Nashville Ascend Amphitheater by Hodgetts + Fung

Hodgetts + Fung Architecture

Nashville gets a riverfront amphitheater with rock-and-roll roots. The design of a world-class amphitheater is part of a large 11-acre civic park along the Cumberland River in Downtown Nashville. The park will be fully accessible to the public during non-event days and the amphitheater provides a dynamic expression of Nashville’s Country Music history while positioning itself for the 21st century.

In the design of the amphitheater shell and its supporting facilities, we have been greatly influenced by the site, historic Nashville, and Nashville’s esteemed place in American music. Those influences range from the extraordinary hatch poster graphics to the trusses on the bridge, and from the limestone masonry to the neon-lit bars.

The amphitheater will accommodate up to 6,500 people with semi-fixed seating for 2,200, a 300-person greenway pavilion, and 4,000 lawn seats. The amphitheater facility is designed to accommodate multiple forms of performance events and musical genres, including country, rock, and symphonies, as well as community events. The facility is fully supported with an artist wing, operator offices, and a dining event space which opens to a park side terrace.

Great care was taken to maximize the view window through the stage providing audience members a vast and compelling frame of the Nashville skyline. Additionally, the perceived thickness of the roof structure is reduced by a sweeping, gestural extension of the underside surface which also houses optimized rigging support for all stage productions. Source by Hodgetts + Fung.

Location: Nashville, USA
Architects: Hodgetts + Fung
Landscape: Hawkins Partners
Executive Architect: Smith Gee Studio
Civil: Civil Site Design Group, LLC
Structural: EMC Structural Engineers, P.C.
Theater: Schuler Shook
Client: Nashville Metropolitan Government
Project Size: 49000 sq.ft.
Schedule: Start 2013
Year: 2015
Photographs: Matthew Carbone, Courtesy of Hodgetts + Fung