Chapotraphouse

I found a NYT article that I figured would be dry-as-dust but it ended up to be very amusing and classic Obama. Obama put a speech of his on ""the Obamalisk".

A comment

If it weren’t for the stained glass window it would look like a prison out of The Blade Runner. I don’t think this architecture will stand the test of time.

https://archive.ph/8rVRP

It is visible from almost anywhere on Chicago’s South Side, a 225-foot-tall chunky obelisk that some have nicknamed “the Obamalisk.” The structure is the centerpiece of what will be by far the most expensive presidential center ever constructed and, like the president whose vision shaped it, it is setting off intense and often conflicting reactions.

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The plan has courted controversy since it was announced a decade ago. Local groups protested, and filed lawsuits, over its potential impact both on their beloved Jackson Park, created by the designers of New York’s Central Park, and on what is already rampant gentrification in the area.

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The merging of building and green space was intended to soften the center’s impact on Jackson Park. “There was a great deal of focus on the way that it more kindly and gently was a presence in those landscapes,” said Mr. Van Valkenburgh, landscape architect.

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The building’s form was inspired by the idea of four hands joining together, reaching skyward. Stare long enough at the structure and the angles along its flanks start to resemble knuckles, with fingers stretching up. Mr. Obama has been an aficionado of architecture since childhood — “Somehow I took a wrong turn and got into politics,” he said jokingly — and he was not hesitant to lend his input, sharing rough sketches with the designers. “I’m sure there were times when I got on their nerves a little bit.”

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The center is being built on land owned by the City of Chicago under an agreement with the Obama Foundation, which pays a total of $10 for 99 years. Privately funded, it is projected to cost about $850 million. The Clinton Presidential Center and Park, in Little Rock, Ark., by contrast, cost $165 million ($288 million, adjusted for inflation), while the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas came in at $327 million ($460 million today).

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Mr. Obama wants the center to be a vital, welcoming slice of urbanity occupied by people and landscapes as much as by structures. “I am a big believer in public spaces and public gatherings,” Mr. Obama said. ”I love the idea of creating spaces that make people feel more alive, more connected.”

He recalled how some of the Chicago housing projects he encountered in his early days of community organizing, like the infamous Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini Green, promoted just the opposite. “The architecture itself sent a message,” he said. “It dictated the separation of people.”

Making the presidential center into a campus opened up more areas for public use — some inside buildings, some between them, and some even atop them. Only the museum will require a paid ticket. Nearly a dozen other spaces — meeting rooms, classrooms, parks, an N.B.A.-size basketball court, even a branch of the Chicago Public Library — will be reserved for visitors or the activities of the foundation, and its leadership-training activities, jobs programs and more.

Mr. Obama said he wanted the center to be “a living, breathing, dynamic cultural and gathering space.”

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Hugging a granite-floored central courtyard is the Forum, a long, low space with a 299-seat auditorium, two studios for visitors to record music and podcasts, classrooms, a cafe and the foundation’s offices.

At the end of the plaza is the library branch, which will offer digital media spaces, vocational services and an area filled with books chosen by the Obamas themselves. A short walk away is Home Court, a glassy structure with a full basketball court, designed by Moody Nolan Architects, which contains workout spaces and doubles as a large event venue.

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Dixon Romeo, the executive director of Southside Together, a local group that joined with more than a dozen others to push the Obama Foundation, the city and the University of Chicago to make binding agreements to help the community, said that rents in areas adjacent to the center have spiked. Developers, he said, have been buying up buildings, forcing out low-income tenants, and creating new luxury developments capitalizing on the center’s (and the Obamas’) prestige.

“How do we ensure that the city of Chicago does not let this be another case of something that was supposed to help Black folks actually hurt them?” Mr. Romeo asked.