MIT is preparing to officially open the doors of its new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building this February. The new facility, designed by SANAA, is the fourth building designed by architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa in the US. MIT has held classes at Linde Music since the fall semester, efficiently using the space during the final stages of the building’s completion. 

Although a twenty-first-century music conservatory may strike some among the public as an unexpected addition to a premier engineering school, MIT students and faculty enthusiastically greet the new facility.

Music: The Lesser Known Side of MIT

Fourth-year MIT electronic engineering and computer science student Mariano Salcedo shared that until the fall semester, he had been planning to seek a graduate degree in computer science. That all changed when he encountered the music classes held in the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building, which opened this fall for a selection of classes. 

“Now, instead of going into computer science, I’m thinking of applying for the master’s program in Music Technology, which is being offered here for the first time next year,” Salcedo said. “The decision is definitely linked to the building, and what the building says about music at MIT.” 

Better known for its work in STEM, MIT has nonetheless had an enduring tradition of music education. Over 1,500 students register for music classes at MIT each academic year. MIT also hosts 30 on-campus ensembles, of which 500 students participate. 

Yet faculty and students alike have long expressed yearning for a dedicated space for instruction and rehearsal. Previously, spaces for music practice were divided between various facilities and were insufficiently insulated, allowing sound to leak through the walls. MIT also lacked an ideal facility for large performances; its Kresge Auditorium had adequate seating, but the building was not designed with acoustics in mind.

Jay Scheib, the new section head for Music and Theater Arts at MIT, remarked, “It would be very difficult to teach biology or engineering in a studio designed for dance or music. The same goes for teaching music in a mathematics or chemistry classroom. In the past, we’ve done it, but it did limit us.”

Designed for the Musicians of the 21st Century

MIT President Sally Kornbluth recently praised the new building, suggesting it will “give MIT musicians the conservatory-level tools they deserve.” Constructed on the location of a former parking lot, the three-story, red-brick Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building looks like a rather striking, bold cube, but given its use, it is the inside that counts. 

Notable Achievements

What SAANA has achieved with the new 35,000-square-foot conservatory is a facility in which every element—each performance space, rehearsal space, classroom, and even the stainless steel panels that comprise the canopies overlooking the building’s entrances—has been imagined, designed, and constructed to provide the ideal acoustics for music instruction and practice.

Even while construction continued, students had the opportunity to participate in the first music classes to be held in the building over the past few months. Topics of study included Conducting and Score Reading, Advanced Music Performance, and Electronic Music Composition. 

Various musical groups housed at MIT also had the opportunity to explore and perform in the new space. Faculty, students, and visitors to the building during the fall could hear strains of jazz combos, the Balinese Gamelan, and the Rambax Senegalese Drum Ensemble, performing in a box-in-box rehearsal space featuring alternating curved wall panels, where the first set of panels reflects sound and the second absorbs it.

“For many of us at MIT, music is very close to our hearts,” President Kornbluth noted in a campus release. “And the new building now puts music right at the heart of the campus… The beautiful performance hall will exert its own gravitational pull, drawing audiences from across campus and the larger community who love live music.”