The Obama Presidential Center has already earned a reputation as one of the most unattractive buildings ever constructed — a concrete monument so brutalist that even Soviet architects might nod in approval. Now, somehow, it has managed to get worse.
The latest addition is a massive text display plastered across the building’s exterior, featuring words from Barack Obama’s 2015 speech in Selma, Alabama. In theory, it’s meant to be inspiring. In practice, it’s nearly impossible to read unless you enjoy squinting at concrete walls like you’re decoding an ancient alien language. One observer politely described it as “not the ideal design,” which might be the understatement of the decade. Another admitted giving up after getting a headache just three lines in.
Unlike traditional presidential libraries, the center won’t even house Obama’s physical archives. Those will be stored elsewhere by the National Archives and made available digitally. Instead of functioning as a real library, the complex is designed more as a giant community organizing hub — a sort of permanent political workshop in concrete form.
The campus will be funded and run by the Obama Foundation, whose CEO is the ever-present Valerie Jarrett. Amenities will include a regulation basketball court, a museum, a life-size replica of the Oval Office, podcast and recording studios, and something called a “Democracy in Action Lab.” Because nothing says democracy like a lab designed to teach you what to think.
There will technically be a library on site — a 5,000-square-foot branch of the Chicago Public Library — topped off with the Eleanor Roosevelt Fruit and Vegetable Garden. The foundation’s website proudly brands the project as “A Global Center for Change.”
Change into what, exactly? America seems to be doing just fine without a towering slab of political messaging looming over Chicago. The building’s mission sounds less like preserving history and more like building a woke monument to progressive activism.
Still, the American people can appreciate one thing: the center is honest about its purpose. It’s not really about archives or quiet reflection — it’s about pushing an ideology in very large letters on a very large wall. And the good news is this: no matter how much concrete and rhetoric they stack up, Americans still get to decide the future of the country, not the architecture.
