Obama’s dour new Presidential Center is getting savaged on social media: ‘Death Star in Chicago’

New York Post ^ | October 15, 2025 | Alex Oliveira

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Yes, we trash can.

President Barack Obama’s austere new presidential library is getting roasted with comparisons to the Death Star, garbage bins and other domineering monoliths in a hilarious social media thread sparked by Sen. Ted Cruz.

“Locating the Death Star in Chicago was a bold move,” Cruz (R-Texas) wrote on X Tuesday while reposting a video of the latest work on Obama’s Chicago presidential center.

The facility, a slab of concrete and granite rising 225 feet above Chicago’s Jackson Park, has faced ridicule from critics since its design was first unveiled nearly 10 years ago — and the peanut gallery poured on more jokes after Cruz’s post.

Some posted videos with “Star Wars” X-wing fighters closing in on the library building, while others Photoshopped the structure sideways to replace the torsos of the massive AT-AT walkers from “The Empire Strikes Back.”

Others superimposed the Eye of Sauron from the “Lord of the Rings” movies on its roof, and others simply posted photos of Easter Island heads.

Kitty litter boxes were also included in the comparisons, as were common trash bins, dumpsters, and ephemera from “Star Trek” and “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wow, the response's to Cruz's post are hilarious and damning!

The Obama Presidential Center was compared to the Death Star and other monoliths in a hilarious X thread.

The center building was superimposed over the bodies of giant walkers from “The Empire Strikes Back.”

The Eye of Sauron tower from “The Lord of the Rings” was one of the common comparisons on social media.

The “Litter Genie Plus Pail” was one of the more apt comparisons on Cruz’s X thread.

Common trash bins were also a frequent comparison on the X thread on Sen. Cruz’s tweet.

The Who’s album “Who’s Next” was suggested as inspiration for the center’s design.

[xp38]

So pee stains are expected? :)

[spankalib]

Totally ugly - the way all commie designs are.

I swear, they are inspired by their father, Satan.

[Stosh]

The urine stream stains on the monolith in the “Who’s next” album cover suggest that at least there may be some useful function for the Obama “library”.

But no question that it will be a major eyesore on what was once an attractive section of south Lake Shore Drive.

[PGalt]

Barry Soetoro-D evil

[butlerweave]

Did Obama find a USSR architect or one of Hitler’s that built those massive above ground bunkers in Berlin ,LOL

[Leaning Right]

I’m sick and tired of folks mocking the design of Obama’s presidential library. It’s obviously meant to be a library now AND a flak tower in case of a foreign invasion.

It’s a genius plan, I tell ya.

[sjmjax]

An ugly building for an ugly administration.
Quite appropriate.

[al baby]

Looks Muslim to me

[fredhead]

Looks like an outhouse for the Jolly Green Giant.

Probably smells like one as well.

[volare737]

Did a second grader design that POS?

[PubliusMM]

Well, it DOES look like a remnant of the old Soviet Union; a concrete ode to communism.

[mass55th]

I see a Judge has already temporarily blocked turning property over in downtown Miami for Trump's Presidential library.

Judge sides with Democrat historian to temporarily block Trump presidential library deal in Florida

[dayglored]

> Looks Muslim to me

Islam, for all its horrors, produced some of the world's finest non-representation art and architecture, in part because representations of Mohammed or Allah are forbidden, so artists used geometry and color in other beautiful ways.

Obummer's concrete monstrosity is a grotesque, brutalist nightmare. Nothing Muslim about it, IMO.

[Billthedrill]

$830 m-m-million for an East German guard tower. Somebody’s getting enriched and it sure isn’t the citizens of Chicago.

[Vaduz]

5th photo spot on

[Night Hides Not]

I will be happy to contribute!

[Night Hides Not]

I remember seeing those guard towers at Dachau and Flossenburg, seems very similar to Obama’s library. Am also looking forward to Biden’s library, which should look like an Appalachian outhouse.

[RushingWater]

When 2 gay guys build a house it’s often just off on some aesthetics . . .

[Soul of the South]

A beautiful historic public park was destroyed to create a site for the Obama Library.