The Chrysalis

The Chrysalis is a multi-purpose pavilion, sculpture, and performance center located in Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods in Columbia, Maryland. Designed by Marc Fornes of THEVERYMANY with Living Design Lab as architect of record, the structure serves as both a performance stage and an open-air civic space, with the capacity to host large events as well as intimate gatherings. Zahner engineered, fabricated, and installed the exterior structure and skin system.

With its name, The Chrysalis pays homage to the larval transitionary stage of a butterfly. With its form, the structure references the low-lying cypress tree seen in the eastern United States marshland — its sweeping, root-like base providing both structural capability and visual drama. The canopy’s low-lying profile also carries an abstract resemblance to the extinct North American megafauna that once roamed the region. Its composition of seemingly identical parts places it in the territory of an architectural superorganism: a form made up of similar, smaller forms.

The Chrysalis is the elegant engineering of concrete, steel & aluminum; and, like the nature of its namesake, it is a beautiful and functional transformative structure that is systemically irregular and seemingly delicate.

Michael McCall, President & CEO, Inner Arbor Trust

The structure features a 60-ton metal skin composed of approximately 4,000 painted aluminum shingles in four shades of green, fabricated at Zahner’s Kansas City facility. Zahner design-engineered the superstructure using 8- and 10-inch tubular rolled steel as the basis for the form, with curved aluminum sections providing the substructure to the shingled skin — all manufactured using Zahner’s ZEPPS™ system for building dual-curved sculptural forms. The reinforced concrete floor slab foundation acts as a diaphragm for the bandshell, supporting its acoustic performance.

Speaking at the “Math of Architecture and Architecture of Math,” lecture presented by the Inner Arbor Trust, Zahner CEO Bill Zahner had this to say about The Chrysalis:

Designing such a one-of-a-kind project “is not simply mechanics,” Zahner said before the event.

“We interject a human element so the end result has a rhythm and cadence,” he said. “There will be only one like it, since we’d get bored if we did anything twice. We are aiming to make it novel and timeless.” McCall said that even though renowned architect Frank Gehry, who designed the Merriweather Post Pavilion, also created “beautiful and crazy buildings with sweeping, curved surfaces,” the Chrysalis will be “a whole other thing, with curvilinear surfaces curving in two directions at the same time.”

He described Zahner’s approach to the project as falling “somewhere between art and architecture.”

Marc Fornes’ design for The Chrysalis was brought to life by a team that included architects of record Living Design Lab, landscape designer Mahan Rykiel, engineer and lighting designer ARUP, contractor Whiting Turner, Walters Group, and Zahner. The project was developed by Inner Arbor Trust, an independent 501(c)(3) created to design, develop, and operate Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods.

The Chrysalis broke ground in September 2015 and opened to the public on April 22, 2017. It is situated adjacent to the Merriweather Post Pavilion within the 16.5-acre Symphony Woods park.