Church acoustics: A state-of-the-art review after several decades of research

This work describes and analyses the principal contributions to the acoustics of occidental Christian churches from the second half of the last century to the present day, mainly in ancient historical churches. After more than six decades of research, it seems appropriate to summarise the major pieces of work in this field, and, to this end, this paper aims to provide an up-to-date document of all the most relevant studies which describe the exhaustive investigations of acoustic characterisation in time-consuming experimental campaigns carried out by several groups of researchers in various European countries. The article presents, for the research into church acoustics developed in each country, the experimental procedures, the results, discussions, the theoretical interpretations of the sound propagation in these spaces, the subjective aspects in the listening experience, and the method of implementation of computer simulation techniques and their applications in these complex enclosures. Other contributions from Asian and American continents are also included. Findings and advances in each of these areas as well as perspectives on their future challenges are summarized and discussed in this work.