Photo Pumpkin

“A picture is worth a thousand words” ~ anonymous

Sea Organ

Architecture, Bizzare Oddities December 12th, 2007

The Sea organ is an architectural object located in Zadar, Croatia and an experimental musical instrument which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps. The waves create somewhat random but harmonic sounds.

The device was made by the architect Nikola BaÅ¡iÄ‡ as part of the project to redesign the old city coast (riva), and the site was opened to the public on April 15, 2005.

The Sea Organ successfully brought to life the far end of the Nova Riva, drawing tourists and locals alike. It is now a center for gathering, a good destination on a walk through town, and also a great place to enjoy Zadar’s exceptional sunset.

Thanks to the Sea Organ project, the inhabitants of Zadar have been restored once more to their relation with the sea. Chaotic reconstruction work undertaken in an attempt to repair the devastation Zadar suffered in the Second World War turned much of the sea front into an unbroken, monotonous concrete wall. Now, this project sees the construction of white marble steps leading down to the water. Concealed under these steps, which both protect and invite, is a system of polyethylene tubes and a resonating cavity that turns the site into a huge musical instrument, played by the wind and the sea.

In 2006, the Sea Organ was awarded with the prize ex-aequo of the fourth edition of the European Prize for Urban Public Space