The environment in its physical and sensory dimensions is a pressing issue of our time. This book narrates how sounds, noises, and tones significantly influenced the developments of 20th-century architecture. Thoroughly researched case studies—from the League of Nations Palace (1927) to the soundproof House of the Future by Alison and Peter Smithson (1957)—illustrate how the growing knowledge of building physics and perceptual acoustics transformed architectural practice. Through the examples of the first Swiss acoustic engineer Franz Max Osswald (1879-1944), who established a laboratory for applied acoustics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1924, his successor Willi Furrer (1906-1985), and other actors both in Switzerland and abroad, the evolution of modern building and room acoustics is traced.