Four Freedoms Foundation
Jessica Manrrubia TeliniThe Four Freedoms Foundation is a proposed museum on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. Taking inspiration from President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms Speech written in 1941, this project seeks to celebrate and reflect upon the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear.
The museum is organized around a central grand hall that vertically and horizontally connects various programmatic spaces. To maintain a continuity of landscape through the site, below and above-grade sections are conceptualized as heavy and light architecture, respectively. Below grade, non-uniform rectangular volumes recall an archeological site, creating an intimate, introspective atmosphere for the library as well as the Freedom of Worship and Freedom from Fear galleries. Above grade, the lightness of the cafe and galleries for the Freedom of Expression and Freedom from Want create a transparent and ethereal ambience.
A steel space-frame canopy resembling the nearby Queensboro Bridge shelters the museum from summer sun exposure. The bridge concept is further explored in the voids between the rectangular volumetry of the galleries, producing unobstructed views of the city and the Foundation’s surrounding context. Just as important as the museum’s interior spaces, these mezzanine bridges create a fifth freedom: the Freedom to Wander. A park with various squares and an amphitheater to the south expands this additional freedom. This is the most public space of the museum, and therefore a political space. It is a place of gathering and debate and where the philosophy of the four freedoms resides.
Jessica Manrrubia Telini has a Master of Architecture from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, graduating with an Excellence in Design award. She aspires to a career in teaching and architectural research.
This project was published as part of Transect Volume 5: Pedagogy (2024), Jacob Swanson, Daniel Girgis, Dhruvi Rajpopat, Fatima Fardos, Jimenna Alcantar, Elizabeth Kowalchuk, eds.