John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library

Overlooking Boston, Dorchester Bay, and the ocean beyond, the former landfill site was planted with beach grass to recall Kennedy’s love of the sea. A split-level design organizes museum spaces in a layer below ground, with key emotive elements dramatically isolated above. The building consists of a triangular 10-story tower housing archival, educational, and administrative functions; a two-story cylindrical base containing exhibition space and theaters; and a 110-foot high memorial pavilion, which gives coherence and focus to the whole. A generous stairway meanders around the cylindrical volume and connects the museum to the waterfront.

A 21,000-square-foot waterfront addition, supporting the library’s educational and cultural programs, was completed in 1991.

To accommodate the museum’s extensive program, the tallest of these discrete volumes houses archival, educational, and administrative functions, while the podium contains exhibition space, theaters, and a generous stairway that connects the museum to the waterfront.

From the darkened setting of the lower exhibition areas, visitors emerge into the sun-filled, silent void of the space-framed glass pavilion. Except for an enormous American flag suspended above, the atrium’s double-height space is starkly empty, allowing viewers time to contemplate their experience against a panorama of sky, land, and open sea.