Montana’s Tippet Rise Art Center blends culture and nature
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter

Peter Halstead, co-founder of Tippet Rise Art Center, which opened 17 June in Fishtail, Montana, calls it 'the most beautiful place in the world'. There’s no way to know for sure, but it must be up there.
The stunning new complex, nestled into a rise in the emerald green and clay-red foothills of the area’s snow-capped mountain ranges, consists of intimate indoor and outdoor classical music venues and oversized outdoor sculpture, scattered around the rolling 11,500 acre property. Think of it as an exceptional, mega-sized cross between Storm King and Tanglewood, infused with the giant skies and head shaking beauty of Montana.
The compound’s music and art inform each other. Watching one of the small performances here (they’re capped at 100–150 people, so you feel like you’re at Halstead and his wife Cathy’s home more than a concert hall) permeates the landscape with a sense of punctuated order and majesty, particularly as they're framed by the large window behind the performers inside the Olivier Music Barn, the centre’s main music hall.
And just knowing that in the distance the landscape swallows up and enhances striking, constructed art from the likes of Alexander Calder, Patrick Dougherty, Mark di Suvero and Stephen Talasnik gives you an instinctive connection to these surroundings. Many of the pieces are quite large: three concrete sculptures literally cast out of the earth by Ensamble Studio weigh more than half a million pounds each. But they’re still dwarfed by the incalculably vast surroundings. 'You just don’t fight the scale here,' says Alban Bassuet, Tippet Rise’ director. 'It’s a losing battle.'
This is why his team switched course after hosting an architectural competition for the Olivier Barn. They decided nothing would or could compete with the infinite landscape, opting instead to give it the simplest design they could – a rusted steel clad building (albeit with world-class acoustics, hosting top performers from around the world) that echoes the area’s tawny streaks of earth and dried grass, not to mention its local vernacular. Inside, the lofty space reveals a traditional exposed timber frame construction. The outdoor venue, down a small slope from the barn, is framed in pine and topped with plywood baffles.
To maintain Tippet Rise’ close connection to the countryside, the designers buried most of its considerable infrastructure – including geothermal heat pumps, water collection, plumbing and solar panels – underground, or hid them behind earthen berms.
'It was like building a new city,' notes Bassuet. Only it’s a city dominated by art, music, and nature that feels about as far from a metropolis as you can get. 'It’s all about the visceral connection to nature and the vast landscape,' he adds.
The resulting creation, adds Cathy Halstead, breaks down the rigid, often inaccessible walls of concert halls and galleries. 'This feels like the frontier. It’s an adventure for everyone who comes here.'
The Olivier Music Barn is the centre’s main music hall. It was designed as a rusted steel clad building so as not to compete with the natural surroundings.
The site also has a number of impressive, large-scale outdoors sculpture pieces on its premises. Pictured: Beartooth Portal, by Ensamble Studio (Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa), 2015.
The Tiara acoustic shell at Tippet Rise Art Center.
Alexander Calder’s Two Discs are made of regular and stainless steels.
Daydreams, by Patrick Dougherty, 2015, uses locally sourced willow saplings and sticks. It sits on a school house, created in collaboration with JXM & Associates LLC and CTA architects.
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Tippet Rise Art Center’s website (opens in new tab)
ADDRESS
Tippet Rise Art Center
96 South Grove Creek Road
Fishtail, MT 59028
VIEW GOOGLE MAPS (opens in new tab)
-
S94 Design makes the most of its uptown location to blur the lines of art and design
S94 Design brings displays from Kwangho Lee, Donald Judd, Max Lamb and more to its Rafael Viñoly-designed location
By Julie Baumgardner • Published
-
Oasi Cashmere is taking Zegna back to its roots in the Italian Alps
Oasi Cashmere – an environmentally-conscious, all-embracing cashmere collection – is inspired by the Oasi Zegna nature park in the lush Biella Alps
By Jack Moss • Published
-
Lynda Benglis’ seductive hall of mirrors and juicy neon eggs in London
American artist Lynda Benglis subverts expectations with new bronze sculptures and otherworldly coloured eggs in a new solo show at Thomas Dane Gallery, London
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Published
-
Lasting Joy Brewery injects design sophistication to Hudson Valley farmland
Lasting Joy Brewery by Auver Architecture brings contemporary energy and sophistication to the growing Hudson Valley craft beer scene
By Pei-Ru Keh • Published
-
Khanna Schultz’s House in Michigan is an exercise in balancing contrasts
House in Michigan by Khanna Schultz was conceived to fulfil contrasting needs – and does so with poise and efficiency
By Ellie Stathaki • Published
-
Marfa’s El Cosmico campground hotel is getting a 3D-printed revamp
El Cosmico in Marfa, Texas, is being reimagined by BIG, 3D-printing specialist Icon and hotelier Liz Lambert
By Pei-Ru Keh • Published
-
Sonoma home gets dramatic flowing studio extension
Mourning Dovecote by Schwartz and Architecture is a Sonoma home’s eye-catching studio extension for an architect
By Ellie Stathaki • Published
-
Black Creativity in architecture celebrated in Chicago exhibition
New exhibition in Chicago is centred on honouring Black Creativity in architecture through the ages
By Audrey Henderson • Published
-
Highgrove House is an architect’s own home embedded in Malibu nature
A family home in tune with its surroundings, Highgrove House by Lorcan O'Herlihy is sensitive architecture embedded in Malibu nature
By Ellie Stathaki • Published
-
Palm Springs Modernism Week 2023: architects reveal desert’s best-kept secrets
As Palm Springs Modernism Week 2023 unfolds, we’ve spoken to architects and designers participating in the festivities to pick their brains about the desert city’s hidden gems
By Ellie Stathaki • Published
-
A gem among the midcentury homes of California, this is Clear Oak
A gem among the midcentury homes of California, Clear Oak by Woods Dangaran, is an artfully renovated residence in Los Angeles
By Ellie Stathaki • Published