Description
Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park is a granite memorial on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, in the East River between Manhattan and Queens. Designed by Louis Kahn, it is a sequence of open-air spaces ending in a plaza on the water, with the United Nations headquarters across the river.
Five copper beeches mark the entrance, and an avenue of 120 linden trees, framing the skyline, leads to a bust of Roosevelt by Jo Davidson, made in 1933.
Beyond it, the plaza is enclosed by 28 blocks of North Carolina granite of about 33 tonnes each. At its heart stands a roofless granite room, like a pared-down Greek temple, carved with words from Roosevelt's 1941 Four Freedoms speech.
Kahn called the design "a room and a garden". He died in 1974 at Pennsylvania Station, carrying the finished drawings, and the park opened only in 2012, almost four decades later.
Five copper beeches mark the entrance, and an avenue of 120 linden trees, framing the skyline, leads to a bust of Roosevelt by Jo Davidson, made in 1933.
Beyond it, the plaza is enclosed by 28 blocks of North Carolina granite of about 33 tonnes each. At its heart stands a roofless granite room, like a pared-down Greek temple, carved with words from Roosevelt's 1941 Four Freedoms speech.
Kahn called the design "a room and a garden". He died in 1974 at Pennsylvania Station, carrying the finished drawings, and the park opened only in 2012, almost four decades later.