‘침묵과 빛’의 건축가, 루이스 칸(Louis I.Kahn,1901~1974)

1901년 에스토니아라는 나라에서 유태인으로 출생.

1905년 가족이 미국으로 이주. 이곳에서 펜실바니아 대학을 졸업하고 건축 디자이너로 일한다. 건축 디자이너로 일하면서 여러 공동 작업을 완성했으나, 1948년 이후 사망할 때까지 줄곧 혼자 작업하게 된다.

그는 1947년부터 1957년까지 예일 대학의 건축학 교수이자 건축 평론가로 활동했으며, 이후엔 펜실바니아 대학의 학장을 지낼 정도로 건축학 분야에서 잘 나가던 인물이었다. 그는 1971년 AIA 금메달을 수상하고, 1972년 RIBA 금메달을 수상했으며, 미국 예술학회(American Academy of Arts and Letters) 회원으로 뽑히는 등 20세기 최고의 건축가 중 하나로 인정받고 있었다.

그러나, 그가 실제로 작업하던 건축 사무소는 지독한 적자에 허덕였고,

(그는 건축을 돈으로 한 것이 아니라 예술 작업처럼 했다. 말하자면, 자본주의 체제로부터 벗어난 건축 예술가. 항상 손해만 봤다.)

그의 사생활은 난장판 그 자체였다.

그는 죽기 직전까지 3집 살림을 동시에 했는데, 각 집마다 아이가 하나씩 있었다.

그 중 하나인 아들 나타니엘은 아주 버림 받아, 아들은 유년기 이후 단 한번도 아버지 루이스 칸의 얼굴을 보지 못했으며, 루이스 칸 역시 자신에게 아들이 있다고 누구에게도 말하지 않았다.

루이스 칸과 그의 아들 나타니엘.
루이스 칸은 곧 아들을 버린다.

(그에겐 공식적으로 본부인에게 낳은 딸 하나 밖에 없었다.)

그리고, 1974년 3월 인도로 출장갔다가 돌아오던 중 뉴욕의 기차 정거장 화장실에서 심장마비로 세상을 떠났다. 73세의 나이였다. 당시 그는 신분증을 갖고 있지 않아서 뉴욕의 시체 안치소에서 며칠 동안 방치되었다고 한다.

루이스 칸의 버려진 아들 나타니엘은 아버지의 실체를 찾기 위해 다큐멘터리를 만들었고, 

(이 다큐멘터리는 아카데미 상에 후보로도 오른다.)

나타니엘은 필름 안에서 어머니에게 우리에게 몹쓸짓을 한 아버지가 아니었냐고 혼자 살아가기 힘들지 않았느냐고 묻는다. 그러나 어머니는 그가 그렇게 행동한 건 그럴만한 가치가 있었다고 말할 뿐.

그리고 나타니엘은 드디어 아버지의 마지막 “유작”인 방글라데시 국회 의사당을 만난다. 이곳에서 루이스 칸은 수익성 없는 가난한 나라의 프로젝트를 맡아 혼심의 힘을 기울여 왔다. 그는 노구를 이끌고 방글라데시 인들과 함께 허허벌판 위에 위대한 자신의 마지막 역작을 남겼고,

그는 방글라데시의 땅 위에, 방글라데시 인들의 가슴 속에 영원히 살아 숨쉬게 된다.

방글라데시 국회 의사당.
루이스 칸의 필생의 역작이다.

 

루이스 칸이 건축사에서 차지하는 위치는 다음으로 설명될 수 있을 듯 하다. 칸 이전의 건축이 형태를 결정하는 요인을 기능에 두었다면, 칸 이후의 건축물의 형태는 인간의 기본 욕구에 따르도록 설계되었다. 현대에 들어서 설계되고 만들어진 건축물이 기능성, 디자인 (그리고 최근에는 건강)등등의 복합적인 요소가 들어가는 그 모든 이유가 인간의 욕구에 충실하다는 것을 보면 칸의 영향이 얼마나 대단한지 알 수 있을 듯 하다.


그의 건축물들..

 

July 27, 2005

MSO’s managing director, Trevor Green, says MSO Pops is a way of growing the
Photo: Gary Medlicott

With its face to the future, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is going pop, reports Robin Usher.

Classical music in the 21st century is no place for musical snobs. The need to find new audiences under the pressure of changing musical tastes means orchestras are always seeking to expand their repertoire to appeal to as many people as possible.

While the Melbourne Symphony will celebrate its centenary next year, its managing director, Trevor Green, faces the challenge of ensuring it will still be performing over the next 100 years.

“Our traditional concerts constitute our core business and generate around $5 million a year,” he says. “They’re not changing, but we have to find ways to grow the business.”

He’s introducing a new class of concerts next year, MSO Pops, a series of four programs performed on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons.

“The whole point about the MSO is that we should be able to offer something for everyone,” Green says. “So we need to continue to diversify our output.”

He’s expecting some criticism, but insists the new series will be an extra to the orchestra’s existing performing calendar.

He compares the traditional concerts with reading the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky – too difficult for beginners. By contrast, the first Pops program in March features the music of George Gershwin, including Rhapsody in Blue, Summertime and An American in Paris.

“The idea is to create a subbrand of the MSO. If that points audiences to our other concerts, well and good, but the main aim is to build up a new market.”

Green’s flair for new ventures has already attracted an extra 50,000 people to the orchestra this year, for an increased revenue of about $500,000. The new business has come from such ventures as supporting jazz singer Harry Connick jnr and kd lang, as well as this month’s Classical Spectacular offering in Melbourne and Sydney.

The orchestra also performed the music to Bugs Bunny cartoons in a show produced in partnership with the Arts Centre.

“Shows like these are great publicity for the orchestra,” Green says. “People become aware that we’re around, and enough are coming to see these shows to make a real difference to our (financial) bottom line this year.”

The MSO is big business. Its annual turnover of $20 million is expected to grow to $21 million next year. It has an international reputation after tours to Europe, China and St Petersburg.

But he says audiences for traditional concerts aren’t growing. “Subscribers are getting older, even though our renewal rate is above 90 per cent, which is fantastic by overseas standards,” he says.

Numbers are increasing by about 150 a year, but total subscribers remain below 20,000. This consistency would be the envy of orchestras in the US and Britain.

English conductor Mark Wigglesworth noted when he was here in May that classical music is in poor health around the world. When he was in Pittsburgh earlier this year, audiences at the three performances ranged from a quarter to half-full, making attendances at Hamer Hall’s three concert series seem remarkably healthy.

“In London, we only give one concert, which, of course, will always be full,” he says. “Pittsburgh would sell out, too, if there was only one concert.”

The MSO pioneered the diversification into pop music when it formed a partnership with Elton John in 1986 to support his performances. This has continued, backing such acts as Kiss and Meat Loaf.

The Classical Spectacular concerts, with light shows and fireworks, were introduced in Britain by Raymond Gubbay in the ’80s and are now diversifying into popular operas. They were first performed by the MSO in partnership with the promoter Michael Edgely in 2000.

But this month’s concerts in Melbourne and Sydney were organised by Green and attracted a total of 25,000 people to the combined forces of the MSO, the Melbourne Chorale and Bands of the Royal Australian Air Force.

“It was new to Sydney, but we took $1 million in Melbourne for two concerts in one day. We have to pay the bills, but that’s still a good return for us.”

Green’s decision to introduce the Pops concerts next year, which will include film music, Peter and the Wolf and Christmas favourites, was partly inspired by childhood memories in England, when he first attended a symphony concert in the 1950s.

He attended a performance conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham – the legendary conductor who died in 1961, renowned for his Lollipops concerts.

“I was so excited that I’ve never forgotten the experience. I had no idea whether the music was Italian, French or Chinese, but I was amazed by the incredible sound,” he says. “No system of reproduction, whether CD or DVD, can kill off live music, because there’s nothing that can equal it.”

The introduction of a Pops series would seem to infringe on the territory of the unsubsidised Australian Pops Orchestra, which usually performs three or four concerts of lighter classics a year.

But Green says he believes the orchestra’s manager, Kel McMillan, was planning to retire before the latter suddenly changed his mind. “But I don’t think there’s any conflict,” he says.

McMillan agrees, saying there was no clash because of different repertoires and the continuing loyalty of the two audiences, pointing out the Best of British concert on August 6 was typical of the APO’s offerings.

“The MSO program is slightly more classical than what we do,” he says. “We wouldn’t consider doing Peter and the Wolf for our audience. It’s frightening that everyone seems to be getting older, but there’s room for everyone.”

Sat Jul 9, 1:15 PM ET

PARIS (Reuters) – Claude Simon, the last French writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, has died at the age of 91, Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said on Saturday.

French media said Simon died in Paris on Wednesday but the news was kept private until after his burial on Saturday.

Donnedieu de Vabres hailed Simon, a writer of France’s so-called “nouveau roman” (new novel) movement alongside Alain Robbe-Grillet and Nathalie Sarraute, as a key figure in contemporary literature. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1985.

“This novelist incarnates the renewal of French literature in the post-war period,” he said of the author of “The Wind” (1957), and “The Flanders Road” (1960).

“Rejection of conventions, or rather, man’s fundamental originality, are at the heart of his work, the source of his creation,” he added, paying homage to Simon’s writing and his reputation in France and abroad.

Born in Madagascar in 1913, Simon was the son of a cavalry officer killed in World War One. Brought up by his mother in the southern French city of Perpignan, he studied in Paris and at Oxford and Cambridge and fought in World War II.

Captured by the Germans in May 1940, he escaped to join the French Resistance and completed his first novel “The Trickster” — about the 1940 collapse of France — in 1945.

He later settled in Perpignan and grew vines.

His writing often focuses on the permanence of objects and people that have survived through the upheavals of contemporary history.

A cycle of four books: “The Grass,” “The Flanders Road,” “The Palace” and “History,” contain recurrent characters and events.

His style mixes narrative with passages of stream of consciousness untroubled by punctuation — some of his sentences are 1,000 words long — but critics say his works remain readable despite their apparent difficulty.