The piped steps
Thirty-five pipes the waves improvise on.
Andrej Šalov — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Dragan Jankovic Faza… — CC BY-SA 3.0 · dronepicr — CC BY 2.0 · dronepicr — CC BY 2.0
Elegant physics: beneath the steps run tuned channels ending in whistles like a church organ's pipes — the wave compresses air through them and the note exits the pavement openings, seven clusters on five Dalmatian-consonant tones (the klapa scale) so no dissonance is possible however the sea improvises: the harmony is built into the stone.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
The Sea Organ is the most famous instrument the sea plays: marble steps at the peninsula's western tip beneath which the architect Nikola Bašić cut thirty-five pipes (2005) — every wave pushing air into note: the Adriatic improvising its eternal symphony without pause, and sitting on the steps to listen is Zadar's first rite. Beside it the Greeting to the Sun: a glass disc of three hundred solar cells charging by day and dancing by night in lights that mimic the solar system — a standing children's festival — the pair together (the sea's sound and its light) making Zadar's quay Europe's icon of urban renewal. And their sunset is the one Hitchcock declared (1964) the world's most beautiful — finer than Key West's: the sun drowning in open sea with the Organ accompanying: attend it every evening of your stay without exception, for its colour never repeats.
Thirty-five pipes the waves improvise on.
Three hundred cells dancing the solar system at night.
Obala kralja Petra Krešimira, 23000 Zadar