Live Architecture: Venues, Stages and Arenas for Popular Music

Live Architecture explores the physical form of popular music performance space from 1960 to the present day.

This book quantifies the factors that determine what makes a venue successful focusing on both famous and less well-known examples from the smallest barroom music space to the largest stadium-filling rock set. It draws on the author’s extensive research expertise in the field of temporary and portable architecture, in the development of general contemporary architectural design, and personal experience of music performance.

Including a range of case studies, the book analyses some of the most significant popular music venues, events and landmarks in the world. The detail of how a venue is created, how it is constructed, and the acoustic and visual environmental factors that impact on its success are examined here.

Highly illustrated throughout with design drawings, plans and full colour photographs, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of live popular music.