William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.

Linde Center for Music & Learning

Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson

Linde Center for Music & Learning

William Rawn Associates

DESIGN TEAM
Kevin Bergeron, Aia, Elizabeth Bondaryk, Aia

LEAD ARCHITECTS
William L. Rawn Iii, Faia, Leed Ap, Founding Principal Clifford V. Gayley Faia, Leed Ap, Principal

CLIENT
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc.

MECHANICAL ENGINEERS
R.g. Vanderweil Engineers

CONSTRUCTION MANAGER
Consigli Construction, Anthony Consigli, Ceo Philip Brault, Project Executive

WAYFINDING/SIGNAGE
Roll Barresi & Associates

ACOUSTICIAN
Kirkegaard Associates, Joseph Myers

LANDSCAPE
Reed Hilderbrand Landscape Architecture - Doug Reed, Principal Fasla Raar, Adrian Nial, Principal

THEATER CONSULTANT
Nextstage Design

SUSTAINABILITY CONSULTANT
The Green Engineer

SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEM PROVIDER
Solect

CIVIL ENGINEERS
Foresight Land Services 

LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT MAINTENANCE & OPERATIONS
Etm

PHOTOGRAPHS
Robert Benson

AREA
24000 Ft²

YEAR
2019 

LOCATION
Lenox, United States 

CATEGORY
Music Venue

Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson

Text description provided by architect.

Tanglewood, one of the world’s most acclaimed music festivals and the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), under the leadership of President and CEO, Mark Volpe, marked its fourth evolutionary milestone with the opening of the Linde Center for Music and Learning in the summer of 2019.

The Linde Center for Music and Learning is situated on the northern edge of the Bernstein campus perched on a slight ridge overlooking Seiji Ozawa Hall to the west, the historic 1841 gothic Highwood Manor to the south, and expansive views of the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts to the southeast.

Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson
Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson

This is Tanglewood’s first new performance facility since the highly acclaimed Seiji Ozawa Hall opened in 1994, 25 years ago and also designed by William Rawn Associates.

The Linde Center’s climate-controlled studios with webcasting and broadcast capability will provide additional concert and rehearsal space for the Tanglewood Music Center—the BSO’s acclaimed summer music academy young professional musicians —and play an essential role in establishing Tanglewood for the first time as a multi-season facility.

Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson
Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson

The Linde Center is a four-building complex designed and servers as well as the centralized home for the BSO’s first new programming platform in nearly 70 years – The Tanglewood Learning Institute (TLI)—a wide-ranging enrichment and education initiative offering a variety of activities for exploration and discovery alongside Tanglewood’s traditional concert schedule.

The Linde Center for Music and Learning is the result of an intensive institution-wide assessment of current and future capital needs, as well as the development of new methods and modes of musical presentation for innovative institutional programming and audience engagement.

Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson
Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson

The structures promote transparent and communal exchange among artists, program participants, students, and passing visitors.

The overall design strategy included addressing the myriad of program requirements by envisioning the solution not as a single building but as a series of pavilion studios that engage the landscape, including a century-old red oak tree.

Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson
Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson

Critical to the history and character of Tanglewood, The Linde Center’s goal is to promote a sense of community with special consideration for a discreet and harmonious rapport with the surrounding landscape while respecting the scale of existing campus structures.

The complex of pavilions consists of three dedicated performance studios ranging in size to accommodate 40 to 270 participants, from soloists to a full orchestra.

Two of three studios feature retractable glass walls, opening the performance space into a serpentine walkway connecting all four buildings.

Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson
Linde Center for Music & Learning
© Robert Benson

The fourth operates as a daily café for up to 150 people (plus room on the patio for approximately 50 more seats), also with a retractable wall of glass, providing views of the pastoral landscape and making physical connections to the larger campus. The four new facilities that comprise the Linde Center bring the total number of campus-wide public performance venues to eight.


Linde Center for Music & Learning
Floor plan
Linde Center for Music & Learning
Site plan

William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.
T +1 617 4233470 F +1 617 4519205
William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.
27 School St Second Floor, Boston, MA 02108, United States