Monumental Ambition: On Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center Museum

CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI once envisioned a colossal column projected to stand 1,665 feet on the shores of Chicago’s lakefront. However, the towering structure, based on his iconic 1918 Endless Column, was never realized. This speculative work is echoed, nonetheless, within the city’s contemporary skyline, most notably in the elegant undulating spires of Jeanne Gang’s St. Regis building, located at the intersection of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River—and, more symbolically, in the muscular geometry of the newly opened Obama Presidential Center Museum in Jackson Park, a 225-foot obelisk designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. Set upon roughly nineteen acres, the granite-clad tower is part of an $850 million complex that also houses a community center, public library, basketball court, outdoor gardens, sledding hill, playground, and wetland walk.

The building has drawn much criticism, particularly in a city known for its innovative architectural history. Many have noted its imposing scale and Brutalist style, offering a stark contrast against the more traditional aesthetics of the residential South Side neighborhood it was erected in. The museum is adjacent to Hyde Park, home to the University of Chicago’s neo-gothic campus, which boasts several significant examples of modern architecture, including Williams and Tsien’s highly acclaimed Logan Center for the Arts. The New York–based architects have defended their monolith, declaring it a “landmark building for a landmark president” while acknowledging Obama’s direct involvement with the design, meant to suggest four upraised hands cradling an internal light (an image that becomes more apparent when illuminated at night). Asked in a press preview what the president’s inspirations were for the edifice, Williams cited architect Vladimir Ossipoff, the father of Hawaiian modernism (Obama was born in Honolulu), and Brancusi.

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