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What Obama’s Billion Dollar Chicago Temple Will Look Like
I imagine an architect working late at night, stumped for a design for the Obama Presidential Library, eating cold take-out Kung Pao chicken. Suddenly, the carton slips out of his hands and plops upside down on the unfinished diorama. He utters a curse and leans over to pick it up. Then, he pauses and stares at the inverted Chinese food container. “A ha!” he exclaims. “I’ve got it.”
Update: Community organizers in Chicago don’t like the proposed Obama Temple Complex.
“We are concerned that rather than becoming a bold vision for urban living in the future it will soon become an object-lesson in the mistakes of the past.”
Sounds like it sums up the Obama presidency perfectly.
Published in General
For a moment, I thought it looked like concertina wire around the perimeter. Nope, just little leafless trees.
Indeed, friendly and welcoming.
What no windmills or solar panels?Guess it will run on hot air. If it’s Obama’s efforts that will get it built it will not happen in his life time.
Reasonable mistake given it’s in Chicago.
Perfect. A big square chunk of concrete. The Soviet architecture is so appropriate.
“The people of Chicago were told they would get a presidential library administered by the National Archives, a federal facility, in exchange for the confiscation of historic parkland, listed in the National Register of Historic Places – instead, they’re getting a privately operated entertainment campus with a 235-foot-tall tower, a recording studio, auditorium and sports facility, and other amenities,” Birnbaum said. From the story on Fox News.
They will take up land in Washington Park to make that!? Ugh… maybe they should give it another try, they can’t possibly make it look worse. Why doesn’t it have windows?
It was the most transparent administration in history. It doesn’t need windows.
…
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
— Shelley
So what is Rush calling the place?
Makes you rethink the whole notion of presidential libraries, doesn’t it? Trump will probably build a casino instead.
The comments are better than the news story – I thought the building was a joke! It will run on hot air….I’m still laughing…!
Hilarious! See…with a casino it can pay for itself, then make money – thinking like an entrepreneur….I heard something about there won’t be original documents there, only digital?
I assume, other than the land grant, that the library will be privately funded.
It would fit right in just a little north of the DMZ, with a Nork flag flying from the top.
Leave Washington Park alone. Put it back o’ the ‘yards.
No, put it in Englewood, or better yet Roseland. Right next to the failing Chicago State University – heck they could probably use the campus.
Hah! Exactly what occurred to me! So this is serious. I surmise this is a glimpse of how he sees himself.
I have to wonder if he’s ever read Shelley. Bet not.
So a half-hour after you leave, you’re hungry?
I’m trying to make out what’s going on with that scrolly-bit. I can see some individual letters, but I don’t think there are any sentences – or am I missing something? Is there some hidden message in the scrolly-bit bits?
It’s probably something written in Arabic, like his “wedding” ring. /yes, too much Alex Jones.
It truly is the most hideously ugly building I’ve ever seen. A blight upon the landscape. Seems apt.
What’s the little sugar-cube thing down on the left? Something for everyone to circle around on pilgrimages? Or just a utility shed? (Maybe a gift shop?)
Can’t a presidential library be an actual library, donated (say) to one of those underfunded public schools everyone is always on about? It could be like the Martin Luther King library in DC, built in what was (at the time) a pretty sketchy neighborhood. I’d go there now and then, because there was a book in the collection I needed…and it was a pretty sketchy library, because of course, all the drug dealers and homeless people and whatnot found it a convenient place to warm up, cool off, or do business. Also: perverts exposing themselves in the stacks.
Build it and they will come, indeed.
Not true. I read somewhere that a lot of taxpayer money will be involved. Can’t remember where.
Oh, yay.
No, they look like Roman letters, but with the tops and bottoms chopped off. Here is a photo I got from the Chicago Tribune web site, then cropped down so you can see that portion better.
Word search!
This puts me in mind of old Star Wars. First series, the only one I saw (long time ago…). Giant transports on the desert dunes. Am I mis-remembering? Anybody know what I’m talking about? I’m not on a computer–even if I could search, I couldn’t paste the image.
I know what you’re talking about. The Jawas’ sandcrawlers.
You mean a sandcrawler?
The Rutherford B. Hayes library in Fremont OH serves as the local history/genealogy library. It’s sometimes referred to as the first presidential library, but is not part of the presidential library system. It doesn’t get any federal funding, but does get some funding from the state of Ohio. I’ve visited it and have done a little research there on War of 1812/Black Hawk history.