Obama Presidential Library is Now More Controversial Than Ever
In July 2016, the Obama Foundation announced that Jackson Park would be the Obama Presidential Center (OPC)’s site. The Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s design historic Jackson Park hosted World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. The park also has the Museum of Science and Industry, housed in the Palace of Fine Arts built for the World’s Fair. The new center will be situated in the Woodlawn neighborhood between 60th and 63rd streets, along Stony Island Avenue and across from Hyde Park Academy High School.
From day one, the site selection raised a lot of concerns from both public and federal. In the beginning, Jackson park was not the only possible site. Even before Chicago being selected for the Obama presidential library, Honolulu-Barack Obama’s native city- and New York City- where he got his bachelors-, were among the possible locations. After Obama declared Chicago as the city is the home of him and the first lady Michelle Obama, the two major parks in the South Side became the potential sites for the OPC: The Jackson Park and the Washington Park.
Although Washington Park was a strong candidate, The Obama Foundation chose Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects’ design and its site as Jackson Park. In the RFQ released by the Obama Foundation, it says:
“The Obama Presidential Center will connect the economy of the South Side of Chicago with the rest of the city, creating new jobs and opportunities.”
So, the main goal is creating jobs, driving economic opportunity, and unlocking the South Side of Chicago’s potential. However, Jackson park is already an attraction point with its beautiful lakefront and many amenities like the Museum of Science and Industry, and others. So, why would you choose a successful and already in use park rather than Washington Park and its neighborhood, which obviously needs more economic attraction and has more space to integrate a museum into it? I think this was a highly strategic action rather than a response to the community’s needs. Without any doubt, the center will have more visitors if it gets built-in Jackson park rather than Washington Park.
As for the winning project of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, the proposal consists of three buildings: an obelisk-like stone-cladding tower housing a museum, a forum building, and what could be a small branch of the Chicago Public Library — in Jackson Park’s northwest corner. The tower’s top floor is a space for observation, free and open to the public, with views of Lake Michigan and the downtown skyline.
The museum is a multilevel facility with exhibition spaces situated in the tower’s midsection, open only to visitors who buy tickets. According to the architects, Obama wanted an outdoor plaza framed by the three buildings to host food trucks and community activities. A fourth building south of the main cluster, an athletic center, would host facilities, including a basketball court by clearing roughly 40 existing trees there. Renderings pictured a recording studio in the forum building that would provide “a place of creative expression”; an outdoor garden that would act like Michelle Obama’s White House garden; and a test kitchen that would teach visitors about the production cycle of nutritious food- as a glimpse to the former first lady.
None of these sounds like a conventional presidential library. As Obama said, his presidential library will be nothing like others. That’s why the Obama Foundation decided not to construct a Presidential Library for National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to house the paper records and physical artifacts. Instead, it will provide funding for the digitization of records to be made available online. The physical documents will be stored in an existing facility of the NARA. So, this 100% digital library has different goals than putting all the paper data into a building. The question is: does this design serve its purpose?
The two controversial aspects of the design are a two-story, aboveground parking garage, primarily hidden by landscaping, that would be at the Midway Plaisance’s east end, across Stony Island Avenue, and the museum tower itself, whose proposed height has raised concerns. Open space advocates have called both features intrusions on the landscape of Jackson Park. The architect said the garage could be “pressed further into the ground,” which presumably means that all or part of it would be shifted underground. It may even be moved east of Stony Island Avenue. It means that OPC will change the look of Jackson Park significantly. Putting a very tall tower (235 feet) in the middle of the green space does not sound like a relational design choice to me either.
Now, let’s look at the other three proposals, which some have different site locations. The Chicago-based firm Studio Gang proposed its design at the site of the golf course north of the South Shores, which I think an interesting choice. The lakefront complex has four wings and resembles a compass. The design included lakefront access, an indoor basketball court, and an auditorium with downtown skylines views. The design looks a bit disproportionated for the site and unnecessarily big. Even though it says it has lakefront access, it could quickly become an obstacle in front of the lake. It blocks the view of the other occupants who are not visiting the OPC.
Secondly, New York-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) designed an angular building comprising several swooping lobes at the Jackson Park site. It proposes the use of every piece of the footprint by simply opening the green roofs to the visitors. I can see the value in this decision, but I do not think it is necessarily an effective way of outdoor use in Chicago since the city has a cold climate. As for the benefit for the neighborhood, it does not offer anything across the boulevard; it is a stand-alone building that would never comply with the RFQ.
Led by David Adjaye, designer of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, D.C., the proposed campus called for various wooden structures, a welcome plaza, and upgrades to the adjacent CTA Green Line station. This option requires no federal review, no massive road rebuilding, and no special deals with the city as the site is owned privately by the University of Chicago. As for the design, I think it is humble, serves its purpose, and represents the neighborhood’s identity. It could bring a lot of attraction to the Washington Park area, and it is easier to reach by CTA Green or Red Lines. Even though I am against using a public park for the OPC -it uses west of the park-, I would choose this project over the winning one.
We can actually start by questioning whether it is appropriate to build a presidential center in a historical and public park or not. Almost no one objects to the Obama Presidential Center coming to South Side, but some feel that it may displace an existing community asset instead of creating a new one. The two main watchdogs of Jackson Park- Protect Our Parks and Jackson Park Watch-, have being given a public battle against the Obama Center. They are specifically opposing the choice of Jackson Park because the center will destroy the park’s historic character and cause privatization of public land. The organizations suggested moving the OPC to nearby Washington Park, where there is plenty of underdeveloped lots. Protect Our Parks has pled its case in circuit court and lost, appealed that decision and lost, and was turned away from relitigating in district court. After a four-year battle, in August 2020, a court ruled that work — including tree removal of at least 350 old-growth trees — could continue. After this, a federal review of historical preservation by the National Park Service and Federal Highway Administration started. I am wondering why Jackson Park is so crucial that the foundation never stepped back from its decision after all these objections from the public organizations.
Jackson Park is very much like Central Park in New York City. And we can actually call them twins since they are both designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. If the Obama Foundation had chosen New York City and asked for 20 acres of Central Park, wouldn’t it be outrageous? Everybody would laugh at this request. However, the Obama Foundation asked of Chicago-which was under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the time- and got Jackson Park as easy as winking. And it just so happens that the former mayor previously served as Obama’s chief of staff. The deal gives the foundation the right to use 20 acres of public lakefront land in Jackson Park for 99 years for $10, which is a quite funny amount of money as opposed to the cost of the construction.
However, not every South Side resident is opposed to OPC’s current design choice or its location. A coalition to support the OPC said in their letter:
“POP (Protect Our Parks) and Jackson Park Watch care more about trees and traffic than they do about the lives of people who are impacted by decades of systemic disinvestment, job loss, poverty, and limited economic opportunity.”
That being said, the Obama Foundation never entered into a community benefits agreement to protect neighbors from rising rents, rampant gentrification, and the threat of displacement that would ensure the interests of nearby South Side neighborhoods and its community. These job opportunities could benefit people who already have money to live in “nicer” neighborhoods. And twenty years from now, everybody who lives around Woodlawn will be moved out because they cannot afford the rent anymore, and it will become Lincoln park. Is it what Obama Foundation wants?
And now I am questioning myself. Isn’t the OPC worth to create even just for a few job opportunities and development in the South Side? When we are criticizing, are we being arrogant and simply neglecting its benefits? South Side immediately needs destination locations and institutions that bring more development. So, whether the OPC is located in Jackson Park or Washington Park, wouldn’t it benefit the South Side at the end of the day? Well, it could, but it just has to be done very carefully. Expanding the Hyde Park neighborhood does not mean improving the South Side.
In addition to that, even though the OPC will be built with the foundation money, it will be operated by the University of Chicago, putting the charitable tax money for a new trauma center they have been raising for a long time. If a person gets shot in South Side, they have to be sent to Northwestern University Hospital since the University of Chicago does not have one and actually does not want to. But with pressure from protests recently, they have announced that they are raising money for a new trauma center. However, that money may go to the OPC’s operation costs, according to a community organizer. And this is another issue that makes the community worried about the OPC.
Lastly, Obama once said that he does not need a presidential library; he can put all the data online. I think it could have been fantastic this way, as a legal version of Wikileaks. But then he would not have this special place for himself, and his legacy, which I assume is something a president would want no matter what, as every president gets one, in the end, even Donald Trump.
