Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park
Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park | |
---|---|
Four Freedoms Park Conservancy | |
Visitors | 176,372 (in 2021)[1] |
Status | Open all year |
Website | https://fdrfourfreedomspark.org/ |
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park is a four-acre (1.6 ha) memorial to
History
Context
President Roosevelt made his
Roosevelt Island was named in honor of the former president in 1973, and the planners announced their intention to build a memorial to Roosevelt at the island's southern tip.
Construction and opening
Louis Kahn was asked to design the monument in 1972. Four Freedoms Park is one of Kahn's last works.
An exhibition at Cooper Union in 2005 brought additional attention and helped to advance the project.[9] In 2006, ENYA (Emerging New York Architects) made the island's abandoned southern end the subject of one of its annual competitions. Groundbreaking took place in 2010.[10] However, the park was tied up in litigation during its construction.[5]
The park was dedicated in a ceremony on October 17, 2012.
Architecture
In a 1973 lecture at Pratt Institute, Kahn said:[13]
I had this thought that a memorial should be a room and a garden. That's all I had. Why did I want a room and a garden? I just chose it to be the point of departure. The garden is somehow a personal nature, a personal kind of control of nature. And the room was the beginning of architecture. I had this sense, you see, and the room wasn't just architecture, but was an extension of self.
The four-acre (1.6 ha) park[14] stands at the southernmost point of Roosevelt Island. Looking south, the visitor has a clear view of the headquarters of the United Nations (particularly the United Nations Secretariat Building); to the north of the park is the Queensboro Bridge, which spans the East River.[3] Approaching from the north, the visitor passes between a double row of trees that narrow as they approach the point, framing views of the New York skyline and the harbor.[6] The memorial is a procession of elegant open-air spaces, culminating in a 3,600-square-foot (330 m2) plaza surrounded by 28 blocks of North Carolina granite, each weighing 36 tons.[3] The courtyard contains a bust of Roosevelt, sculpted in 1933 by Jo Davidson.[8]
At the point, the monument itself is a simplified, roofless version of a Greek temple in granite.[6] Excerpts from Roosevelt's Four Freedoms speech are carved on the walls of this room-like space, which is open to the sky above.
The memorial is constructed entirely in Mount Airy Granite sourced from the North Carolina Granite Corporation. Over 140,000 cubic feet (4,000 m3) of Mount Airy Granite was used in the memorial's construction. In contrast with the hard granite forms, Kahn placed five copper-beech trees at the memorial's entrance and 120 little-leaf lindens in allées leading up to the monument.[3]
See also
References
- ^ "State Park Annual Attendance Figures by Facility: Beginning 2003 | State of New York". data.ny.gov. Retrieved September 12, 2022.
- ^ vanden Heuvel, William J. "Memorial Park Honoring Franklin D. Roosevelt". Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. Archived from the original on September 21, 2022.
- ^ a b c d Tyrnauer, Matt (October 19, 2012). "Hyde Park on the East River". Vanity Fair. Retrieved November 14, 2012.
- ^ Beyer, Gregory (January 23, 2009). "As No. 44 Arrives, a Park for No. 32?". The New York Times. Retrieved July 23, 2011.
- ^ a b Foderaro, Lisa W. (October 15, 2012). "A Monument to Roosevelt, on the Eve of Dedication, Is Mired in a Dispute With Donors". The New York Times. Retrieved October 16, 2012.
- ^ a b c Iovine, Julie V. (January 9, 2005). "An Elegy for a Memorial, and for the Man Who Designed It". The New York Times. Retrieved July 23, 2011.
- ^ Roberts, Sam (April 15, 2010). "For a Roosevelt Memorial, a Groundbreaking 36 Years in the Making". The New York Times. Retrieved July 23, 2011.
- ^ a b Mortice, Zach (August 14, 2009). "Its Quiet Optimism Maintained, Louis Kahn's Roosevelt Island FDR Memorial Moves into Construction". AIArchitect. Archived from the original on July 23, 2011. Retrieved July 23, 2011.
- ^ "Coming to Light: The Louis I. Kahn Monument to Franklin D. Roosevelt for New York City". Cooper Union. 2005. Archived from the original on June 17, 2006.
- ^ Nordhauser, Alyssa (September 14, 2010). "Kahn's Four Freedoms Park Finally Breaks Ground". The Architect's Newspaper. Retrieved July 23, 2011.
- ^ a b Foderaro, Lisa W. (October 17, 2012). "Dedicating Park to Roosevelt and His View of Freedom". The New York Times. Retrieved November 14, 2012.
- ^ Ilnytzky, Ula (October 17, 2012). "Decades late, FDR memorial park dedicated in NYC". Yahoo! News. Associated Press. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012.
- ^ Louis Kahn, "1973: Brooklyn, New York," Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal, vol. 19 (1982)
- ^ "Section O: Environmental Conservation and Recreation, Table O-9" (PDF). 2014 New York State Statistical Yearbook. The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. 2014. p. 672. Retrieved June 2, 2016.
Further reading
- Coming to Light: The Louis I. Kahn Monument to Franklin D. Roosevelt for New York City, an exhibition at Cooper Union. Essays and drawings
- "A Roosevelt for Roosevelt Island" (editorial), New York Times, November 5, 2007, New York Times
- Rago, Danielle. "FDR Finally Comes Home," in The Architect's Newspaper, June 26, 2009
- Ilnytsky, Ula. "Decades late, FDR memorial park dedicated in NYC," October 18, 2009
- Sully, Nicole (2019). "Architecture from the Ouija Board: Louis Kahn's Roosevelt Memorials and the Posthumous Monuments of Modernism". Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand. 29 (1): 60–85. S2CID 191998111.
External links
- Official website
- FDR Four Freedoms Park digital education resource
- NYS Parks website
- Four Freedoms Park (pictures and info in spanish)