Large enough for visitors to enter and sit within, three gigantic wooden megaphones constructed in the forests of Estonia amplify ambient sounds of the environment.
Nearly ten feet in diameter each, huge cones render quiet sounds of rustling leaves and birds chirping remarkably audible.
The Tõnu Tunnel installation was conceived of by interior architecture and design students from the Estonian Academy of Arts and implemented with advice from B210 Architects
Thanks to their size and shape, the megaphones double as seating and shelter as well with space enough for a few hikers to spend the night.
Each space can also be used in reverse as well by musical or other (small groups of) stage performers wishing to project sounds outward, or can double as seating for shows in the round.
Construction of the megaphones was financed by RMK and the interior architecture department of the EAA. Each was built offsite and carefully transported into place.
According to Valdur Mikita, a writer and semiotician involved in the project, “The trademark of Estonia is both the abundance of sounds in our forest as well as the silence there. In the megaphones, thoughts can be heard. It is a place for browsing the ‘book of nature,’ for listening to and reading the forest through sound.”
