Obama’s Presidential Library Ready to Open

“Barack Obama’s long-awaited presidential center opens this week poised as a monument to contradiction as much as to the former president,” Bloomberg reports.

“Intended as a celebration of the progress embodied by the nation’s first Black leader, its Juneteenth unveiling comes at a time when his agenda — and broader diversity initiatives — are wilting from a decade of concerted attack.”

“An implicit repudiation of his brash, populist successor, the $850 million monolith nevertheless towers over Chicago’s Midway Plaisance. Imposing in both scope and scale, the so-called “Obamalisk” is as overt an attempt to use architecture to personify his legacy as the current president’s oft-ridiculed calls to remake Washington with oversized monuments and gold leaf.”