Virtual acoustic environment reconstruction of the hypostyle Mosque of Cordoba

Abstract

Current simulation tools and virtual-reality technologies enable the reconstruction of the historical sound inside heritage buildings, and have become powerful tools in Archaeoacoustics. The sound generated within the current state of a heritage building can be used to characterize the sound of the past inside that building by using virtual sound reconstruction. In this work, this methodology is applied to one of the emblematic Islamic temples of the West: the Aljama Mosque of Cordoba. Based on the onsite acoustic measurements carried out in its current state as Mosque-Cathedral, the original state of the Mosque has been reconstructed in the different spatial configurations throughout its history from the 8th to the 10th century. By means of the acoustic simulation of the different models generated from these spatial configurations, it has been possible to reconstruct the sound of the Islamic past of this monumental building. Although the successive enlargements of the mosque managed to maintain visual unity in its interior space, its sound perception has become divided. The values of the main acoustic parameters that characterize this acoustic perception support the hypothesis that spatial division occurs from the point of view of sound.