Tippet Rise presents Geode, its newest outdoor music venue

“Geode was an idea that we had Tippet rise was founded,” says its co-founder Cathy Halstead. The massive 5,058-acre sculpture park, located in the rolling ranchlands of southern Montana, was founded in 2016 and serves as the venue for a major classical music festival each August and September. “As with The Tiara Acoustic Shell and the Domo [a site-specific earth-work structure imagined by experimental Spanish architecture firm Ensemble Studio in 2016]we wanted to create semi-open spaces where sound is more immediate than usual and where artists and audiences can communicate with nature in an informal way.’

For Cathy and her husband Peter, co-founder of Tippet Rise, music – like the dozens of monumental “portal” sculptures placed throughout – serves as a conduit for this most natural connection.

Tippet Rise introduces Geode

The Geode architectural pavilion consists of four carefully placed triangular structures and was developed by the New York-based architecture and engineering firm. Arup and project director Raj Patel – the driving force behind much of Tippet Rise’s sustainability-focused infrastructure, but also its other acoustically optimized music venues, including Olivier Music Barn, a building modeled in design and proportions on the relatively compact, chamber music-focused Haydn Hall at Esterházy Palace in southern Hungary.

This latest contribution to Tippet Rise’s sculptural and architectural offering builds on and distills many of the innovative yet fundamental structural strategies honed in those spaces—such as the use of ledges, a low-slope house, materials that can absorb some of the harsher sounds simultaneously while dampening the rest without additional equipment, and perhaps most importantly, a gable roof—an essential factor of Geode. However, they are applied in a completely different context: a carefully chosen site in one of the most remote corners of the park’s sprawling expanse.

“My uncle had a farm in Bedford, New York, where they discovered and eventually mined quartz,” says Peter. “It’s not the most impressive stone from the outside, but when you open it up, it reveals its jewel-like crystallized interior. That was the inspiration for the cracked egg shape and the name.”

When they decided to build the structure on a more remote “peak” in the park, the Halsteads were inspired by a photograph by Robert Doisneau of cellist Maurice Baquet performing a concert on a mountaintop in Chamonix, France. “We chose this particular location because the bedrock is so close to the surface, which also amplifies the sound.”

The pavilion’s raised, weathered steel frame is anchored to the ground by micropiles. This minimal environmental impact approach also allows the wind to pass through and accompany the music. To ensure durability during Montana’s particularly harsh and snowy winters while optimizing acoustics, the interior cladding, made from Douglas fir from the Pacific Northwest, was treated using the traditional Japanese yakisugi technique of firing and brushing. The outer layer was left raw so that it would take on a natural patina over time and eventually blend into the environment while remaining a sort of distinctly geometric landmark. It was important that Arup worked with this wood, a material that reflects the local architectural language.

Geode opened on August 17 with a concert by renowned cellist Arlen Hlusko. About 60 guests were transported to the particularly remote location in jacked-up Sprinter vans. Hlusko played a mixed program of short pieces by Bach, but also contemporary works such as “Àweks Katyes” (The Files of the Eagle) by Dawn Avery, a composer from the Mohawk nation. The composition, commissioned by Tippet Rise, aptly evokes the movement of this bird across vast expanses of diverse landscapes.

The ultimate goal is to attract hikers and mountain bikers who move through the site during the day to host impromptu concerts by individual musicians or small ensembles. Patel says the inclination of each structural element protects the artists and their instruments from the strong sun. He and his team conducted a series of solar studies to arrive at a carefully calibrated configuration, as well as parametric modeling to determine the best proportion and positioning for optimal acoustic amplification. The partially enclosed shelters filter sound from the back back to the seated audience as quickly as possible, creating a more rounded effect. However, the music can also be heard in the surrounding environment.

“It comes down to four points: shape, form, geometry and materials,” explains Patel. “The difference between shape and form is that the latter is more what you expect from architecture as a concise unit.”