{"id":2348,"date":"2026-06-18T21:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=2348"},"modified":"2026-06-18T21:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:43:14","slug":"obama-presidential-center-designed-as-hub-of-civic-life-celebrated-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=2348","title":{"rendered":"Obama Presidential Center, designed as hub of civic life, celebrated in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Summary<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>CHICAGO, June 18 (Reuters) &#8211; Four former U.S. presidents led a crowd of thousands on Thursday in a music-filled dedication of the \u200bObama Presidential Center, a sprawling Chicago campus of granite, nature and art designed as a hub of civic life and culture honoring the 44th president of the United States.<\/div>\n<div>The occasion marked the \u200cceremonial opening of an $850 million landmark development that ranks as the greatest single investment in a century for Chicago&#8217;s long-neglected South Side, where former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama first made their family&#8217;s home.<\/div>\n<div>It also capped a milestone in cementing the legacy of Barack Obama&#8217;s eight years in the White House, which his wife described as a counterpoint to rancor and upheaval pervading U.S. politics during the past year under President Donald Trump, whose name she did not mention.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;A lasting legacy isn\u2019t in a war, or a \u200bname on a building or the number of zeros in a bank account, it&#8217;s about the difference we make in one another\u2019s lives,&#8221; Michelle Obama said in a speech, pointedly noting her husband&#8217;s winning \u200bof the Nobel Peace Prize and praising him for his &#8220;stubborn optimism.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;With grace and class and cool, you made the hardest job in the world look like a walk \u2060in this beautiful park,&#8221; she said in a tribute that visibly brought her husband to tears.<\/div>\n<h2>FORMER PRESIDENTS ATTEND CEREMONY<\/h2>\n<div>The Obamas were joined at the event by their two daughters, Malia and Sasha, and three other living former occupants \u200bof the Oval Office \u2014 former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden \u2014 and their wives, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Jill Biden.<\/div>\n<div>The roster of VIPs in attendance also included former Vice President Kamala Harris \u200band her spouse, Douglas Emhoff, former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and such foreign dignitaries as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.<\/div>\n<div>The proceedings opened with a performance by hip-hop group the Roots and a solo rendition of the national anthem by Jennifer Hudson. Others performing included John Legend, Common, Eddie Vedder and U2&#8217;s Bono and the Edge. Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen were scheduled to round out the musical program.<\/div>\n<div>Apart from the throng of dignitaries and other invited guests attending the dedication \u200bitself, a crowd of thousands more ticketed guests watched the ceremony on a big screen from another park near the center. The proceedings were also carried on a global livestream.<\/div>\n<div>The Obama Center, occupying 19.3 acres of historic Jackson \u200bPark on the banks of Lake Michigan, is an ambitious blend of landscaping and architecture encompassing such elements as a playground, gardens, a concert hall and NBA-sized basketball court.<\/div>\n<div>The center, much of which celebrates advancements in civil rights and Obama&#8217;s place in \u200chistory as the \u2060first Black politician elected U.S. president, comes as Trump has rolled back civil liberties protections and diversity programs.<\/div>\n<h2>EIGHT-STORY GRANITE CENTERPIECE<\/h2>\n<div>Organizers have said they expect the Obama Center, most of which will be open to the public free of charge, to draw 750,000 to 1 million visitors a year. Money for the center, which opens to the public on Friday, was raised privately through the former first couple&#8217;s Chicago-based nonprofit Obama Foundation.<\/div>\n<div>The centerpiece is a museum devoted to Obama&#8217;s personal story and his two terms as president, from 2009 to 2017. The design of the museum, an eight-story, irregularly shaped granite-clad tower, has drawn mixed reviews in a city renowned for bold and varied architecture. It already has been nicknamed the Obamalisk, \u200bbut also has been described as evoking the shape of \u200bfour hands coming together and reaching upward.<\/div>\n<div>An excerpt \u2060from Obama&#8217;s favorite speech, delivered in Selma, Alabama, on the 50th anniversary of the &#8220;Bloody Sunday&#8221; civil rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, is rendered as a sunscreen-like embellishment of block text wrapping around an upper corner of the museum.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;I find it really striking and bombastic and beautiful in the best possible way,&#8221; T. Camille Martin-Thomsen, a professor \u200bof architecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, said of the museum tower.<\/div>\n<div>Martin-Thomsen said she understood that some people may find the height and \u200bscale of the museum jarring at \u2060first, but in time she reckoned most would come to appreciate the bold design.<\/div>\n<div>Other major components of the site include a Great Lawn for casual summer picnics and winter sledding; a new branch of the Chicago Public Library; a fruit and vegetable garden named for Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the wife of the 32nd U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was a major Democratic Party figure in her own right; an outdoor plaza honoring late civil rights leader and U.S. lawmaker John \u2060Lewis, who led \u200bthe &#8220;Bloody Sunday&#8221; march; an athletic center dubbed Home Court; and a multimedia performance and programming space called the Forum.<\/div>\n<div>The campus also features 28 \u200boriginal artworks. A network of interconnecting pathways and green space planted with 900 native trees is open to adjacent park land.<\/div>\n<div>The Obama Center&#8217;s architects were Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, New York veterans known for such projects as the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and the Logan Center for \u200bthe Arts at the University of Chicago.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=2346\">Is Trump ready to go back to being the \u2018peace\u2019 president?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=2345\">Meta lobbies Congress for protection from child-harm lawsuits<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=2343\">Republicans blast Trump\u2019s Iran agreement as details emerge<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four former U.S. presidents led a crowd of thousands on Thursday in a music-filled dedication of the \u200bObama Presidential Center, a sprawling Chicago campus of granite, nature and art designed as a hub of civic life and culture honoring the 44th president of the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-2348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-united-states"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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