http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/20/-sp-obama-presidential-library-architects-building
Obama's presidential library: four radical visions of the future from top architects
Barack Obama still has two long years left to cement his legacy as something between “yes we can” and “at least I tried”. Regardless of how history remembers him, Obama will always represent a shift from the old guard, an idealistic starting point for what (and who) future presidents could be. For now, though, his official museum, his keeper of secrets: couldn’t that still be a tangible change we can believe in? At least an architectural one?
Dedication libraries are an expectation and a right for American presidents, one that Congress signed into law in 1955. But the country’s 21 versions of the presidential library are all rather ... traditional. With behind-the-scenes plans already in motion and design critics very much coming out of the woodwork, we asked historian HW Brands if the mold needed an upgrade:
Presidential libraries serve two purposes that are often conflated. As libraries, they are the repositories of the confidential records of their administrations. They are neutral. As museums, they are the public faces of those administrations. They present the view the keepers of the flames wish to present. Their records are the best guarantee of telling the story as it actually happened.The purposes of written history would be better served if all presidential records were located in a single place, presumably Washington. But this would not serve the purposes of experiential, public history that museums specialize in. I for one think the two purposes ought to be severed. Put the records in Washington, and let the presidents site their museums where they wish. But I’m not holding my breath.
Well, architecture firms are holding their breath, with the biggest among themlining up for the Barack Obama Foundation in each of the final four locations, at universities of various import to the president’s career.
Guardian US Opinion asked four award-winning, firm-founding architects to sketch and describe their unofficial visions for a possible Obama Presidential Library. Their ideas expand our perceptions of what a library can be – indeed, what a building can be. Maybe even what the Obama presidency could’ve been.
Columbia University: open space, throughout the community
By Alfonso Medina • Founder, T38 Studio
President Obama has broken stereotypes and challenged the norm – the presidential library should reflect just that. We propose building a library that is not one single, large-scale building, but rather a series of interventions within existing buildings throughout the whole neighborhood.
Connected at different levels, the library would be deeply embedded within the city’s urban fabric.The main design objective is to create open space, providing an opportunity for social gathering. Also important is the flexibility and adaptability through time – that is the main reason for the space frame.
University of Chicago: a distinctive green ‘O’ from the air
By Richard Dattner • Founder and principal, Dattner Architects
Located opposite Jackson Park on Chicago’s south side, the Barack Obama Presidential Library would be a dramatic new landmark for Chicago and a world destination. This historic location was the site of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and what became known as the White City, which had a huge impact on American architecture and Chicago’s identity.The round, organically spiraling form contrasts with former presidential libraries by rejecting dated monumentality, inflexibility and formalism. Its structure is transparent and open, accessible, sustainable and engaged with the surrounding community, city and region.
The aspirational, rising spiral form grows toward the sky – housing stepped platforms for program functions, and terminating in a ceremonial hall and outdoor roof terraces with 360-degree views. The entire rising roof is planted and accessible – creating a verdant ring seen as a distinctive green “O” from the air.
University of Hawaii: a portal connecting land and sea
By Elizabeth Ranieri • Co-founder and design principal, KuthRanieri Architects
Hope is an active verb. To us, the Obama Presidential Library and Center respects history, but the center’s emphasis is on our present and future, honoring the president’s legacy through active engagement. For a presidency that has operated on an unprecedented global scale, Hawaii is the one site that reflects the link between the United States and the global community.
Our design is organized around three core ideas central to Obama’s presidency: community, collaboration and conservation. We see the library as a living archive that provides a platform for public exchange. Dialogue is fostered through the Center’s Sustainability Institute and Global Leadership Education Facility that includes classrooms, a teaching kitchen, café, greenhouse, public market, flexible office space and a conference center with seminar rooms and lecture hall.
The building is dynamic – the landscape and plaza are framed by a roof canopy – but it very much embraces the Hawaiian landscape, with two massive roofs that create a large civic space, which frames the ocean beyond.
University of Illinois at Chicago: exterior weirdness and an egalitarian interior
By Paul Preissner • Founder, Paul Preissner Architects
Architecture is always both a project of architecture as well as an idea about architecture. Institutions like presidential libraries offer an idea about a person, and an administration – a past, and a future still unfulfilled.In this proposal, exterior weirdness and an egalitarian interior plan replace traditional hierarchies and formalities, encouraging visitors to have smallerpersonal experiences with a very large history.
This proposal arranges a set of quite big, blocky objects in a peculiar composition, and allows for a direct and easy-to-reach entrance into the building through multiple massive doors. This immediacy continues through the interior, where displays and library contents provide ample access to research.The building offers a comprehensive view of its contents from anywhere and everywhere, and encourages miniature relationships with the tables, shelving and seating throughout. It explodes the density of meaning, actions and histories so readily accessed within.
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