Without a buyer, the architect?s singular steel ship soon headed for scrapyard One of the weirder projects in architect Louis Kahn?s body of work may be facing an untimely end. The unique Point Counterpoint II, a 195-foot-long floating concert hall commissioned by the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, may dock for the last time in its present form. Without a new buyer, the concert hall may soon be torn off and turned into scrap at the end of the month, with the underlying barge turned into a simple vessel to move goods.
The boat is an extreme outlier in the Kahn oeuvre, one dominated by powerful, towering modernist architecture such as the Salk Institute. The stainless steel barge first set sail during 1976. Conductor Robert Austin Boudreau asked his friend Kahn to design the unique floating music hall in the ?60s. The project was finished after the architect?s passing in 1974, just as the country?s birthday celebration reached a fevered pitch, and served as a bold, whimsical way to celebrate the Bicentennial. Ever since, it?s helped the group ?make cultural waves on the waterfront,? serving as a mobile venue. The centerpiece of the double-hulled, self-propelled river showboat is the hydraulically-operated 25-foot-tall stage that opens up like a clam shell when the boat is docked and ready for a performance, and lowers after concerts so the vessel can slip under bridges.

The boat?s stage opened dramatically during the beginning of concerts

Sinc...