No tower of glower: Obama Center and its maligned signature building are worthy of considerationThe 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.
Jun 2, 2026, 12:02am CDT
Ever since the Obama Presidential Center began rising out the historic grounds of Jackson Park, its Museum Tower — the campus’ most visible structure — became a riddlesome, what-the-heck-is-this kind of a building.
And there was a reason for this.
In a city of tall, glassy skyscrapers, the Museum Tower is shrouded in granite and virtually windowless.
While the best of Chicago’s parks buildings attempt to blend in with their landscapes, the stocky, square-jawed 225-foot building at 6101 S. Stony Island Ave. can be seen from almost a mile away. It sticks out like an elephant in the tall grass.
The $850 million presidential center — the most expensive built so far — opens on June 19.
Designed by New York City’s Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, the center is a five-building complex. Two of the structures — the Forum and a new Chicago Public Library branch — sit just footsteps south of the tower, beneath rolling parkland designed by New York landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.
A 437-car parking garage hides under the park. The freestanding building Home Court, an athletic facility designed by architecture firm Moody Nolan, is located on the south end of the campus near 62nd Street. There is also a garden pavilion, named for former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, south of the library branch.
The Jackson Park lagoon can be seen from the Nelson Mandela Sky Room at the Obama Presidential Center.
But it’s the presidential center’s Museum Tower that has drawn the most attention — and derision. After plans for the campus were made public almost a dozen years ago, the structure was compared to
