A thoughtful and evocative blending of light and sound transforms a small Aspen property into an imaginative environment for visiting musicians, plus a showcase for its music-minded owners and their guests.
Completed in 2018 as part of a wider restoration of an adjacent 1880s Victorian, the award-winning “Music Box” was designed by Aspen-based CCY Architects as a modern guest house that doubles as an intimate performance space, complete with a Steinway baby grand piano. Inside, the Music Box’s 20′ x 25′ interior space is sonically engineered to enhance acoustic music with striated saw cuts in the oak walls and special acoustic plaster on the ceilings. When designing the exterior, CCY associate Evan Barrett says the homeowners played an active role in shaping the Music Box’s functional, privacy-oriented design, as their high-visibility West End residence sits a short walk away from the Aspen Music Festival’s Michael Klein Music Tent and Harris Concert Hall.
Designed for discretion, the exterior still turns heads, almost as if it is hidden in plain sight.
Perhaps the structure’s most beguiling feature is a facade meant to evoke Chopin’s “Nocturne in E-flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2,” one of the owners’ favorite pieces. “We explored many iterations to integrate the lyrical patterning into the facade, ensuring a refined— not kitschy—result that balanced function with expression for the owners,” Evan says.
The CCY team’s ingenious solution incorporates a series of small, varied perforations, grouped together in the aluminum siding, abstractly corresponding to the key and length of each note, like a player piano’s musical score. More than just a cool look, Evan says the visual transpositions allow abundant, dappled light to enter the space, while maintaining absolute privacy from the exterior due to the small size of the perforations. During a very intimate show with a quartet, the cumulative result is magical, he adds.
“It’s like synesthesia in practice, drawing on multiple senses to enhance each other, making the music more meaningful,” he says. “The light is always moving and changing with the trees, and is very lyrical. If you sit on the sofa, watching the light, it’s really powerful, almost meditative.”
The Music Box stands as a reminder that great architecture, like a great composition, depends on balance. For homeowners and designers alike, it’s a cue to think acoustically, design deliberately, and let creativity set the tone.
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