In 2005, a Croatian architect designed a 230-foot-long organ that turns the rhythm of the waves into actual music. Nope, not nonsensical bellows or chaotic tones. Real, actual, music. Most of us have never seen, or heard, anything like it.
Pretty amazing, right? The Sea Organ, or the Morske Orgulje, is an incredible feat of architecture designed to bring life back to one of the world’s oldest cities.
Zadar, a 3,000-year-old city on the coast of Croatia, was almost completely destroyed in World War II –– so many of its ancient landmarks lost forever. Years after a rebuilding that featured lots of plain, concrete structures, award-winning architect Nikola Bašić was brought in to bring some delight back to the coastline. That’s when he came up with the idea.
No doubt he was inspired by the hydraulis — a nifty little instrument built by the ancient Greeks that used water to push air through tuned pipes — or even the Wave Organ in San Francisco — a set of curved tubes built in the 1980s that amplify the gurgles and howls of the Pacific Ocean. But the intricate design of the Sea Organ is what ets it apart and makes it truly something to marvel at.