Sacred Spaces examines the crucial role sound has played in our spiritual and religious lives for thousands of years, and explores the sonic similarities between different religions, and different types of sacred space from across the world.

Click on a sound listen to its sounds – click on the ‘information’ button while listening to a sound to read about how it was produced and the creative context and ideas behind it. Scroll through the different pages to hear different types of sounds, from churches, temples and cathedrals to prayers, organs, music and songs.

Explore the project

Explore the world of sounds on our Sacred Spaces sound map





Background and context

Sacred Spaces examines the role that sound has played in our spiritual and religious lives for thousands of years, and look at some of the similarities and differences between how sound is used for prayer and worship across religions and from country to country.

We invited contributors to provide field recordings of sacred spaces in November and December 2016, and shared those sounds with musicians, sound designers and sound artists, who have reimagined and recontexualised the sounds of our spiritual lives.

The project is the biggest Cities and Memory project so far, with 123 artists and field recordists from around the world presenting sounds from 34 countries.

Thanks go to the Churches Conservation Trust, who provided us with access to many of their churches across England as part of the project, collecting organ and bell sounds from some of the country’s beautiful restored and protected churches.

Sacred Spaces: full playlist of sounds

Contributing artists

More than 100 sound designers, musicians and sound artists have contributed to the project, whether by reimagining a sound, providing a field recording from a sacred space, or both. Contributors come from all around the world – from Australia and the USA to India and Lebanon via Portugal, France, Spain, the UK and many other countries.

There is more information about them on our contributors page, but here’s a full list.

Field recordings provided by:

Aidan Deery

AJ Born

Alex Hegyesi

Benjamin Gale

Benjamin Richards

Chinowski Garachana

Chloe Despax

Christine Renaudat

Cities and Memory

Constantine Katsiris

David Korsten

Emmanuel Mieville

Eric Boivin

Ethan Jones

Fabian Avila Elizalde

James Kent

Kamen Nedev

Kate Laity

Kostas Loukovikas

Larva Peruzzotti

Leon Muraglia

Leslie Rollins

M. Qaro

Manuel Guerrero

Maria Papadomanolaki

Maria Ponce

Martin Smith

Melissa Pons

Michael Gatonska

Mode Analogue

Nick St. George

Oliver Hall

Patrick Franke

Pawel Gozdziewicz

Piotr Jaroszynski

Protyasha Pandey

Robert Knight

Simon Proffitt

Simon Serc

Sound Ark

Stephane Marin

Stephen Shiell

Stuart Bowditch

Tariq Emam

Tolga Balci

Tony Whitehead

Veronica Salinas

Wolfgang Dorninger

Reimagined sounds created by: