The “Maxxi-cone”: an artistic masterpiece for outdoor sound propagation

During the International Competition for the realization of an artistic masterpiece for the Modern Art Museum in Rome, a new artistic sound apparatus have been design: the “Maxxi-cone”. This large apparatus recalls the Kircherian idea of a spiral-shaped tube (cocleato), which could capture whispers from the square, amplify the voice, communicate at a distance, send music to different rooms, and even could eavesdrop. In the artist’s idea, this modern sculpture looks backward the Ancient Roman city centre, and captures the typical sound scape of the modern city into the Museum. In the paper, starting from the original work described in the Phonurgia Nova (1673) the new artistic masterpiece will be introduced and described, considering its acoustic features and comparing them with the cocleato tube invented more than 300 years ago.