Empire State Building
Immersive Sonic Experience
How does one reimagine the visitor experience for the World’s Most Iconic Building? What would that sound like? How do you pay homage to the Empire State Building’s rich history?
We were tasked with realizing music, sound and spatial audio solutions to these questions in this collaboration with Squint Opera, Thinc and E.S.R.T — yielding a top-to-bottom, media-rich overhaul of the Empire State Building experience. This ambitious, multi-floor project guides visitors through an immersive timeline of the building's history, from its initial construction in 1930 to its current status as the cultural icon representing New York City.
"Beyond just the cache of the World's Most Famous Building, this is a permanent installation – it needs to work in front of thousands of people every day. To last it needs to be meaningful and move people."
The Challenge
Compose and design a cohesive sonic experience that guides guests through over 35,000 square feet of installations.
The Response
Through original music and sound design, Sonic U.I. restored archival audio, spatialized sound and subsonic experiential solutions, we gave life to 12 galleries each telling an important part of the story.
"World's Most Famous Building"
We composed an original score recorded by a 50-piece orchestra accompanying over 600 pieces of media starring the Empire State Building since the 1930s from Hollywood films, commercials and comic books. The score was mixed through a multi-channel audio system spreading across a 70-screen gallery space. The music served as a theme song for the building, repurposing motifs and pieces of audio across the rest of the gallery spaces.
"The World's Most Famous Building was one of the most exciting pieces for me. We were tasked with creating an original orchestral score as well a multi channel mix that would spread across the 70 screen gallery space."
"The orchestral score became a theme for the building in some ways where we repurposed motifs and pieces of audio from it and utilized them across the other spaces."
King Kong
Paying homage to the iconic King Kong property, we created a fun and playful soundscape as visitors watch the gorilla swing around the building, pursued by biplanes and birds. Guests can climb into Kong's hand, which rumbles in sync with his roars.
"For King Kong we had a really fun canvas. We built out the sound design linearly and then used a spatial spanning system to move the different elements around the room."
"One of the challenges in terms of sound design was creating a heightened sense of drama and paying homage to the iconic King Kong property while not making it a scary experience."
Construction Area
We immersed visitors through a historically accurate audio representation of the building's construction against a series of looped films featuring 30 different actors. We used rivets and rivet catchers to capture the authenticity of the workers' environment and spatialized the soundscape through a 9-channel mix transporting guests back in time.
"One thing I've heard from so many people who have gone through the experience is: 'When I'm in those spaces I really felt like I was there during that time.'"
Tags
Credits
Press & Awards
Best Use of Music & Sound in Experiential/Events
Awarded by: ArchitecturePressReleases
Red Dot Design Award
