Acoustical behaviour of colonial churches in arequipa, Peru

The paper searches for characterizing the acoustical behavior of ten colonial churches in Arequipa, a southern city of Peru. Arequipa was an important city through the Spaniard Colonial Era in Peru, several religious orders established in the area and fix the European styles and building process to the geography, geology and new building materials like "sillar" a whitish volcanic stone (a vapour-phase crystallized tuff produced by the now-extinct Chachani volcano during the Pleistocene era). Through five typical acoustical objective parameters it is defined the acoustical environment in each church. A comparison between several positions in each church analyzed and among churches will be presented. Finally a correlation between architectural features and acoustical parameters will be defined.