A dozen years in the making, the $1 billion Obama Presidential Center had its public unveiling in Chicago today. It became the sought-after ticket for liberal politicians and celebrities who want to ignore the presence of Orange Man Bad in the White House. Indeed, Donald Trump wasn’t even invited, no doubt much to the relief of former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden who all showed up. The performers included Bruce Springsteen, Bono and Jennifer Hudson.
They were celebrating a most unusual building, and one the mainstream has shown remarkably little interest in looking into.
Its brutalist near-windowless features have been compared to a 225 foot World War Two flak tower. Britain’s Guardian even noted it was “like a Klingon prison.” In part because federal law limits taxpayer-funded presidential archives to 70,000 square feet, Obama instead chose to build a sprawling campus on 19 acres. It features a museum covering four floors complete with a replica of the Oval Office, a branch of the Chicago Public Library, an auditorium, an NBA-regulation-size basketball court, a two-level playground, a vegetable garden, a recording studio, classrooms and more than two dozen pieces of public art. It could almost be its own city.
