ACOUSTIC ASSESSMENT OF VARIOUS SPATIAL CONFIGURATIONS IN THE TRASCORO OF THE CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE

摘要

The spatial organization of the most common type of Spanish medieval cathedral, with a choir in the center of the main nave, leads to a fragmentation of the inner space and to a double function with an evident impact on architecture, liturgy and acoustics. The closed choir, located in the center of the cathedral, acts as an interior facade and generates a new worship space: the trascoro or retro-choir, a place for readings, sermons and liturgical celebrations, including major feasts. The cathedral of Seville, the largest Gothic building in existence, has a spatially important trascoro, which has combined liturgy and the celebration of special events and feasts throughout history, often leading to the inclusion of additional ephemeral ornamentation and furniture in order to accommodate the audience, inevitably altering its acoustics. In this paper, starting from experimental tests and based on an acoustic model previously calibrated using an iterative process, we proceed to study the sound field of this particular "chapel without limits" located inside a monumental volume, reproducing the configuration for daily liturgy and feast days, in order to analyze the acoustic impact of the audience or decorations put in place for each occasion.