The John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial is a monument to United States president John Fitzgerald Kennedy in the West End Historic District of downtown Dallas, Texas, United States, erected in 1970, and designed by noted architect Philip Johnson.

[4] The simple concrete memorial lies in the block bounded by Main, Record, Commerce, and Market streets, approximately 200 yards (180 m) east of Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was assassinated.

The corners and "doors" of this roofless room are decorated with rows of concrete circles, or medallions, each identical and perfectly aligned.

[7] The cenotaph lies atop a low concrete hill, embossed with squares and slightly elevated compared to street level.

The granite square is decorated on its north and south faces with the name "John Fitzgerald Kennedy" carved in gold letters.

The letters have been painted gold to capture the light from the white floating column walls and the pale concrete floor.

[7] Two dark granite squares are set in the plaza surrounding the memorial, each approximately 50 feet (15 m) from the narrow entrances to the cenotaph.

Dallas County Judge Lew Sterrett was credited as the first to propose a monument to Kennedy on November 24, 1963, two days after the assassination.

[15] Committee member Stanley Marcus flew to New York and successfully asked Philip Johnson to take on the memorial design, which he did for no fee.

Numerous local suppliers donated the labor, materials, and equipment required to return the memorial to its original beauty.

"[14] Architectural critic Witold Rybczynski wrote in 2006 that the monument is "poorly done", likening its precast concrete slab walls to "mammoth Lego blocks", and commented that Kennedy "deserved better than this".

[18] On the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination, Dallas Morning News architecture critic Mark Lamster called the monument "a disappointing product of the city's ambivalent response to the events of November 1963" and said that Johnson lacked "an animating vision that might have produced an inspiring design.

[19] Lamster also noted the similarities between Johnson's design and the unrealized Neue Wache redesign proposal for a war memorial in Berlin, created in 1930 by Mies van der Rohe.