The Obama Presidential Center
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Not a fan of the building. The statue of him and Michelle looks fine from that angle, I saw a closeup of the face with a caption that said he looked like Ron Howard and I couldn't help but laugh.
Still I could imagine visiting next time I have time to kill in Chicago.
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I wondered what the other presidential libraries look like. Someone has put together a list of them with links to the individual library websites.
https://www.roadtripsandcoffee.com/presidential-libraries/#george-washington-presidential-library
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And the future DJT library:
More renderings here:
There is a promotional video on Truth Soc but I refuse to include the link here....
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sidebar:
A nonprofit called the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund Inc. was set up in December 2024, after ABC News agreed to donate $15 million toward a future presidential library as part of its defamation lawsuit settlement with then-candidate Trump. Over the next year, that fund got an influx of cash from various legal settlements with Meta, X and Paramount.
The fund was dissolved by the state in September 2025 — just days before the trustees' vote — after it failed to file a mandatory annual report. It is not clear how much money was in the fund, but a trio of federal Democratic lawmakers pursuing the issue says it could have held up to $63 million in settlement money.
Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, along with Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, wrote to ABC, Meta, X and Paramount earlier in March to ask for more detailed explanations on the original terms, conditions and amounts of their settlement deals.
"The Fund is now gone, and the public has no clarity about the current location or purpose of the funds provided by ABC or any other source," the lawmakers wrote.
NPR has reached out to the White House for comment about the status of the settlement money.
The Trump family opened a similarly named library foundation in May 2025, which is the entity that now owns the Miami property.
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/31/nx-s1-5768094/trump-presidential-library-renderings-miami
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Apparently it's a more recent development to have "presidential centers" that are not actually libraries. Biden and Trump's libraries will also be digital, stored at NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), and "presidential centers" are planned for them. Ugh. So I need to temper my opinion a bit, it's not just Obama's "center" that isn't really a library. There is something about this business of "presidential centers" that seems a little too much like glorification to me. But since everyone's doing it, I have no particular beef with Obama doing it. And I do like the architecture a lot. It is monumental. But I think that's part of what makes it seem like too much. Obama is still alive!
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The building is OK. I don't love it. I guess my issue is it more aggrandizes the man rather than his impact on the nation and the times he dealt with. Library for the short attention span public, MTV nation.
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Nice local write-up
"The center, with its companion buildings, plaza and redesigned park space, is among the best urban spaces in the city, maybe second only to Millennium Park."
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