For generations, presidential libraries have served as monuments to American leaders, preserving their records and shaping how history remembers them. But former President Barack Obama’s new $850 million presidential center on Chicago’s South Side is attracting attention for its size, cost, and architectural design.
The sprawling complex, dedicated to the nation’s 44th president, is the largest and most expensive presidential center ever built. Rising above surrounding neighborhoods, its centerpiece is a towering 70-meter structure. As The Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright wrote, the windowless structure has been compared by some observers to everything from a military fortification to a science-fiction complex. Critics have likened it to a “Klingon prison,” while others have compared it to a flak tower.
Architect Billie Tsien, whose firm, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, won the design competition in 2016, said the vision behind the project was rooted in symbolism. And apparently, Obama himself wanted to help.
“We had the idea of a beacon,” Tsien explained. “We thought of four hands coming together,” she said, demonstrating the concept by holding her hands alongside a colleague’s “as if protecting a flame from the wind.”
Tsien acknowledged that Obama played an unusually active role in shaping the design. “The president was very, very hands on with the design,” she said. “He talked a lot about his love of Brâncuși.”
“And he wanted to make things more angular and cut,” Tsien continued. “To make a form, and then try to work out what goes inside it, is really the opposite of how we’ve worked before. It was a very foreign exercise.”
According to Tsien, the Obama Foundation sought a distinctive structure that would stand apart from traditional presidential libraries.
The grounds also contain a playground, sledding hill, expansive lawn, and Home Court, a sports facility designed by Moody Nolan, the nation’s largest African American-owned architecture firm.
Inside the basketball pavilion, visitors will find an NBA-caliber court decorated with well-known Obama slogans including “Yes we can” and “No one does big things alone.”
The project has also sparked intense debate among historians and transparency advocates because it departs from the traditional presidential library model. Unlike previous presidential libraries, Obama’s records will be maintained digitally rather than housed in a dedicated archive building.
Additionally, the Obama Presidential Center is operated by the Obama Foundation rather than the National Archives and Records Administration. Some historians have expressed concern that placing the archive under a private foundation could raise questions about objectivity and access.
The original plans reportedly included an underground archive beneath the sledding hill, but that concept was abandoned. Instead, the site includes a 400-space parking garage—an addition some observers note contrasts with Obama’s long-standing advocacy for public transportation.