Architecture in Music

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHARLES BROOKS

Small spaces. Extraordinary worlds.

Step inside the instruments that give music its voice. A violin becomes a vaulted chamber; the action of a piano unfolds like a promenade. These photographs reveal the craftsmanship, history and traces of life hidden within.

Explore available prints ↗

Interior of a Lockey Hill cello, London circa 1780, photographed by Charles Brooks — **Lockey Hill Cello** London, c. 1780
The photograph that set Architecture in Music in motion. Original tool marks and later repairs trace more than two centuries of making, playing and restoration.

Stradivarius Violin

Cremona, 1717. The “ex Hämmerle – ex Baumgartner”, made during Antonio Stradivari’s golden period. Light through the f-holes reveals the grain, repairs and craftsmanship within an instrument whose form continues to influence violin making today.

Steinway Grand Piano

A familiar instrument becomes an unfamiliar landscape. Copper-wound bass strings and precisely crafted mechanisms reveal the intricate structures beneath the music.

Meinel & Herold Bandoneón

Germany, c. 1935. After decades accompanying tango in Buenos Aires, this instrument offers a view that recalls the red-carpeted halls of a theatre. Its interior became the cover of Architecture in Music.

Klaus Jacobsen Lute

London, 2009. Light passes through an intricately carved rosette and falls across the ribbed back of this eight-course Renaissance lute. The photograph was made through an opening only a few millimetres wide.

Zildjian Cymbals

A fleeting space between two 17-inch symphonic cymbals becomes a landscape of hammered metal and reflected light: the moment before sound erupts. Photographed with the assistance of Buddy Lovett and Orchestra Victoria.

The illusion of space

Some of these spaces measure only millimetres across. Their apparent grandeur is an optical illusion, built through light, perspective and extraordinary depth of focus.

Working with specialist medical endoscopes, I record hundreds—and sometimes thousands—of exposures. Focus stacking and panoramic techniques bring the interior into detail from front to back. A single finished photograph can involve hours with the instrument and weeks of work afterwards.

I work through existing openings, with luthiers and technicians where needed, without drilling holes or removing the top plates of string instruments.

A musician’s eye

I am Charles Brooks, a New Zealand-born photographer based in Melbourne. Before turning to photography full time in 2016, I spent two decades as a professional cellist, with principal positions in China and Chile and three years performing in São Paulo.

Architecture in Music grew from that life among instruments. During the pandemic, when concert schedules stopped, workshops held remarkable instruments awaiting repair. What began as a small photographic experiment became an ongoing exploration of the spaces that make music possible.

Read the feature in Colossal ↗ · Watch the interview with Anne Diamond ↗

Live with the work

These photographs invite a slower look. At print scale, the smallest marks of craftsmanship and repair become part of the experience.

Explore available prints, sizes and editions at Architecture in Music. For help choosing a work, or for exhibition and licensing enquiries, contact me directly.

View prints and editions ↗ · Enquire about a work ↗

Architecture in Music — the book

A collection of hidden interiors and the stories behind them: the makers, musicians, materials and histories that give each instrument its character.

Discover the book ↗