Obama Presidential Center, designed as hub of civic life, celebrated in Chicago

CHICAGO — Thousands of invited guests, led by former presidents and heads of state, converged on a lakefront Chicago park on Thursday to dedicate the Obama Presidential Center, a sprawling campus of granite, nature and art designed as a hub of civic life and culture honoring the 44th president of the United States.

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama were joined at the event by the other three living former occupants of the Oval Office—former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden—and their wives, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Jill Biden.

Obama's two daughters, Malia and Sasha, sat with their parents on the main stage of the ceremony.

The roster of VIPs in attendance also included former Vice President Kamala Harris and her spouse, Douglas Emhoff, former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and such foreign dignitaries as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The occasion under partly cloudy skies marked the ceremonial opening of the Obama Center, an $850 million development that local historians say marks the greatest single investment in a century in the city's long-neglected South Side.

Money for the center, which opens to the public on Friday—the Juneteenth holiday celebrating the abolition of slavery in the US—was raised privately through the former first couple's Chicago-based nonprofit Obama Foundation.

The proceedings opened with a performance by hip-hop group the Roots and a solo rendition of the national anthem by Jennifer Hudson. Other A-list recording artists slated to perform were Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, John Legend, Common, Christina Aguilera and Eddie Vedder.

Apart from the throng of dignitaries, music stars and other invited guests attending the dedication itself, 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.

The Obama Center, occupying 19.3 acres of historic Jackson Park 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.

The center, much of which celebrates advancements in civil rights and Obama's place in history as the first Black politician elected US president, comes as his immediate successor, President Donald Trump, has rolled back civil liberties protections and diversity programs.

Hope theme central to legacy

"At a time when there’s so much toxicity in the air, this kind of breathes new hope,” Valerie Jarrett, chief executive of the Obama Foundation, said at a pre-dedication event earlier this month. “You can come here and be inspired and hope again."

Hope, a word prominently displayed in sculpture near the entrance to the main building, was a resonant theme of Obama's 2008 White House campaign that the Obamas clearly want to be synonymous with their legacy.

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.

A man sits on the grass at a watch party at the Midway Plaisance Park. REUTERS/ Joshua Lott

Eight-storey granite centerpiece

The centerpiece is a museum devoted to Obama'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, but also has been described as evoking the shape of four hands coming together and reaching upward.

An excerpt from Obama's favorite speech, delivered in Selma, Alabama, on the 50th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" 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.

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 US president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was a major Democratic Party figure in her own right; an outdoor plaza honoring late civil rights leader and US lawmaker John Lewis, who led the "Bloody Sunday" march; an athletic center dubbed Home Court; and a multimedia performance and programming space called the Forum.

The campus also features 28 original artworks. A network of interconnecting pathways and green space planted with 900 native trees is open to adjacent park land.

The site builds on Jackson Park design features that were first laid out by famed landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1871 and later served as the grounds for the 1893 World’s Fair.

The Obama Center'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 the Arts at the University of Chicago. — Reuters