ACOUSTIC COMFORT IN THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA DELLA NEVE, AFTER ITS RENOVATION

Abstract

The Church of Santa Maria Della Neve (Our Lady of the Snows) on Bratislava Calvary hill was built during the World War II on the site of a chapel from the 18th century and bears the hallmarks of interwar modernism (functionalism). Since 2018 the church underwent a complete renovation of the interior under the leadership of architects Tomáš Bujna and Matúš Gibala. The works included the reconstruction of the interior of the presbytery, the nave of the church, the entrance and service areas, as well as the design and implementation of new furniture. In the church, new plaster and paint were applied to the walls and ceiling. The newly painted white interior provides a sufficient amount of light and thus gives positive and balanced impression for the people present in the church. However, the minimalist style without the use of any sound-absorbing material causes a major problem with speech intelligibility during the ceremonies. Changes in the interior, such as painting the church and removing the sound-absorbing elements on the walls and furniture are responsible for doubling of the reverberation time compared to the original state. The presented article focuses on the search for ways to reduce the reverberation time to the original values by interior elements, which could be accepted in terms of architectural appearance. From the point of view of acoustics, maintaining the diffusion of space is a big challenge here, because by reckless application of additional elements and surfaces with high sound absorption, unpleasant echoes could arise in such a large space. These would probably not impair speech intelligibility dramatically but would for sure interfere with music production. Therefore, auralization was used to find the optimal solution.