Twin Embraces - The Plan: Chicago's Celebration of President Obama.
Slide 1 of 16.
Twin Embraces (c) 2020-2021, Grahm Balkany: Architect. All Rights reserved. www.OPCWashPark.US
Above: An overhead view of Twin Embraces, looking east at Garfield Boulevard
In the sit-ins, the marches, the jailhouse songs, I saw the African-American community becoming more than just the place where you’d been born or the house where you’d been raised. Through organizing, through shared sacrifice, membership had been earned. And because membership was earned – because this community I imagined was still in the making, built upon the promise that the larger American community, black, white, and brown, could somehow redefine itself – I believed that it might, over time, admit the uniqueness of my own life.
-- Barack Obama
Dreams from My Father, 2nd ed. (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004), 135.
Dreams from My Father, 2nd ed. (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004), 135.
The city is teeming with pride and anticipation to be the home of the Obama Presidential Center. So much so, in fact, that in our respect and jubilation, the democratic process has faltered. Chicago has failed to steer this most important moment toward its greatest outcome. The irony is tragic and the consequences are real.
The Center we build here, today, will become the enduring symbol of the legacy of the 44th President for all posterity. The opportunity and investment of a generation, Chicago’s South Side and President Obama both deserve nothing but the pinnacle. It is for these reasons that we welcome President Obama’s homecoming to the South Side, but also why we must not settle for anything less than the best. At times, even the greatest leaders rely on the advice of others.
Above, a vision of the Obama Presidential Center aside Washington Park, looking west down Garfield Boulevard. The public space of the Park is expanded rather than reduced, creating a lush, campus-like environment for the Center, one that simultaneously differentiates it from the park proper while providing direct integration. The historic and prized Washington Park Arboretum, home to some of Chicago’s oldest trees, is enlarged and enhanced with new amenities and diversified native species, serving as a foil and grand entryway to the new Presidential Center campus.
Terra firma parklands (built on actual ground, allowing mature ecosystems to flourish) increase the footprint of Washington Park by 6.5 acres. These spaces are configured as a collection of Embraces, sheltering and unique in their topology and climatic response. In so doing, a rich variety of native plant species can flourish, closely reflecting the diverse natural ecosystems that once made up the Chicago lakefront.
Green roofs add an additional 2.25 acres of vegetated space to the design, much of it accessible to the public and occupants. A semi-public Wintergarden adds over another acre of functional, publicly accessible gardens and amenities. In this fashion, it is hoped that the Center can belong to both the city and to the park, to the people and to nature, supporting life from multiple perspectives. In this fashion, it will form a bastion of progressive planning and conscientiousness, much like the presidency of Barack Obama itself.