Living for a moment in invisible waves, music is the most ephemeral art. Architecture is perhaps the most permanent. In the Hamel Music Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the two meet in a venue that’s more than a building—it’s an instrument. Every space, surface, and view has been tuned to shape the multisensory experience of music for students, performers, and audiences. Designed by Evan Delli Paoli, AIA, CDT, LEED AP BD+C, principal, and the team at Steinberg Hart in New York, the center transforms architecture into an act of performance.
“Our five senses are interconnected,” Delli Paoli said. “Music is experienced aurally—a sensory experience that can be heightened tactilely and visually.”
The multi-year effort drew together a wide team: Steinberg Hart collaborated with Strang as architect-of-record, Fisher Dachs Associates on theater planning, Richard Talaske on acoustics, and Essential Light on architectural lighting. Local engineers, fabricators, and landscape architects further supported the team and grounded the work in Wisconsin craft and context.
Aligning such a large team required strong collaboration around a shared vision. The stakeholders at UW–Madison had requested a lot of function within a relatively small lot that’s clearly visible to the public on University and Lake Streets. Given its location, the design team saw an opportunity for the building to serve as both a campus gateway and an invitation to partake in performances. With the space serving multiple audiences for instruction, practice, and performance, there was a broad set of stakeholders.
To understand their needs and desires, Steinberg Hart launched an intense pre-design process, which generated an in-depth space programming document. This document informed space allotments, flow, room data, and volumetric footprints—important for fine-tuning acoustics. University staff visited other campuses where similar facilities had recently been built and brought their impressions to the team. This meticulous groundwork ensured that the design process remained tuned and responsive.
All of this quantitative and qualitative data was distilled to reveal a structural and landscape plan that Delli Paoli likens to a Swiss watch. Spaces are intricately fitted within the building and nestled among other existing structures, like busy pedestrian thoroughfares and the neighboring Chazen Museum of Art. The solution manages to contain all the functions of the active music school while also extending a welcome to the public.
“Where music was previously taught and experienced in more opaque, inward-looking facilities, we saw an opportunity in the new building for music to be expressed as a visibly important component of campus and community,” Delli Paoli said.
The 75,000-square-foot building expresses itself with striking optimism. Gleaming glass reveals the life within, making the act of music-making visible to the campus and city. The transparent central volume glows with warm copper tones that balance the building’s crisp geometry. Sharply folded concrete panels accordion toward the street, their pleated planes rising in rhythmic sequence to catch light and shadow on their textured surfaces. On a busy pedestrian corner, the rehearsal hall rests within its glass enclosure, turning the practice of music into an open act and giving the musician a casual, moving audience.
While Delli Paoli specified precast concrete for its sound-insulating qualities on the busy street, he also sees the material in its folded form as an expression of “frozen music.” He describes the building’s most prominent feature as “a crystalline expression of sonic energy.” The rest of the structure is clad in Wisconsin limestone, wood, and metal for a layered effect that mimics the textures of orchestral music with many instruments playing together.
The exterior’s precast concrete and stone play counterpoint to its transparency, giving the building life and shaping the music center’s interior experience. Carefully controlled natural light fills the lobby, rehearsal rooms, and even the recital hall, allowing music instruction by natural daylight. Steinberg Hart underscores the musical intent of these spaces. Unlike other live art forms such as theatre or dance—which more often require darkened spaces—music can be experienced in the light.
With the variety of ensembles and musical styles represented at the school, three distinct halls offer different experiences. The recital hall, intimate yet versatile, welcomes informal performances and small ensembles for 315 guests. The rehearsal hall provides ample space for full orchestras and larger ensembles, while a 670-seat concert hall anchors the complex, serving as the centerpiece for grand performances.
Delli Paoli worked with the design team and acoustics experts to design the voluminous concert hall with features that serve multiple purposes. Because visual information is perceived most immediately, the environment is defined by warm colors, welcoming curves, and a touch of shine. The main seating area is crowned by brilliant copper-encased mezzanine seating and catwalks. Conrad Schmitt Studios, a century-old Wisconsin company specializing in the decorative arts for historic architecture, crafted the building’s extensive copper leafing. The glowing material reflects ambient lighting and sets the tone for the room’s color palette in rich shades of burgundy and golden maple.
Walls dance with dimensional, circular elements that bring visual interest and serve an important function as acoustic diffusers. The surfaces scatter sound evenly through the space while also creating a subtle visual rhythm, enveloping concert attendees with both sound and sight. Motorized draperies easily adjust to brighten or dampen sound, depending on the nature of the music. Also key to the sound quality are acoustical reverberation chambers, which are concealed spaces alongside the hall and designed to absorb, deflect, and diffuse sound before it reenters the hall. These chambers can be adjusted to suit different ensembles and musical genres. Similar features are integrated into adjacent rehearsal spaces, allowing each room to be tuned like an instrument.
Every element was specified with deliberate intent, channeling both energy and attention toward the heart of the room while seamlessly integrating acoustic and visual design. In the recital hall, for example, lighter balcony surfaces draw the eye inward, subtly reducing the room’s perceived scale and creating a more intimate, welcoming environment for student performers. The walls in this hall are shaped in specific, technical ways to generate ideal sound deflection. To disguise those geometries, the interiors team specified a patterned wallcovering designed by the late William Weege, the highly regarded printmaker and multimedia artist who founded Tandem Press at UW–Madison.
Wisconsin connections like Weege’s wallcovering design and Conrad Schmitt’s copper leafing engender a sense of pride throughout the music center. The building’s tight geographic focus is also evident in the custom copper chandeliers in the lobby made by Manning Lighting in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, using common copper plumbing piping. Terrazzo tile came from Wausau Tile in Wausau, and utility-grade maple floorboards came from nearby forests.
The importance of local sourcing is a point that Delli Paoli emphasizes: “Throughout our work we have found that using locally sourced materials helps root these facilities in their communities and allows buildings to tell more meaningful stories about how they came to be.”
On this prominent site at UW–Madison, Steinberg Hart faced a primarily functional design challenge: tightly fitting every required space while achieving new benchmarks in acoustics. Form, however, ultimately defines the building’s success as a sensory experience. Its volumes, textures, and light amplify the emotional and sensory nature of sound. In the Hamel Music Center, architecture doesn’t just house music—it listens, resonates, inspires, and, in a way, performs alongside it.
First published in Great Lakes By Design: In Flight, Volume 9, Issue 5
Text: Diane Kolak