Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum

The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum was built in 2001 to replace the museum’s original location on Music Row, which had opened in 1967. The new building, designed by Tuck Hinton Architects, is composed of three principal sections: the conservatory, the museum, and the Hall of Fame. The building’s exterior, which represents an enormous bass clef when viewed from above, is evocative of the business and culture of country music. The building’s first and most obvious musical reference is the giant keyboard formed by the series of vertical windows positioned like ebony keys across the curved front facade. The tail fin of a 1957 Chevrolet inspired the upward swoop of the northwest corner of the facade, and the four-disc tiers of the rotunda roof of the tower emulate the evolution of recording—the 78, the 33 vinyl LP, the 45, and finally the CD. The radio tower, which serves as the mast of the building and extends upwards and down into the Hall of Fame, is a replica of the broadcast tower of local pioneering country radio station WSM that transmitted its first radio waves in 1932. Additionally, East Tennessee Crab Orchard stone, which is found both inside and out of the building, harkens back to country music’s East Tennessee heritage.

The building underwent a major expansion in 2014, more than doubling its size to 350,000 square feet. The museum’s exhibits were designed by the New York firm Ralph Applebaum Associates, which has worked on numerous exhibits for museums such as the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. The building also houses Hatch Show Print, a local letter press company dating to 1879 and the Taylor Swift Education Center.

Continue in the same direction along Demonbreun to reach the Schermerhorn Symphony Center on your left.