical element in my furniture exhibition with the goal of hopefully bringing people just a tiny bit closer to the process of creation,” Naouri explained. 

The clear link between both the music and the furniture he has created for the exhibition is that “the music is made from the sounds emitted during the stages of production, from the sound of moving raw materials and interactions between tools and materials, to conversations between the blacksmith, carpenter and myself”, the designer added.  

The more “abstract” link is that everything in our world, including furniture, is composed of vibrations that resonate at different frequencies, Naouri stressed, noting that “it is when you compile and dismantle objects that you can really hear those frequencies”. 

“Each of the products in this line is a unique combination of wood and steel, and thus produces a unique set of frequencies,” he underscored.  

This year the designer plans to travel to Berlin to pursue a masters degree in media spaces, as the multidisciplinary nature of the programme will hopefully allow him to hone his music and architecture/design skills to create “more powerful experiential sensory designs,” he said.  

According to Naouri, “we’re living in a time where there’s too much separation and alienation between us, between people, and the objects we interact with.” 

“The side effect of our rapid modernisation and increasing pace of technological advances, especially in terms of production, has led to items being created at such a capacity that the options have become endless,” he said, adding that “he believes that this has to an extent distanced us from what’s important, and weakened, if not dehumanised, many of our experiences in life. 

“As a creator, I feel as though I have a responsibility to strengthen the bond between people and their built environment, not from a moral perspective, but through experience,” Naouri noted, adding that “the ‘rough’ look of much of my furniture is a modest attempt to remind people of the road the item took to get to their homes, a reminder that I hope will be reiterated by people throughout the world and one day lead to a shift in how we live.” 

Felix Hackmann contributed to this article.