Biography
Fiona Smyth's expertise lies at the interface of the history of architecture and the history of science with particular emphasis on sound and environmental design. She is an interdisciplinary scholar in the Science and Society Research Group in the School of Education. Prior to that she was a Research Fellow in the School of Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. She is also a Royal Irish Academy Charlemont Scholar for 2015. Prior to completion of her doctoral work, she was a Research Fellow at the Urban Institute Ireland, and worked in architectural practice. Work from her Ph.D. dissertation was awarded both the Newman Medal for Architectural Acoustics by the Acoustical Society of America and the Stanley Smith Prize for Construction History by the Construction History Society. In 2017 she was awarded the Hawksmoor Medal by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. Her research has been supported by grants from European, British, Irish and US sources including the European Commission, the British Society for the History of Science, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Creative Arts at MIT, The Royal Irish Academy, the Society for Musicology in Ireland, the Irish Arts Council, and the Irish Heritage Council. She is a member of the Institute of Acoustics.
Her present book project, funded by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship from the European Commission, focuses on the musical, scientific and architectural origins of acoustics as a building science in early twentieth-century Britain.
A second monograph, made possible by a Charlemont Scholarship from the Royal Irish Academy and a Research Grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art is also underway. This project is a biography of the architect and acoustician Hope Bagenal.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Sirapite for Sopranos: Tempered Construction and Designing for Musical Tone in, editor(s)João Mascarenhas-Mateus, Ana Paula Pires, Manuel Marques Caiado, Ivo Veiga , History of Construction Cultures, London, Routledge: CRC Press, 2021, pp294 - 299, [Smyth, Fiona ]
Experiments in Experience: Listening to Rooms and Pianos in, editor(s)Brookes, William , Experience Music Experiment: Pragmatism and Artistic Research, Leuven, University of Leuven Press, 2021, pp77 - 96, [Tzotzkova, Victoria and Smyth, Fiona ]
Fiona Smyth , From Delhi to Hastings in the 1920s: Controversy and Experiment in Architectural Acoustics, Sonic Circulations, King's College London, June 2019, 2019
Fiona Smyth, A Matter of Practical Emergency: Herbert Baker, Hope Bagenal, and the Acoustic Legacy of the Assembly Chamber at Imperial Delhi, Architectural History , 62, 2019, p113 - 144
Symphony for Full Orchestra and Asbestos: Tuning the Albert Hall during WWII in, editor(s)Campbell, J. et al. , Studies in the History of Services and Construction, Cambridge, Construction History Society, 2018, pp185 - 194, [Smyth, Fiona]
Symphony for Full Orchestra and Asbestos: Tuning Albert Hall during WWII in, editor(s)Campbell, J.W.P. et. al. , Studies in the History of Services and Construction, Queens' College Cambridge, 2018, pp185 - 194, [Smyth, Fiona]
Smyth, Fiona, Faith not Works: Building Science, Chance Encounters and the Germination of an Idea, SAHGB Annual Symposium: Architecture, the Built Environment, and the Aftermath of the First World War, London, June 2018, Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, 2018
Fiona Smyth , Music, Munitions, and Misunderstandings: Architectural Acoustics and Environmental Design in 1920s Britain, 42nd Public Lecture of the Irish Environmental Humanities Network, Trinity College Dublin , October 2018, 2018
Smyth, Fiona, Pistols in St Paul's Cathedral, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Research Symposium, , Harvard University., June 2017, 2017
Smyth, Fiona, "Special Intelligence" to "Fundamental" Investigation: Controversy, Acoustics and a National Laboratory, History of Science Society Meeting, Toronto, November , 2017
Hollerweger, Florian (MIT), Smyth, Fiona (Trinity College Dublin), Tzotzkova, Victoria (MIT), 'T60 or the Mystery of Acoustics', First Steps Towards a Theater of Sound, MIT, Council for the Arts MIT, 2017, -
Smyth, Fiona (Trinity College Dublin) & Tzotzkova, Victoria (MIT), On Listening to Rooms and Pianos, MIT, November , 2017
Smyth, Fiona, Music, Munitions and Misunderstandings: The First Government Laboratory for Acoustic Research in Britain , Acoustical Society of America: Greater Boston Chapter , Cambridge, Massachusetts, 28th April, 2016, Acoustical Society of America: Greater Boston Chapter
Fine-tuning and Demolition: the First Acoustics Laboratory at Britain's Building Research Station in, editor(s)Campbell, J.W.P. et al , Further Studies in the History of Construction, Cambridge, The Construction History Society, 2016, pp371 - 380, [Smyth, Fiona]
Smyth, Fiona, Building Performance/Shaping Response, Practice, Theory, Research, and Technology: Knowing Peak Performance, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 2016, 2016
Tzotzkova, V. (Harvard University), Smyth, F. (Trinity College Dublin), Goldman, A. (Columbia University) , Practice, Theory, Research and Technology: Knowing Peak Performance, November 2016, In:Peak Performance, 2016, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Smyth, Fiona, On Sound in Architecture, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University , 2016
Smyth, Fiona, Building as Instrument: 'Designing for Musical Tone, Galpin, Society, Institute of Acoustics, Royal Musical Association Joint Conference,, Cambridge, Oct. 2015, 2015
Smyth, Fiona, Designing the Question: Acoustic Surveys in the 1920s, IOA International Conference on Auditorium Acoustics, Paris, 2015
Smyth, Fiona, Music, Acoustics & Medieval Architecture: The foundations of building science research in early 20th-century Britain, Cambridge, Massachusetts , 2015
Smyth, Fiona, Construction and Destruction: The First Acoustics Laboratory at Britain's Building Research Station, Modern Sciences Working Group, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, 2015
Smyth, Fiona, 'Science as Applied to Building': Science, Construction, and Architectural Acoustics in Britain (1914-1954), History of Science Seminar Series, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, 2015
Ní Chuinn, Rachel, 'The Shape of Sounds to Come', Lyric FM, 2014, -
Smyth, Fiona, Acoustic Design in the 1930s: Robinson and Keefe's Church of Corpus Christi, Dublin, Proceedings of the First Conference of the Construction History Society, First Conference of the Construction History Society, Cambridge, April 2014, edited by Campbell, J.W.P. et al , Short Run Press, 2014, pp377 - 390
Smyth, Fiona, A Centenary of Architectural Acoustics: Hope Bagenal and Wallace Clement Sabine., Proc. of Institute of Acoustics, Institute of Acoustics 40th Anniversary Conference, Birmingham, Oct 2014, edited by IOA , 36, (3), IOA, 2014
Smyth, Fiona, "More than a Machine for Living In: Science, Noise and Experimental Housing, Construction History, 29, (2), 2014, p105 - 122
Smyth, Fiona, Transatlantic Communications: Sound, Space, and Science, History of Science Society Meeting, Boston, Nov. 2013, 2013
Smyth, Fiona, 464 Forms of Construction: Siteworks and the Quest for Acoustic Data., 24th ICHSTM (International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine): 'Knowledge at Work', Manchester, July 2013, 2013
Scales of Interaction in Architecture and Music in, editor(s)Fontana-Giusti, G., Adler, G. & Brittain-Catlin, T , Scale: Imagination, Perception and Practice in Architecture , London, Routledge, 2013, pp88 - 98, [Smyth, Fiona]
Smyth, Fiona Muriel, From Concept to Application: Analytical Frameworks for Architectural Acoustics in a Contextual Study of Three Anglican Cathedrals , National University of Ireland, 2013
Smyth, F. & Lennon, D., Data Capture, Modelling and Auditory Analysis in Christ Church and St Patrick's Cathedrals, Dublin, 3rd SPAR POINT Europe Conference on 3D Data Technology and Innovation, The Hague, 2012, 2012
Kearney, G., Gorzel, M., Boland, F., (...), Lennon, D., Rice, H, Real-time walkthrough auralisation of the acoustics of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics, 8th International Conference on Auditorium Acoustics 2011, Dublin, 20-22 May, 33, (2), 2011, pp244-258
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
Smyth, Fiona, A Legacy in Letters: Hope Bagenal and Wallace Clement Sabine, Acoustics, 40, (2), 2015, p26 - 29
Research Expertise
Recognition
Awards and Honours
Hawksmoor Medal, Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain
Royal Irish Academy Charlemont Scholarship
Newman Medal for Architectural Acoustics, Acoustical Society of America
Stanley Smith Prize, Construction History Society
Memberships
Member Institute of Acoustics (MIOA)
Construction History Society
British Society for the History of Science