Architecture
firms from Chicago, New York, California, North Carolina, Italy and the United
Kingdom are rumored to be under consideration for designing President Obama’s
presidential library, to be built in Chicago’s south side Washington Park or
Jackson Park, after Obama’s term of office ends in January, 2017. Chicago based
architects in the running include Helmut Jahn, designer of O’Hare Field’s
United Airlines terminal, and the University of Chicago’s Mansuelo Library, who
sat at Obama’s head table at the president’s state dinner for German Chancellor
Angela Merkel in 2011; Mark Sexton, who designed Chicago’s Spertus Institute; Carol
Ross Barney, designer of new CTA stations and Chicago’s Riverwalk; Tigerman
McCurry, designer of the innovative children’s scale Chicago Center for
Children’s Advocacy; and Ralph Johnson of the Chicago office of Perkins + Will,
designer of the Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.
Former
presidential library design firms from New York – Ennead Architects and Robert
A. M. Stern – are in the running, along with New York’s Diller, Scofidio +
Renfro; the San Francisco office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, designers
of the U. S. Consulate building in Guangzhou, China; and Philip Freelon of
North Carolina’s office of Perkins + Will. Overseas competitors include Italian
architect Renzo Piano, designer of the modern wing of the Art Institute of
Chicago and of New York’s new Whitney Museum; and London based David Adjaye, designer
of the under construction National Museum of African American History and
Culture in Washington, D.C., who sat at the President’s head table during the
2012 state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron. Announcement of the
winning architect is expected early next year.
