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So, the Obama Presidential Library Is Really Ugly
A discarded Chinese take-out box. The backside of a Star Wars sand crawler. The Washington Monument with the interesting bits lopped off. That’s what sprung to mind when confronted with the initial design of the Obama Presidential Center.
In addition to the tall stone museum with notches and windows cut out at random, the proposal calls for a low-slung forum and library with greenery on the roof. It will be built in Jackson Park in Chicago’s South Side, not far from the Museum of Science and Industry.
According to the Obama Foundation, this will be much more than a mere presidential library. “Through participatory and immersive experiences,” the website says, “the Center will tell Barack and Michelle Obama’s story, while lifting the hood on the mechanics of change and inspiring visitors to spark their own.”
No, I don’t know what that means either.
But the Obamas are going to use it as a community organizing bootcamp to teach new generations how to make hyperviolent Chicago an even less comfortable place to live and work.
As far as the architecture goes, I’m confused about the intent. Their first mistake was choosing Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, the duo responsible for turning the light, modernist Phoenix Art Museum into a turgid eyesore that grumbles “keep out” to passers-by. If I had to identify an architectural antecedent to their Obama design, it would be the broken necropolis built two millennia ago in the Kingdom of Kush.
To be fair, modern presidential libraries are pretty bland affairs. George W. Bush‘s complex looks like the headquarters of a mid-market insurance company while Bill Clinton‘s is a double-wide about to tip into the Arkansas River. The only winner is the Reagan Library, but that owes more to siting than architecture.
What are your thoughts: Is the Obama Center a hit or a bust?
Published in General
What about the ones he has colored in? I’ll bet there are a lot of those. Especially since his intellectual density floats on water (maybe even air).
Seawriter
I already want to visit.
I wonder where it will end up after the tornado.
Is there an over/under line on Joneboro?
Or a runway for the ex-Pres to sashay along ….
In the river.
It seems to me that his twitter feed serves as his Presidential library.
Eminently fitting. A vast and legless trunk of stone.
. . .
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings . . .
“My name is Obamandias, President of Presidents; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!“
The client pretty much gets what they want in these cases. I know other works by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects that are beautiful and blend in well with their environments. In cases like this, they often have a design competition with tens or hundreds of entries. A panel or person (such as Obama) selects from the designs entered. If that didn’t happen, and they were just selected, then again, someone had to do that selection.
I realize that being on a conservative site, we have a lot of folks who don’t like contemporary architecture and design. Personally, I’m still reserving judgment on the Palladian style, a bit new-fangled for me. Still, let’s not blame the architects for living in the Twenty-First Century. If they submitted a design that would please us, they wouldn’t be selected by whoever is on the panel, because that is certainly not any of us.
Frank Lloyd Wrong.
There is an insufficient quantity of cow bell.
Indeed, half of this project seems to meet those criteria, meet them so well that all we notice is the upset take-out box.
I don’t get the point of presidential libraries anyway.
So tell me, where is the Millard Fillmore presidential library?
Re-doing some of that stone facing in a darker color would make it look like a cow bell, now that you mention it.
Pause for a moment to consider that this library and museum is being built to honor the “legacy” of a man who has, since law school, lived a public life and completed a career in the private and public sectors without having any significant achievements to his credit – other than attaining the editorship of the Harvard Law Review and the U.S. presidency, and writing a couple of memoirs.
Barack Obama is more about being than doing anything of consequence. He is the political equivalent of the Kardashians.
When he does accomplish something (writing books), it’s all about him. His sole signature “accomplishment” as president, which even he calls “Obamacare” (it’s all about him), is in the process of being dismantled.
Decades from now, perhaps Obama’s presidential library and museum will be similarly dismantled, after it has become an abandoned, burned-out haven for drug gangs.
15617 Waterloo Rd, Cleveland, OH 44110
Do you need the phone number, too?
Yes, this is one of those “are we not a republic?” questions. Presidential papers and gifts should be stored in a government warehouse in South Dakota, two rows over from the Ark. If a former President wants to erect a monument it should be done with private funds and no federal dollars.
Has good reviews on yelp. Next time I’m in Cleveland, I will check it out.
I love a lot of modern architecture (even have a page devoted to it), but ugly is ugly. As I note in the article, I have a strong dislike for Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects’ work, especially since they defaced downtown Phoenix.
Guess I should be thankful Obama didn’t hire Frank Gehry.
And thank Cod Eero Saarinen is long passed. I’ve never seen one of his that I like.
The ghosts that are haunting the plaza.
We can all speculate about whose ghosts those are. But there’s a reason they haunt Obama.
Eero is my homeboy!!! Of course, I’m biased because he’s a fellow Finn.
Well, I like Eliel’s work very well. I’ve also spent a lot of time in buildings by both. But I like and appreciate Eliel’s work.
If I had been the architect for Obama’s presidential library I would have designed it like a toilet. : -P
Why does every president today get a presidential library? Such a waste of money and space. I know, it’s through donations. Let the Libs flush their money down that toilet.
Here comes Cindy in her hover-desk again.
It’ll make a great Jedi Temple some day.
With the dead bodies of young children everywhere?
Explains the ghosts.
They are the ghosts of the people who gave their all for Planned Parenthood: a bit of brain tissue here, a bit of liver there …
It’s kind of sad. Jackson Park is a lovely oasis. It was originally laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted. There are some lovely touches left over from the World’s Columbian Exposition including a Japanese garden. There is a public golf course that opened in 1899 with wide fairways, mature trees and challenging greens where you can play 18 holes for around $30. I used to work down in the neighborhood, which is not that bad…I’d call it a striving neighborhood. You have to be west of Stoney Island or south of 79th to run in to really tough areas. This thing will be a blight on the park.