“A grove of 35 gingko trees pay tribute to the 35th president, and a mahogany deck evokes the one on PT-109, the torpedo boat whose destruction turned Kennedy into a hero of World War II. The indoor spaces start below Stone’s temple and stretch beneath the south plaza. From that buried arm, three fingers poke up into the landscape designed by Edmund Hollander and play cat’s cradle with a web of pathways. Each of the structures has its own distinctive shadows and shape, but they form a four-part harmony with the city. Look southeast, and the Lincoln Memorial is framed between two upsweeping edges; pivot slightly and a different pair of pavilions sets off the Washington Monument. Turn right, and you can follow the line of a new ramped footbridge that lifts up from the Potomac and alights at the edge of the campus.”
