BOROUGHWIDE — THE OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CENTER that was dedicated last Thursday in Chicago incorporates designs by two Brooklyn firms and one from a Manhattan company.
The center on Chicago’s South Side, which was opened the day before Juneteenth, celebrates America’s first Black president, complete with high-tech and interactive exhibits. It is part of a 20-acre campus that incorporates a museum with life-sized recreation of the Oval Office and a garden designed by Michelle Obama.
StudioEIS of Industry City designed the sculpture of the Obamas that greets visitors. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc. was the landscape architect, creating a space to blend in with the building that Manhattan-based Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects designed. The landscape design features a series of planted gathering spaces that rise from the ground to the higher levels, and smaller gardens that reach rooftops.
According to Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, the center’s campus offers programming for children and adults, and it incorporates a community vegetable garden and a renovation of the Historic Women’s Garden, among other features.
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