Architectural Record – August 2019

(^58) ARCHITECTURAL RECORD AUGUST 2019 BUILDING TYPE STUDY LANDSCAPE & LEISURE
or musicians and music lovers
worldwide, Tanglewood, in the
idyllic Berkshires of Western
Massachusetts, is widely considered
hallowed ground. Founded in 1937,
it hosts one of the globe’s preemi­
nent music festivals and is the
summer retreat for the Boston Symphony
Orchestra (BSO). The venue has been graced by
legendary figures from Leonard Bernstein and
Aaron Copland to Bob Dylan and Lady Gaga.
But it is equally celebrated for its breathtaking
campus, composed of two former estates whose
524 pastoral acres spill out across woodlands
and large swaths of manicured lawns, dotted
with canopy trees, that open to views of the
gently rolling scenery. Tanglewood, says BSO
president and CEO Mark Volpe, “is the gestalt
of music, nature, and pedagogy.”
While the beautiful pastoral setting has
always been the core of the Tanglewood expe­
rience, the campus’s built environment is
also steeped in history, with Eliel and Eero
Saarinen the first architects to have left their
mark here. The simple structures scattered
across the grounds—like diminutive wood­
framed camplike practice studios or the
5,700­seat fan­shaped Koussevitzky Music
Shed (a steel canopy over a dirt floor, inspired
by Eliel’s original design)—project a no­non­
sense attitude and are open to the outdoors,
sending music wafting out, from the trilling
of a string quintet to the triumphal swelling
of a full BSO rehearsal. New additions to this
landscape are not undertaken lightly.
That makes the Linde Center for Music and
Learning by Boston’s William Rawn Associates
(WRA) especially significant: completed in
June, it is Tanglewood’s first major construction
in 25 years, since the completion in 1994 of
WRA’s burly, top­ranked Seiji Ozawa Hall, with
its towering brick facades and barrel­vaulted
roof. The Linde treads more softly—a family of
three boxy western­red­cedar­clad performance
studios with zinc­coated copper standing­seam
shed roofs and a low­slung cafeteria, linked by a
serpentine covered walkway. Sitting atop a
ridge that runs across the campus, the hand­
some, plainspoken buildings embrace a
100­year­old red oak tree and the vistas beyond.
The 24,000­square­foot complex addresses
the needs of both the Tanglewood Music
Fellowship Program and the just­launched
Tanglewood Learning Institute, an initiative
offering activities to the public, such as art
classes, film screenings, and lectures.
Additionally, the Center brings, with its flexible
interiors, much­needed new programming
space to the campus. The biggest pavilion, the
3,950­square­foot Studio E, with its retractable
tiered seating, hosts everything from BSO
rehearsals to movies and banquets. And, as the
only fully climate­controlled buildings here,
the Center can be used off­season.
Rawn’s design sprang from a notion he calls
“intensity and informality,” which Tanglewood
embodies in its rigorous standards yet casual
atmosphere, where barriers between audiences
and performers are diminished, and where by
day the public uses the grounds as a park.
“Tanglewood’s democratic spirit captivated me
30 years ago, as it still does today,” says William
Rawn, founding principal, who took lessons
learned from his first project here, particularly

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