A sunny and (relatively) warm President’s Day saw a few Masters of Architecture students out on Roosevelt Island, enjoying some time out of the studio and taking in the work of the late master architect, Louis Kahn. Kahn’s FDR Four Freedoms Park, located on the southern tip of the island, was not finished during his lifetime. In a respectful turn of events that every architect can only hope for, the design Kahn completed in 1973 was constructed posthumously, opening for the first time in 2012. The park has a magnificent view of the city – Brooklyn to the east, the Williamsburg Bridge to the south, the United Nations on the immediate west bank and a detailed Manhattan skyline behind it. With the Cornell Tech Campus that will soon grow up behind it, Four Freedoms Park maintains an important historic legacy in a place that will soon become a hub for the future.
photo by Luke Erickson