Saving Louis Kahn's floating concert ship

Louis Kahn's floating concert hall faces demolition

Courtesy spablab

A floating masterpiece is sending out an SOS. A concert hall on a barge designed by Louis Kahn may wind up in a Louisiana scrapyard if a buyer does not come forward with $2 million. "Point Counterpoint II" was commissioned by Robert Boudreau shortly before Kahn's death in 1974. SInce 1976, Boudreau has been taking orchestras to perform small towns on waterways throughout America. Now, at 90, he wants to sell what he calls "the last of the showboats."

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma sounded the alarm in a letter to the New York Review of Books. Now one town has expressed interest in buying it: Kingston, New York. It's in the Hudson River Valley, near Woodstock, and city officials dream of docking the barge at a former brick factory on the river that's been converted into an events space. They are looking for an angel to help foot the bill.