Nashville, Tennesse, USA

Evoking a clean, simplified aesthetic of a historic venue, Blur Workshop enriches the experience of visiting their historic and nationally recognized concert venue by creating spaces beer hall be able to serve the rush of guests before and after a show.

The Beer Hall is part of an entertainment district at a resort hotel, convention center, and performance venue in Nashville, Tennessee.

Named the Opryland Beer Hall, the project has recently been awarded a 2023 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture, Design, and Urban Studies.

They also wanted a space that could be used for events unrelated to the theater. In addition, they wanted a smaller outlet, where guests coming to tour the theater during non-event times could grab lunch or a coffee.

One of the primary challenges was designing a building that could handle extremely large crowds at peak demand times while feeling comfortable on non-event days.

This was done by breaking the massing down into a main space and a series of secondary spaces that flowed together.

The complex is able to seat over 700 people and handle over 500 in one contiguous space, but the architectural vocabulary and attention to detail give it a richness and warmth that brings down the perceived scale.

Another one of the challenges was integrating the design into a heavily wooded environment.

Retaining the existing density of trees was important not only from an environmental standpoint but also because the trees are a significant element in how guests experience the space.

The rear dining deck was designed to hover over the existing root structures and was shaped to respond to the locations of existing trees, including building around two of the larger trees.

An elevated boardwalk touches the ground lightly as it weaves around existing trees, connecting the building to the parking.

This project is located directly adjacent to an existing plaza and historic concert venue while being flanked to the back by a small forest of trees.

The design drew inspiration from the original theater on the site, the Dixie Tabernacle (also known as the Union Gospel Tabernacle) which was built in 1885 but was later lost to a fire.

The space features heavy timber trusses, wood siding with stone accents, and expansive window walls. Connecting to the different environments around the project was a key design driver.

Much attention was paid to designing the facades to bring the outside in during the summer months. Two systems were put in place to achieve this.

The first is a series of large, vertically rotating glass window walls.

The second is a series of large glass vertical lift window walls that serve as openings on the front and rear of the main beer hall.

These openings respond to the exterior and interior seating arrangements and allow for a seamless integration of both during the summer months.

In keeping with the request to keep the building as environmentally responsible as possible the architects utilized the beauty of locally sourced timber and locally fabricated structural steel connections to create the interior aesthetic.

In an effort to conserve electricity in the large interior space, the architects utilized rows of industrial-sized light tubes.

These tubes bring in natural ambient light, even on cloudy days.

Project: Opryland Beer Hall
Architects: BLUR Workshop LLC.
Lead Architect: Scott Sickeler
Design Team: Tim Keepers, Michael Gunter, and Liz Neiswander
Client: Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc.
Photographs: Courtesy of the Architects