The route to our plot in the community garden takes me past the site of the Obama Center 3 or 4 times a week. As a result, I’ve witnessed the construction of the main building and the reshaping of the surrounding environment during the past 3 or 4 years. I’ve hated the emerging shape of the centerpiece from the beginning. It’s bulbous and aesthetically unpleasing; the finished product hasn’t really changed my views. In fact, the final touch on the building – the installation of the lettering from President Obama’s speech at the Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama – makes matter worse. The message wraps around two sides of the building, so looking at it either from the west or the south yields only a salad scramble of unrelated words.
The surrounding grounds were a mess of torn up former park land and closed roads, which made driving in the area even worse than in the past and was the subject of years of lawsuits contending that the project was encroaching on protected park land. There were also rumors that the cost of the venture was spiraling out of control and the Obama Foundation was out of money.
As the June opening of the Center approached, the landscaping took center stage, and the rubble and piles of construction material gave way to a handsome campus containing what looked like miles of walking paths. There had been other major public works in the city that were beset by temporary problems which finally faded and became popular destinations for both tourists and local folks. Millenium Park was the target of bad press because of cost overruns that were said to have ballooned to hundreds of millions of dollars. Visitors who are awed by The Bean and by this handsome oasis in the middle of the city have long since forgotten or forgiven the park’s price tag. Similarly, The Gehry Bandshell in the park looked more like a plane crash than a cultural site, but my eyes have adjusted to its unusual appearance which I now find appealing. Perhaps the same will be true of my assessment of the Obamalisk over time. We need time to allow new music, art and architecture to marinate in our judgmental brain cells.
We’ve now been to the campus twice. The first visit with our daughter and granddaughter was on a smoky Canadian wildfire day. We had much sought after tickets for main building later in the month, but there was a lot to see that was free and unticketed. One could even see the ground floor of the main building, including the cafeteria and already my impression was changing seeing the beautifully designed interior spaces housed inside that unattractive shell. Watching the visitors basking in the handsome surroundings was uplifting. Even before you entered the building the long line of enthusiastic people waiting to be photographed in front of a sculpture of Barack and Michelle and the women of varying ages jumping Double Dutch nearby signaled that this was a living space to be actively inhabited by both proud Southside Black families and tourists from across the country.
We’ve visited two other presidential libraries – the LBJ library in Austin, TX and, strange to say, the Herbert Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa. Both are worth the visit to see the exhibits chronicling the terms of these two vastly different actors on the American stage. The Hoover facility even contains an honest accounting of his troubled Depression era time in office, but neither could be called a living space. Ironically, the Obama Center, which calls itself a museum rather than a library (his digitized papers reside in the National Archives in Maryland), is bursting with energy.
Before we dig deep into the wonders of the main building, it’s important to point out that the Obama Center is a 20-acre space that includes four buildings – the Obamalisk, The Forum, a meeting and conference space; a public library that includes a presidential reading room containing the Obamas’ favorite books; and, finally, The Home Court, whose crown jewel is a professional-grade basketball court. There are also playgrounds, rooftop gardens, vegetable gardens and a vastly overpriced parking garage –apparently not in their control — plus all those landscaped paths that merit repeated visits.
With uncharacteristic foresight we scored tickets for July 30th in the first batch of offerings. It was as inspiring a day as we’ve had in recent years. The photography and artwork were stunning, and the exhibits were superbly curated. The first floor was an introduction to the birth and evolution of American democracy, free of any trace of narcissism. It was only on the next floor that we’re introduced to the Obamas and their personal stories. As we move from floor to floor, we reenact Barack’s ascent to the presidency, including the excitement of the first presidential campaign and victory. Another floor is devoted to the White House itself, including a full-scale replica of the President’s office and miniature dollhouse-size renderings of some of the building’s most famous rooms. The cherry on the sundae is the final destination – the Sky Deck – where from 8 stories up you are treated to spectacular views of the entire campus, as well as miles and miles of our beloved Hyde Park and the surrounding city. I hope out-of-town visitors come away with an elevated impression of the city we have come to love over the last 30+ years.
There’s a powerful temptation to surrender to nostalgia for better times. Everywhere there are reminders of how far we have diverged from those humane and hopeful years. Obama’s two terms were no more Camelot than President Kennedy’s brief tenure, but at least there was a sense of striving for a better life for all Americans, in fact for the whole world. But the message of this building, so teeming with life, is not to surrender to nostalgia, but to experience it as a call to action, to not succumb to despair, to recognize that change is always possible.
Having experienced the contents of this remarkable building, maybe – just maybe – I will learn to love the Obamalisk itself.
