This is one of the last works of the great architect Louis Kahn (he had the drawings with him when he died in 1974). It took several decades and not a few legal battles to get to the opening ceremony in October 2012 and the completion of the park to Kahn’s original vision.
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The park, on the south end of Roosevelt Island and in view of the United Nations on the Manhattan Shore, celebrates the Four Freedoms Frnklin D. Roosevelt articulated in his 1941 State of the Union address.
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Said Kahn: “I had this thought that a memorial should be a room and a garden. That’s all I had.” A double row of trees narrows as the visitor approaches the outdoor room – a visual device that Kahn used in one of his most famous works, the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.
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The location – within sight of the intensity of Manhattan and new development on the Long Island shore, but sufficiently separated by water and a walk – make this a contemplative and aesthetic experience of great power.
