In photos: a preview of the Obama Presidential Center

NPR ^ | June 4, 2026 | NPR Staff, Tamara Keith

[fwdude]

Later this month, the Obama Presidential Center will open on the South Side of Chicago. In a preview for the press, NPR and other media toured the building and grounds showcasing the Obama presidency.

It isn't a presidential library. It's a campus, with basketball courts, gardens, ball fields, a playground for kids, a Chicago public library branch and an eight- story museum that towers over it all.

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TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Philosophy; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: corruption

[fwdude]

Anyone else looking forward to visiting Orthanc?

[packrat35]

And the ugliest Stalin Russia looking building ever.

[Jim W N]

As ugly as the extreme doctrine and man it represents.

[ghost of nixon]

memo to BLM - instead of giving you $850 million of reparations, we spent it on this. Enjoy!

[dfwgator]

Reminds me of Squidward's house

[Mogger]

At least it will get local “youths” and “teens” acclimated to the stark “beauty” of prison walls.

[packagingguy]

It looks like an oversized German pillbox on a Normandy beach.

[Leaning Right]

> It's a campus, with basketball courts… <

It’s also a mirror image of Nazi flak tower. Which might come in handy if the Rooskies or the ChiComs ever decide to bomb Chicago.

That’s the top of a Nazi flak tower, not the top of the Obama building.
😀

[ConservaTexan]

It's a campus, with basketball courts, gardens, ball fields, a playground for kids...

I'm setting the over/under on days until the first homicide at 79.

[Paladin2]

ObeyMe Free Lieberry?

[mewzilla]

It’s giving me Führerbunker vibes...

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-f%C3%BChrerbunker-near-the-reich-chancellery-in-berlin-news-photo/545729925

[gibsonguy]

Hideous.

[SunkenCiv]

• 'Like a Klingon prison': inside Barack Obama's audacious, near-windowless, $850m presidential library [06/03/2026]

[Dilbert San Diego]

I heard this place was built in a bad neighborhood .

Will there be gang types or other assorted criminal elements hanging around?

[fwdude]

It does look Eastern European Industrial Depression.

[chajin]

At least this one has windows

[mythenjoseph]

What did you expect from a muslim/Kenyan/faggot?

[fwdude]

I heard this place was built in a bad neighborhood .

Cshitcago's South Side. About 90% of the shootings we hear about weekly happen here.

[PghBaldy]

I’m so excited!

[adorno]

NO doubt, it also has a room dedicated to Obama’s gay orgies.