Louis Kahn’s greatest piece of architecture wasn’t a building at all – and wasn’t completed for decades after his death.
At Derwent London, we have always drawn inspiration from architectural past masters. One such was Louis Kahn (1901-74), an American architect based in Philadelphia who founded his own practice in 1935. He also served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957. Kahn designed some notable buildings: the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth (1967); the Salk Institute in San Diego (1965); the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven (1969) and the National Assembly Building of Bangladesh in Dhaka (1982).
However, I have chosen a lesser-known Kahn project, which wasn’t an actual building at all. The memorial built to honour Franklin D. Roosevelt was constructed as a four-acre park on Roosevelt Island, a small strip of land stretching out across New York’s East River; it is bounded on one side by 30th Street and on the other by the Queensboro Bridge, with a clear view of the United Nations Secretariat Building.
Kahn was asked to design the park together with an accompanying monument of President Roosevelt, in what happened to be one of his last works before he died in 1974. However, the project was substantially delayed due to funding problems and not actually completed until 38 years after Kahn’s death. His designs were continued by Mitchell Giurgola, an architect who kept strictly to Kahn’s original intentions. It was an exhibition at the Cooper Union in 2005 that brought attention back to Kahn’s project and helped it finally move forward, although building work was not actually initiated until 2010. The park and monument were eventually dedicated in a ceremony on 17 October 2012. Participants included former president Bill Clinton and former mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The monument itself is a simplified, roofless and contemporary version of a Greek temple, constructed in Mount Airy granite sourced from the North Carolina Granite Corporation. More than 140,000 cubic feet of granite was used, forming a stunningly beautiful runway of stone that ends at the bronze bust of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Kahn placed five copper beech trees at the memorial’s entrance as well as 120 little-leaf lindens in symmetrical groupings that lead up to the monument, giving the park a somehow spiritual atmosphere.
I was fortunate enough to visit this shrine to FDR, and what struck me was Kahn’s particular form of minimalist approach. I’ve always admired his choice and use of materials on his projects, especially the beautiful natural stones, which were often contrasted with exquisite timbers and exposed concrete, all resonating so strongly. Consequently, I’m a big fan of his Yale Center for British Art, which has had a strong influence on some of Derwent London’s projects.
At Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park, as it later became known, Kahn kept to the Miesian principle of ‘less is more’. It’s an exquisite piece of landscape design, which captures an atmosphere of calmness and tranquillity. It’s often styled ‘Hyde Park on the East River’ – but as a Londoner I feel that description, whilst charming, does not do it full justice. Four Freedoms is totally unique: a serene, uplifting place and simply exquisite to behold. Like all the best architecture, it has wonderful dimension and scale.
On arriving at the island, you are met by an imposing set of beautifully scaled steps; nothing at that stage is revealed until one walks to the top. There you reach a triangular plain, lined with the long row of lindens that leads and eventually squeezes you towards the stunning bronze bust of the former president, which was designed by sculptor Jo Davidson. Inscribed on the back of the monument of this sacred shrine is Roosevelt’s famous speech, which emphasised his ‘Four Freedoms’: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. This was the speech that was intended to persuade Americans to enter the second world war to combat the emerging force of German Nazism – an extremely strong message expressed within an aesthetically light and rather wonderful wrapping.
Kahn’s own words, used to describe his original strategy in a lecture given in 1973, are: “I had thought that a memorial should provide a room and a garden.” He also said: “The garden is somehow a personal kind of control of nature and the room was the beginning of architecture.”
Four Freedoms became a New York state park when it opened on 24 October 2012. It is a brilliant and wonderful piece of work by one of the world’s great architects, and it provides a spiritual heart to New York City – a memorial not only to FDR and the New Deal but to Kahn himself. It is also a triumph for New York and for everyone who cares about architecture and the importance of public space.
Aerial photo (C) Stephen Amiaga, used with permission
