New Lou Kahn park in New York, Roosevelt Island

Thanks for the post. This is just …..Meh? Probably should not have ever been built, especially since he is already memorialized on the Mall. Halprin’s, while still much too large, is much, much nicer. I think I’ll pass, much.

A tapered lawn and flanking allées of littleleaf linden trees converge from atop a 100-foot-wide ceremonial staircase, pointing toward the tip of the island as if stretching toward infinity. 

Reminds me of the numbing power of the forced-lines of the vista from the plaza space between the buildings at the Salk Institute. Perhaps one of Kahn’s most enduring and powerful spaces that will last the ages. 

Other than that, I share Jason R’s viewpoint and add that I have never visited Halprin’s FDR memorial in Washington DC, but vividly recall his presentation to National Park Service landscape architects (of which I was one) several years before construction started on it. Even then, I intrinsically knew it would be a very powerful and moving creation, telling a compelling story. In that regard I’m sure it does not disappoint. 

On the contrary, Kahn’s memorial seems to supremely disappoint. Yeah, I get the modernist, sculptural space aspects of it all, and the nearly monolithic use of concrete as the predominant material is so trademark Kahn…. But where is the storyline to inform the visitor ? 

One thing that really stuck out to me about this article that seem to be missing was this. Who or what agency was the watchful vigilant over the Kahn design and protected it for short of 40 years later allowing it to actually be built, whether it should have or not ? Now there is a story …… 

I agree with the overdone “literal” narrative of the DC memorial, which seem to be the way of the memorials built after the abstract Vietnam memorial. Thats also why I said it was too big. There is no one large tree, as you have mentioned as it is placed in the grove of Japanese Cherry Trees along the Tidal Basin. The one huge tree I think you are referring to is the concept of the Eisenhower memorial that isn’t built yet and hopefully never will be in its current scheme (get rid of the awful Gehry design, please). I was more referring to the great use if water and a “softer” stone (color and texture), and its more human scale from the plantings to the sculpture.

The FDR that Kahn designed is megalomaniacle in scale, material, sparseness, and design. It is of its design era. Really? Monumental stairs that don’t lead to anything? Stark granite walls? It looks like a columbarium with no one interred yet. And what is with the giant floating head? I’m also skeptical of the choice of the trees. In typical brutalist tradition, give it a decade and, if they survive, the trees will far outscale the design. It looks like a really uncomfortable place to be on a sunny day, not like people will really go visit it anyway.