The ‘Obamalisk’: A monument to a lost America

Alex BozikovicArchitecture Critic Published June 12, 2026Updated Yesterday Open this photo in gallery: A drone view of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, June 3. Eric Cox/Reuters Save for laterPlease log in to bookmark this story. Log InCreate Free Account Chicago’s South Side has an unusual new neighbour. It is 70 metres tall, dressed in grey granite and largely faceless. Rising from verdant Jackson Park, this mass of stone is capped with a message in tall concrete letters: “You are America. Unencumbered , because you’re ready to seize what ought to be.” This is the Obama Presidential Center, a campus honouring the legacy of the former president that opens to the public on June 19. The words come from Barack Obama’s 2015 Selma speech on the civil rights movement – language that appeals to America’s better angels. But its words wrap around the building’s corner, so what I saw last week from nearby East 60th Street was found poetry: “YOU ARE AMERICA/ED /UNENCUMBERED.” This glitch is symptomatic of the Obama Center, a place that’s encumbered with its own contradictions. The lavish US$850-million project stands apart from the surrounding low-income neighbourhoods. It honours a leader whose career began with community organizing, but delivers architecture that is oppressively monumental. The complex, designed principally ’s Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, or TWBTA, is Mr. Obama’s version of a presidential library – though it does not actually hold any presidential records. Open this photo in gallery: The Obama Center was designed principally ’s Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (TWBTA). 'Our first question was: Can a building represent a vision?' architect Billie Tsien of TWBTA said at a media preview. Joshua Lott/Reuters Instead, three buildings of granite, bronze and silk-smooth concrete flank a public plaza. There is the tower, which holds an Obama museum; the Forum, with an auditorium and restaurant; and a colourful, hospitable branch of the Chicago Public Library. A nearby sports building completes the ensemble, along with a generous 20 acres of green space. Its primary job is symbolic. “Our first question was: Can a building represent a vision?” architect Billie Tsien of TWBTA said last week at a media preview. “The tower establishes a landmark, because [Obama’s] was obviously a landmark presidency, and it’s a landmark time in the history of the United States.” This message of hope and progress seems to align with Mr. Obama’s sensibility, and also that of the architects.