When Barack Obama's people announced last week that they are searching worldwide for an architect for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, they won no points for transparency. [...]
Having consulted sources, I can now name 11 of the firms and observe that they are A) Of high caliber; B) Represent a broad geographic and aesthetic spectrum; and C) Include the established firms one would expect to be invited.
— chicagotribune.com
Rumors have been running wild which architects were among the 50+ selected firms to receive RFQs from the White House for the design of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
While Martin Nesbitt, chairman of the Barack Obama Foundation, remains tight-lipped about names of the invited designers, more and more national and international architects surface 'as confirmed.' Blair Kamin claims in his latest Tribune piece that — according to his sources — he can already name 11 of the firms: among them, Pritzker winner Renzo Piano, Chicago locals Helmut Jahn, Perkins+Will, Krueck+Sexton, and Tigerman McCurry Architects, New Yorkers Robert A.M. Stern (who has already designed GWB's presidential library) and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, as well as the San Francisco office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and others.
Kamin repeatedly points out London-based David Adjaye as the one to watch, potentially the first non-American architect who could land the job for an American presidential library.
Responses to the RFQs are due September 16, after which the President and the First Lady will select the finalists later this year. The ultimate selection of the final design architect is not expected until early 2016.
What's your prediction, Archinectors? Will David Adjaye simply breeze through and take the commission, or is the remaining (rumored) field strong enough to wow the President along with Chicago's residents?
56 Comments
BIG
Studio Gang
well it better be a woman. and it better be an architect of color. so i guess what i'm saying is it better be a female architect of color.
I've said Adjaye, primarily because of MOAAH in DC, but I also considered it would tweak the fuck out of the "establishment".
well then FRaC the choice is clear
Zaha Hadid!
Adjaye does seem like an obvious choice.
NOT DSR!!! They stole one of the greatest buildings of the last century from us to replace it with transparent banality. I'll never forgive them #FolkMOMA
Please not RAMSA either, so boring. He just did the Bush library, does Obama really want to align with him?
I'm still sincerely hoping for Krueck & Sexton to get it. My hope is that they are on the list just not confirmed. Their work is incredibly beautiful and deeply rooted in contemporary Chicago. They would be perfect.
There is always Glen Small.
Go, Glen Small!
Does glen small have transgender on staff? I think president B.O. and his library needs to make a strong statement supporting the LGBTQ community.
Honestly, If architecture wasn't such a stale nostalgic good ol' boy club, Queer and feminist theory would have played a much larger role than it has. I wish there were more high profile transgender architects.
I'd like to see Theaster Gates involved, in some capacity.
Why not an open competition for fresh talent? Oh wait, its the profession, stupid.
Maybe one of the Obama daughters can design it with a firm they like, haha.......
"Why not an open competition for fresh talent?" The Guggenheim tried that and was blasted with accusations of exploitation.
frac, i'm sure the obama administration can provide a transgender person to join the staff of glenn small if they are selected. non-issue. besides, right wing nut jobs complaining about the president for no reason is getting old.
They may go traditional. The Obama's hired Michael Smith to do the interiors at the White House
Wow, architecture and politics are so similar these days. Hopefully it goes to the best architecture idea--Not this ultra Narrative Design that seems to be all the rage.
How about Frank Gehry? Dont we love him again? Love to Backlash to Love....
If not Gehry, then Maya Lin. Or .... A team of Steven Holl, Maya Lin, Theaster Gates, Hella Jongerius, Irma Boom.
Just please god no BIG gimmicks
Fred brings up an interesting point about what the idea.
Certainly there is the convention of architecture as an autonomous practice, a path that would likely lead to Adjaye as a obvious signifier along with the usual suspects.
But there is another "idea" that could be leveraged and frankly will be in play regardless of the intention of the final selection. What if -
Huff + Gooden
Jaklitsch/Gardner Architects
The Freelon Group
Latent Design (go local)
(n) Office, Detroit
were selected as the design architects? Then a different message would be cast. Each of the firms has demonstrated and ability to create successful if not innovative practices, but this also represent diversity as a spectrum versus a caricature. This changes the idea from one being purely architectural to one that reminds us that architecture can be a social and highly political act.
As "precedent" I will refer to the selection of Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. His was a highly political act serving as a message in support of the civil right movement in the short term. But Johnson was also savvy enough to understand that in the long term that it was a message to countless African American children that they too could sit on the bench of the Supreme Court. Certainly this was a message that rang true to President Obama, perhaps he should pass on a similar message to the profession of architecture and the countless children that people like Jen Masengarb teach about architecture and urban spaces in Chicago.
Granted, the consideration of the above is a tall order as the architecture establishment and the patrons have their expectations. This too will send a message, albeit an old one.
Marc, that would be an awesome team. To be honest, I never thought about a team concept, but that would be interesting, if not difficult to pull off, too many cooks perhaps?
A team that big and the landscape architect would be on the outs, but it would have been interesting to have one or some of them on a project like this.
Anybody but Adjaye. His museum in DC is a monstrocity.
Obama should design it himself
Zhou Qi should be the architect. He's already done one big dick. All oBOMBa has done is give us the shaft.
Zing! Seriously the best president of my lifetime (no joke) should get the best architect.
Krueck and Sexton please.
That, or we can go back to the "Obama Library Drone Aviary" concept.
http://blog.archpaper.com/2015/02/obamas-library-drone-aviary-mobile-gallery-chicago-prize-winners-speculate-presidents-legacy/#.VehrDvlVhBc
Because it’s Chicago it should be a Chicago architect…I favor Tigermam, why not have fun with it.
Seriously the best president of my lifetime
Seriously - are you seven years old?
I'm 48 and he's by far the best president of my lifetime, speaking as a pragmatic liberal.
History will judge Obama well. LBJ was the best though at getting shit done.
Thayer-D, We agree on so much outside of architecture.
What is the sudden love of Stanley Tigerman? Maybe Pomo and millennial hipsters speak the same language. Grade A Garb.
And yes, he is the best pres. Any doubt should be contrasted with the freak show that Hilary, Trump, and Bush present
presidency is a joke,but if they hired Marc's list I would take it more seriously.........word on the street...ah shit not drunk enough to state it....but I heard a certain person may be enrolling somewhere soon....ok so presidency is jot a joke, i have enough respect to not state what class one of the......
davvid, I bet we'd agree on some architectural ideas if we'd simply see our aesthetic differences as a natural outcome of differing tastes, one no more valid than the other in the end. Once you establish neutrality, it's much easier to see things from another's perspective.
Amongst traditionalists they sometimes split hairs over the importance of Palladio and other arcane subjects, so I guess it's what we do to establish legitimacy and rank, when in fact, we all simply like buildings. Who knows.
Thayer- D, Thats true.
I predict that no matter who wins the commission, the design will suck.
I predict that no matter who "wins" the election, the result will suck.
Piano (opened the Whitney with First lady), Mayne (on design committee of President and First Lady), Adjaye (museum on mall) or Gehry (Eisenhower Memorial). All familiar in Obama Washington circle. Kamin is too regional and a wishful thinker. Not about Chicago will be about Washington.
@marc
Freelon is actually on the list. From my understanding him and Ralph Johnson were selected as options, they are just both umbrellaed under Perkins+Will, as Freelon group was bought by PW last year.
@natematt-
Thanks for the correction. I had forgotten which firm had "absorbed" the Freelon Group.
David Adjaye would be an excellent choice for this commission. Appointing a British architect would add some cosmopolitanism to this project.
If an American must be hired, I'd suggest Annabelle Selldorf.
yes we are still a colony of Britain! yay. no.
It's true that David Adjaye is a British architect, but he was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
On another tack: Todd Williams + Billie Tsien would make a good choice too.
how about they take all that money alloted to the stupid library and instead buy fucking books for the struggling schools around the country...just an idea...he can sign them all if he must leave a legacy...
/\genius. what a legacy that would leave.
I am 38 and Obama is the best US president I have seen. The second would be Carter but I was a baby then.
Miles, you need to stop criticizing every fucking thing under the sun.
But what of his papers?
Zaha Hadid! I am so impressed with her 1000 Museum development in Miami.
But what of his papers?
Classified for 100 years.
His legacy?
Banker immunity, public extortion for private profit (ObummerCare), prosecuting and incarcerating whistleblowers, drone wars, Arctic drilling, etc., etc.
sameold: The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
^^Zaha would be a good choice; she could do one of her pu__y designs, which would be apropos.
I am less concerned about the architect because this will be a toned down design by committee project, more interested in the site selection and the potential impact it could have on the community. I am rooting for the West side of Washington Park which is a strugeling area but less than a block from the EL. But there is Jackson Park and we can add to the already successful if not isolated museum campus left over from the Columbia Exposition also known as the White City, Either way the presidential library will be in a park named after a former president who owned slaves.
Over and OUT
Peter N
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