Obama Presidential Center Has an Opening Date
The Obama Foundation has announced that the Obama Presidential Center’s grand opening celebrations will take place from June 18 to June 21, with the campus and museum opening to the public on the 19th—aka Juneteenth, the federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
The Obama Presidential Center's long-awaited opening in June will be ten years after the Obama Foundation selected a team to design what was described back in June 2016 as “an innovative center for action that inspires communities and individuals to take on our biggest challenges.” As described by New York's Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, whom Obama awarded a National Medal of Arts in 2014 ahead of selecting them to design the OPC, “past Presidential libraries have often emphasized story-telling—enshrining past achievements—while the Obama Presidential Center will extend its reaches as a place for story-making.”
TWBTA worked with Chicago's Interactive Design Architects (IDEA) and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh to design a complex of three buildings, one of them a tower, defining a central plaza. Located in Jackson Park on Chicago's South Side, the design evolved in the ensuing years, and the project itself weathered opposition that involved at least one lawsuit, eventually reaching a final form that is consistent with the original concept.
The OPC is anchored by the Museum, which will be housed in the tower, with the two low-rise, landscape-topped buildings housing a Forum for public programming and a branch of the Chicago Public Library. Each venue will be accessible from the plaza but linked to each other below grade. The campus also includes an accessible playground, public art installations, and a landscaped park space that will connect the center to other parts of Jackson Park.