In 1971, Welfare Island, which was primarily used for hospitals, was renamed Roosevelt Island and a monument was to be build to commemorate the late president Franklin D. Roosevelt. American architect Louis Kahn completed the memorial designs in 1973, but the project was shelved indefinitely due to the city’s near-bankruptcy at this time. In 2005, a documentary film by Kahn’s son and a Cooper Union exhibition raised awareness of the memorial and $52 million in funding. Construction began in 2010 and on October 17, 2012, the memorial opened to the public – almost 40 years after it was first conceived.
In his 1941 State of the Union speech, Roosevelt declared “Four Freedoms” – of speech and expression, and from want and fear – as basic human rights. With these in mind, he navigated the nation out of the Great Depression, through the Second World War, and finally toward peace and prosperity. His New Deal program provided work for architects like Kahn, who in turn contributed to community housing projects. Kahn shared the president’s optimism and felt that architects, too, had a social responsibility to serve the public.
The memorial adheres closely to Kahn’s original vision, which specifies 140,000 cubic feet of North Carolinian granite from Mount Airy, and the planting of beech and linden trees. Kahn leaves 1-inch gaps between the 36-ton granite blocks, which are highly polished only on the inside of the gap, playfully reflecting views from the other side. The centerpiece, a 1,050-pound bronze head of Roosevelt, was sculpted by Jo Davidson in 1933. The entire site had to be elevated fifteen inches to account for climate change. The site’s resemblance to a ship is a nod to Roosevelt’s love for the sea. The once Assistant Secretary of the Navy was also an avid collector of nautical paraphernalia.
This park is not just a memorial to Roosevelt, but also to Kahn. Known for his monumental and monolithic style, Kahn offered an alternative to the glass-and-steel International Style highly favored then. With a keen sense of space and light, Kahn displayed a modernism never before seen in brick and bare concrete. Unfortunately, Kahn did not realize many of his designs as he was difficult to work with and lost money on every project except the Salk Institute, one of his masterpieces. He was half a million dollars in debt when he died from a heart attack at Penn Station in 1973. He was found carrying the designs of the Roosevelt memorial–his last commission and the only one in New York City.
| 1973 | Louis Kahn completes designs |
| 2005 | Documentary made to raise funds |
| 2012 | Four Freedoms Park opens to the public |
| internal | gDoc |