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, a gathering 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.

Excerpt from a lecture given at Pratt Institute. Published as «1973: Brooklyn, New York,» in Perspecta, The Yale Architectural Journal, volume 19, 1982.

Site plan, Roosevelt Memorial. Colored pencil and charcoal on paper. December 11, 1973. Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.