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ATHENS RIVIERA JOURNAL
culture
Musique Stochastique F rom the enclaves of Romania’s Greek OPPOSITE PAGE FROM LEFT: INSTALLATION VIEW (LEFT TO RIGHT): PHILIPS PAVILION (ARCHITECTURAL MODEL), DIATOPE DE BEAUBOURG (ARCHITECTURAL MODEL) COURTESY: RIJKSMUSEUM AND ΧENAKIS FAMILY ARCHIVES. PHOTO BY PARIS TAVITIAN. IN THE MIDDLE: IANNIS XENAKIS AND LE CORBUSIER DEPARTING FOR BRUSSELS, 1958. PHOTO BY SABENA PRESS AND INFORMATION AGENCY © COLLECTION XENAKIS FAMILY DR. THIS PAGE: ΙANNIS XENAKIS, PARIS 1968. PHOTO BY SABINE WEISS © COLLECTION XENAKIS F
diaspora to the front lines of the Greek re-
an active member of the resistance, a fight that he kept
sistance in WWII and from there to Le Cor-
up for years, even after shrapnel from a tank blast caused
busier’s Paris studio and to the avant gar-
him permanent loss of sight in one eye. With increasing
de of 20th century music, Iannis Xenakis
led a life by all accounts extraordinary and persecution of former resistance members, he went
into hiding and fled Greece under an assumed identity,
left behind a lasting legacy that still resonates today. arriving in Paris in November 1947. Back in Greece, he An accomplished architect,
Xenakis worked alongside
The scintillating otherness Born to Greek parents in Brăila, Romania, in 1922, and was sentenced to death in absentia. Le Corbusier on major
In Paris, Xenakis got a job at Le Corbusier architecture
sent to boarding school in Greece ten years later, from a
projects including the famed
of Ioannis Xenakis’s aesthetic young age Xenakis demonstrated exceptional talent in studio, working his way up to collaborating with the Philips Pavilion at Expo
58 in Brussels, bringing a
visionary architect on major projects across France
music, mathematics and physics as well as a passion for
unique understanding of
and as far as India, while also pursuing his passion for
philosophy and ancient and traditional Greek culture.
explorations. When the Axis powers occupied Greece, he had just composing. A veritable firebrand in his approach to architecture and spatial
design that can also be
enrolled at university in Athens to study architecture and
music, he faced multiple rejections before eventually >
discerned in his music.
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