Two Legacies, One Lakefront
IIf the Obama Presidential Center controversy could be summed up by a novel, it would be one on the best-sellers’ list: a book about power and privilege, where the glittering home on the hill might not always be the treasure it seems to be.
With the assurance of Mayor (and former Obama Chief of Staff) Rahm Emanuel, everyone would get on board for a library – from the city’s park district, city council and state legislature. And they did: unflinchingly promising 26 acres for a monumental site in Jackson Park on the city’s south side.
Problem: Jackson Park is on the National Register of Historic Places. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the land has been held in public trust for more than 150 years.
If you’ve been to Jackson Park, you’d also know that it is the only sustainable space for poor people and people of color whose neighborhoods hug the park on the far south side. On the northern edge of the park: blighted landholdings being rehabbed into shiny halls of learning and student housing by the University of Chicago and people of means who call Hyde Park home – including the Obamas.
Some design critics have not met the project with enthusiasm – bulldozing an historic park created by the father of modern architecture for a 235-foot office tower and park (already taller than first proposed); recording studio, sports facilities, sledding paths, auditorium. A professor at the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology called the project “An Urbanistic Failure.”
But others question holding on to the past – particularly an archaic park built by a landscape architect with questionably racist comments. Historians still argue his words bemoaning slave labor misconstrued and misinterpreted.
Should a 21st century President’s history rewrite the history of a neighborhood? fiveXfive sat down with 4r+mula Architects’ James Garrett Jr. for a conversation on designing a Presidential Library steeped in issues of race, privilege, and space.
UPDATE: Federal Lawuit Accused Obama Center Organizers of Pulling an ‘Institutional Bait and Switch’
