The founders of Washington’s Gorge Amphitheatre are working on building a new venue near the famous open-air concert venue.
The Hilltop, the arts and entertainment nonprofit run by Gorge founders Vince and Carol Bryan, announced yesterday that they’ve selected ZGF Architects to design The Grotto at The Hilltop, a new indoor concert hall rising above the Columbia River Gorge.
Drawing inspiration from the basalt cliffs and expansive skies of the region, The Grotto is designed to emerge from and connect to the landscape and aspires to be the most sustainable performance venue in the country, according to a press release.
ZGF is hailed by the Hilltop as one of the nation’s leading environmentally sustainable architecture firms, with a portfolio that includes the California Science Center’s Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, Google’s Spruce Goose office, and the Navy SEAL Museum San Diego, among other projects.
“We want the environment to be the structure for the architect to work with—not impose a structure on it, but to look to the environment as it is, embracing the elements where they are, and allowing them to dictate the structure,” Hilltop founder Vince Bryan said in a statement.
Inside, the new venue will aim to “balance exceptional acoustics with an immersive audience experience,” per the release.
The Grotto is one of two new performance venues The Hilltop is building on its site in Quincy, Washington, to be set up as a nonprofit cultural destination “where arts, science, environment and the human experience come together,” according to the group.
Alongside educational prorams and community experiences, The Hilltop’s inaugural SOAR Festival will debut on August 22, featuring performances by acclaimed producer, composer, and songwriter David Foster, Broadway vocalist Katharine McPhee, and the Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra.
Fore more information, visit thehilltop.org.
Featured image courtesy: ZGF Architects.