The Gallery

The Gallery is a large, building-sized musical instrument in Sweden that features a unique musical horn, built in the 1860s and designed to be heard for miles around. Over the years the instrument has gradually become more disused due to part of the building being repurposed as a museum dedicated to the country's cultural history.

Instrument

The sound of the Gallery originates from a huge, pneumatic machine known as the Horn Generator. Originally, the pressure was generated by steam engines, but nowadays it is created by electric blowers. The original method of controlling the Generator was a mechanical keyboard, but a computer control system has since been installed to automate its tunes.

The large brass horn itself is housed in a concrete vault for sound isolation. Copper pipes transport the pressure from the Horn Generator to the horn itself. Directly after the vault is a large antechamber known as the main tuning cavity (huvudavstämningskaviteten), responsible for additional reverberation, and then three more sequential hexagonal shaped chambers known as auxiliary tuning cavities (bonusavstämningshålighet). After exiting the cavities, the sound then enters a much larger chamber known as the dampening chamber which allows for the relief of air pressure before the sound waves exit.

The exit point for the instrument's sound is a small, rectangular aperture which now opens into a disused hall of the museum, from which it can escape through holes in the side of the building. Due to how loud the instrument is, it can't be activated during the museum's opening hours.