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MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO04

The Barack Obama Community Library

The Barack Obama Community Library

MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO llc |

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The Barack Obama Community Library

MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO llc |

Communities (have) to be created, precincts of the Mall. But the presidential fought for, tended like gardens. library quickly became an executive custom, Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father and each version to date has expanded on a basic formula. The main component is the archive, and these have experienced an Although the presidential library is now as exponential expansion in size, from the 17 natural a part of our national trove of civic million documents in the 40,000 square foot rituals and commemorations as the pledge of Roosevelt Library to the 76 million in Clinton’s allegiance, it is, like the pledge, a fairly new 152,000 square foot “Bridge to the Future”. one. The first presidential library was FDR’s These massive deposits of paper are now in Hyde Park, New York. Based on his own joined by countless terraflops of digital data. sketches, it opened in 1941, one year before the pledge was adopted by Congress and not From the start, too, a museum has been part long after the construction of the Lincoln and of the parti. These have grown from modest Jefferson Memorials in Washington, DC. collections of memorabilia and presidential swag (Carter’s museum includes a portrait The construction of the Roosevelt library of George Washington woven into a Persian established a series of precedents that have carpet, unfortunate gift of the Shah) to include endured. First, the president himself is, trinkets as large as the decommissioned Air in effect, the author of his own memorial. Force One installed at the Reagan Library in Second, the project is constructed with private California. Another staple is a reproduction funds and then conveyed to the care of the of the Oval Office, occasionally at slightly national archive. Third, every president gets reduced dimensions. Every presidential 4 one. Fourth, the president initially curates museum has one, save two: Nixon’s, which its holdings and materials. And finally, its reproduces the Lincoln Sitting Room instead, location is completely discretionary; there and JFK’s, which displays the furnishings of are no presidential libraries in the nation’s the Oval Office but without the room. Perhaps capital. the most striking of these is at the LBJ library, where it is built at 7/8 scale in order to fit The thirteen presidential libraries (Hoover, in its new home at the University of Texas at envying Roosevelt’s, built his out of Austin, which nonetheless had to have part sequence in 1962) are part of the panoply of its roof blown out to accommodate the of memorializations for the chief executive, height of the room. Johnson used to work in including birthplaces, boyhood homes, the simulacrum: at its reduced size, it surely ancestral mansions, and holiday spots, increased his own apparent dimensions. not to mention airports, cultural centers, The Oval Office has also been reproduced and other civic structures. Presidents rated unofficially countless times, including in the distinguished (Washington, Jefferson, house of Tampa millionaires Tom and June Lincoln, FDR and – eventually - Eisenhower) Simpson and in the lobby of the San Francisco are honored with “genuine” memorials in the digital start-up, Git-Hub. One observes the

emptying of the signifier. Johnson’s library – which is the most architecturally distinguished of a largely mediocre lot – also expanded the remit and tenor of the institution by being the first to be located on a university campus and to include a school of public affairs as part of its program. This was at once an important expansion of purpose and LBJ’s riposte to the much-resented hegemony of eastern institutions in the training of high-level men and women of affairs. This pattern was repeated by the Presidents Bush, and by Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. (Both Nixon and Reagan were rebuffed in their attempts to find universities that would accommodate them.) Johnson might have been frustrated that the mother of all these centers is the Kennedy School at Harvard, built after his own school in Texas. And, vigorous ex-presidents have also used their libraries as the sites for their own ongoing philanthropic and political activities, most prominently Clinton and Carter whose initiatives continue to be consequential. This idea of a presidential library as a place for doing good and not simply facilitating scholarship or the ossified appreciation of – or apologetics for - term-time achievements seems particularly relevant in the case of Barack Obama, who will leave office at the ripe old age of 56. He will surely continue to work for equity, justice, and peace through a variety of means as he continues his trajectory of public service. However, his deliberations over the potential site for his library beg another question of service: How could the construction of an institution itself leverage

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The Barack Obama Community Library social and environmental transformation? Indeed, President Obama has the opportunity to return to his roots as a community organizer via the infusion of the capital, construction, energy, and purpose his presidential center will represent. He should seize the moment to further transform the nature of the institution to suit the contours of his own sensibility, shaking it from the dogmatic slumber of its own creeping Disneyfication, be it playacting decision making at George W. Bush’s branch (invade Iraq!) or the life-size statues of Golda Meir and Anwar Sadat at Nixon’s.

MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO llc |

Obama’s choices for a location appear to have been narrowed to Honolulu and to several sites in Chicago. Chicago is clearly to be preferred. Not simply is it the city where the Obamas will presumably live post-presidency but it is where Obama made his first deep contributions in public service and the place to which he returned to begin and advance his political mission. 6 More, the neighborhoods bruited as choices in Chicago (half a dozen have appeared on one list or another) might all strongly benefit from the injection of institutional activity and investment. Although there are appealing arguments for several of these possibilities, my own sense is that – far and away – the best choice would be Woodlawn, on the city’s South Side, and that several large vacant sites on 63rd Street most perfectly fit the bill. Woodlawn has, to put it mildly, had a troubled history. Its origins are as a rural neighborhood that – along with adjoining Hyde Park – was annexed to Chicago in 1889. Soon after, the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, located in what was to

become Jackson Park, caused a building boom that rapidly increased the population by 20,000 and brought public transport and large and beautiful green spaces. From the start, Woodlawn’s commercial spine was 63rd Street and the neighborhood developed as a leafy, bourgeois. residential zone, its gentility reinforced by the closing of its popular racetrack in 1905 after the city banned betting. Many of the residents were faculty from the nearby University of Chicago, although there was also an early community of middle-class African American home owners in West Woodlawn.

warfare between the Blackstone Rangers and the East Side Disciples. At the same time, the University of Chicago was aggressively “defending” and rebuilding Hyde Park via a massive urban renewal regime and found demonizing utility in the specter of danger to the south. But the community was also organizing. With assistance from the legendary Saul Alinsky and the Industrial Areas Foundation, The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) was formed in 1960 to resist encroachment by the university, which had originally seen its territorial perquisites extending to a “natural” boundary at 67th Street, although, as it planned its However, blacks were largely excluded by redevelopment, it realized that its ambitions a restrictive covenant put in place by local substantially exceeded its economic and landlords in 1928. This officially endured organizational grasp. until being overturned by the Supreme Court in 1940 but remained in tacit effect for years Under the dynamic leadership of the Rev. more. Beginning with the depression, the Arthur Brazier, TWO took not simply a vanguard neighborhood began to “tip,” with increasing role in the neighborhood but became an housing deterioration and subdivision articulate national voice for community accelerating after the war. A population that empowerment and civil rights. As TWO was 13 percent African American in 1930 garnered power and recognition as an equal had hit 95 percent in 2000: from 1950 to player, the tensions between the university 1960, Woodlawn went from 86 percent white and Woodlawn were gradually alleviated and to 86 percent black. Total inhabitants rose the university pledged a hands-off policy to a high of 81,000 in 1960 but dropped below 61st Street while maintaining the precipitously to 27,000 by 1990 and hovers south campus strip between 60th and 61st as around 25,000 today. By the mid-seventies a buffer, parts of which it eventually leased to housing abandonment was widespread, the community. Trust improved and a spirit commerce had fled, and – in a misbegotten of cooperation – even alliance - replaced an piece of planning supported by local earlier paternalism. community groups – the “El” train being constructed east of Cottage Grove Avenue In its first ten years, TWO followed an arc was demolished. from the oppositional to the operational with results that can only be described as Segregation, poverty, and hostility gave rise mixed. Involvement in educational reform, to a vivid gang culture, with violent turf the Federal anti-poverty and Model Cities

is a moment that presents a real opportunity to repair this rift to the mutual benefit of the neighborhood and the university: the oppositional stance ultimately benefits neither and the addition of the Obama Library to the mix offers a striking opportunity to leverage great synergies, to effect a coherent program of spatialized mutual aid, to foster change all can believe – and share - in.

For this to happen, though, the Library must be conceived in a way that previous libraries have not been. First, it must become the first Presidential Center to be truly urban. Predecessors have been part of campuses, isolated in park-like settings, or otherwise not woven into the fabric of town. With the exception of the Clinton Library, which prompted substantial riverfront gentrification in Little Rock, none has catalyzed the transformation of a community in a way that such a powerful institution might. The Obama Center has the opportunity to be a genuinely local player and to contribute to the authentic improvement of everyday life for the neighborhoods that surround it. This will require a physical and social architecture that But things are changing slowly and for the is supportive, not aggressive or standoffish. better: Woodlawn is rife with capacity. TWO It offers the chance to build a truly model continues to operate as a service organization environment. and has played a substantial role in housing renovation and the delivery of social To achieve this, the library must also expand assistance. The university has resumed its scope beyond archive and museum to development of its south campus, a certain become a truly living place, to embrace forms amount of market-rate housing has gone up, of activism that are directed not simply at apartments are being renewed, a particularly global issues – peace in the Middle East or derelict housing project – an early success malaria in Africa – but also at the needs of for TWO - is being replaced by a much better the place which gives it a home. This begins, version, and the hostility between town and of course, with establishing a framework of gown has abated substantially. Indeed, this cooperation and empowerment to channel

community desires and a structure that will allow it to be an instrument for leveraging local assets, which must surely include the world-renowned and prosperous university on its doorstep, an institution with which both Barack and Michelle Obama have had a long association. The tools which the President can bring to the situation consist in assuring that Woodlawn authentically benefits, that this is not an occasion for exclusionary gentrification, that the mix of people and uses in Woodlawn is embraced and enhanced with sensitivity, that there be protection, inclusion, and opportunity for those at the bottom of the income and skills distribution. What programs might such a mix consist in? The core function of the presidential library – the scholarly archive – is the symbolic center of the project, despite having relatively low rates of use. It should occupy the most consequential site and I urge the blocks of 63rd Street between Ellis and Woodlawn. This would allow the building to act as a fulcrum 7 for the revival of Woodlawn’s main street. The creative inclusion of ground floor commercial and community space can be an interesting challenge for the architect who eventually designs the building. Surely, there will be a museum and here another possibility offers itself: a direct relationship with the existing DuSable Museum in Washington Park, the country’s oldest museum of African-American history. Aligning the Obama Museum with the DuSable would give it a particular inflection, celebrating a more collective achievement, and lifting it from the generic content that has come to characterize too many presidential museums.

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programs, and other government and selforganized initiatives got off to good starts but wound up cruelly thwarted by the power of the Daley machine and by institutional territoriality and inflexibility. In his seminal – and sympathetic - Black Power/White Control, John Hall Fish argues that TWO showed remarkable resilience in the face of dashed hopes and played a key role not simply in consciousness building and local control but also in keeping the idea of community alive, forestalling a fate far worse than eventually overtook it. Notwithstanding this canniness and courage, Woodlawn lost almost half its population between 1967 and 1971, in what The Chicago Daily News called “the blitz of Woodlawn.” Thousands of fires were set, abandonment accelerated, and the progressive urgency of the Johnson era was replaced by the corruptions of Nixon and the eternal Daley. The result was massive disinvestment and abandonment, which produced the Detroit-like landscape still predominant: gapped blocks, a commercial street without shops, and swaths of empty lots.

The Barack Obama Community Library

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The Barack Obama Community Library

MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO llc |

But, to truly rejuvenate the neighborhood, the Obama Center should generate and support a range of additional activities. David Axelrod already directs the University of Chicago’s Institute for Politics (and Rahm Emmanuel is mayor!) and the university has a graduate school of public affairs. But Chicago has no High School of Public Affairs nor a School of Community Organization. These could cluster around the library, which would also, presumably, house whatever facilities Obama’s larger philanthropic endeavors might require as well as an incubator and home for a range of local organizations. A mid-Woodlawn campus including these facilities, the university’s existing charter school, and links to other neighborhood schools, would kick-start the rebirth of 63rd Street and foster the insinuation of its energy throughout Woodlawn. An addition to the complex might be Woodlawn Tech, a center focused on training neighborhood residents for the kinds of biomedical, computational, 10 and other technical jobs available at the university and in that burgeoning economic sector. Why stop there? The wave of initiative induced by the Obama Center might also lead to the construction of one of the most needed – and contested – facilities on the south side: a level one trauma center. While this is most logically located in the heart of the university hospital complex, the Obama Center might embrace a corollary facility deeper in Woodlawn: a center for nutrition and preventive medicine, to help tackle health issues at the front end, something the First Lady has been strongly committed to. Logically, this should be accompanied

by a series of sites for physical training and recreation and a system for sharing already extensive resources between the university and its surrounding communities. Finally, the huge reserve of space that Woodlawn offers presents an opportunity for a large-scale and systematic introduction of urban agriculture and community gardens, uses that have begun to flourish throughout Chicago. While one might expect these facilities to be coordinated by the Obama Center, the larger scale of planning must be harmonized by using these energetic interventions to direct broader objectives still. The current construction of 63rd Street as a low-density residential corridor is a mistake and the Center should catalyze more ambitious, collaborative, and sensible planning. Most crucial of all, the re-establishment of residential density throughout the neighborhood should be planning’s highest objective. Morphologically, the cues are to be taken from existing conditions, from the low-rise default, adding a careful blend of single and attached houses and of multiple dwellings. To facilitate the building of the Obama Center, to fill out blocks that are gapped, and to create a continuous green space, it might be useful to move a relatively small number of houses to sites very nearby. Of course, no resident should be displaced from the neighborhood by any of this activity. A challenge for the ex-president will be to return to his organizer’s career, enlarged by the skills and powers of governing he has so abundantly acquired over the past two decades. The thrilling task will be to assist Woodlawn to become a model mix of classes,

races, histories, and desires that can serve as an example to cities everywhere. This will mean that the deployment of subsidy (including the fruits of the anticipated chartable tsunami such presidential plans attract) – in public housing, Section 8 housing, university housing, mortgage interest deductible market housing – must cleave to a clear model of fairness and not simply be left to the disinterested vagaries of the market or the municipality and their prejudices. Clearly, this process is dynamic but it’s crucial to note that the elements of the program described here are not needs from nowhere, but reflections of the objects of struggle – for housing, schools, health-care, jobs, training, environmental justice, and urban connectivity – that have preoccupied Woodlawn for decades. This beleaguered community can only be rebuilt and reassured by transforming the audacity of hope into concrete acts of fulfillment. We have taken the liberty of drawing up some highly conceptual plans to give a sense of the potential scale, intensity, and location for this transformative project to make Woodlawn a community of true social and environmental sustainability and justice. What better project for our Organizer-In-Chief!

Midway Plaisance Logan Center for Art

Orthogenic School

Andrew Carnegie School

Fiske Elementary School

Woodlawn Technical Training Center

E63rd Street

Obama Presidential Library

Obama-Alinsky School of Community Organization

Obama Highschool of Public Affairs

e

Th h ic

M le el Ob a

am

Community Fitness Center

l ra ay

nw

ee Gr

S Woodlawn Ave

tu

ul

ric

Ag

S Elis Ave

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U of C Charter School

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Hyde Park Suzuki Institute

The Barack Obama Community Library

Ratner Gym

Obama Museum of African- American Politics

DuSable Museum of African -American History

Trauma Center

Washington Park

University of Chicago Alumini House Henry Crown Field Hyde Park Union Church House Gym Religious Society Regenstein Library of Friends William Ray Elementary School

S mart Museum of Art

Joe and Rika Mansueto Library

University of Chicago John Crerar Library

Student Counseling Service

Carter Elementary School University of Chicago Medical Center

Renaissance Society Museum

Oriental Institute Museum

Uof C Laborat

Midway Plaisance Community Healthcare Center Ross Elementary School

Michigan Avenue Adult Education Center

Community Fitness Center

Logan Center for Art Sexton Elementary School

Legal Aid Clinic

Langley Avenue Church of God Fiske Elementary School Woodlawn Technical Training Center

Woodlawn Community Film Workshop

Obama Presidential Library

E63rd Street Dulles School of Excellence

Counseling Service

Bessie Coleman Library

Obama-Alinsky School of Community Organization

The Michelle Obama Agricultural Greenway

Obama Highschool of Public Affairs U of C Charter School

Community Fitness Center

Dumas Elementary School Brownell Elementary School

S Woodlawn Ave

Emmett Till School

S Elis Ave

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Woodlawn Elementary Community School

Oak Woods Cemetery

Chaturanga Holistic Fitness Harte Elementary School

Museum of Science and Industry

Laboratory School

tory Schools

Pedestrian Way Orthogenic School

Existing Museum and Cultural Institution

Community Fitness Center Andrew Carnegie School

Hyde Park Academy High School

New Museum

Jackson Park

Universiy of Chicago High School Elementary School

Curves, Fitness Club YWCA, Children Fitness

Mount Carmel High School

Existing Religious Institutions Existing Community Institution New Community Institution

Woodlawn Organization Child

New Residential Existing Commercial

Community Fitness Center

New Commercial CTA Station Metra Rail Station

Masterplan

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New School

The Barack Obama Community Library

Washington Park

University of Chicago

Midway Plaisance

Woodlawn E63rd Street

S Woodlawn Ave

S Elis Ave

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Oak Woods Cemetery

Jackson Park

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Vacant Lots

The Barack Obama Community Library Obama Museum of African- American Politics

Trauma Center

Washington Park

University of Chicago

The Michelle Obama Agricultural Greenway

Midway Plaisance Community Healthcare Center

Community Fitness Center Woodlawn Technical Training Center

Woodlawn

Obama Presidential Library

E63rd Street Counseling Service

Obama-Alinsky School of Community Organization

Obama Highschool of Public Affairs

The Michelle Obama Agricultural Greenway

Community Fitness Center

S Woodlawn Ave

S Elis Ave

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The Michelle Obama Agricultural Greenway

Oak Woods Cemetery

Community Fitness Center

Jackson Park 17

New Museum New School New Community Institution New Residential Community Fitness Center

New Commercial

New Development

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Pedestrian Way

The Barack Obama Community Library

Washington Park

University of Chicago

Midway Plaisance

Community Farm/ Energy Farm/ Park

Woodlawn Obama Presidential Library

E63rd Street The Michelle Obama Agricultural Greenway

S Woodlawn Ave

S Elis Ave

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Oak Woods Cemetery

Jackson Park 19

Existing Green Space New Greenway Community Farm/ Energy Farm

Green

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Pedestrian Way

Hyde Park Suzuki Institute

The Barack Obama Community Library

Smart Museum of Art

Obama Museum of African- American Politics

Joe and Rika Man- Regenstein Library sueto Library

DuSable Museum of African -American History

Washington Park

University of Chicago John Crerar Library Renaissance Society

Oriental Institute Museum

Midway Plaisance Logan Center for Art

Woodlawn Obama Presidential Library

E63rd Street Bessie Coleman Library

S Woodlawn Ave

S Elis Ave

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Oak Woods Cemetery

Obama Libary, Museum and Community Center Total Floor Area: 180,000 sq ft Museum of Science and Industry

Jackson Park 21

Existing Museum and Cultural Institution New Museum

Museums

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Pedestrian Way

The Barack Obama Community Library William Ray Elementary School

Washington Park

University of Chicago

Carter Elementary School

Uof C Laboratory Schools

Midway Plaisance Sexton Elementary School

Ross Elementary School

Michigan Avenue Adult Education Center

Woodlawn

Fiske Elementary School

Woodlawn Technical Training Center

Community Film Workshop

Obama Presidential Library

E63rd Street Dulles School of Excellence

Obama Highschool of Public Affairs

Obama-Alinsky School of Community Organization

U of C Charter School

Dumas Elementary School Brownell Elementary School

S Woodlawn Ave

Emmett Till School

S Elis Ave

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Woodlawn Elementary Community School

Oak Woods Cemetery

Harte Elementary School

Educational Archepelago Total New Floor Area: 500,000 sq ft

New Laboratory School

Orthogenic School

Andrew Carnegie School

Jackson Park

Hyde Park Academy High School

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Pedestrian Way Universiy of Chicago

Woodlawn Organization Child

High School Elementary School New School

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Mount Carmel High School

Education

The Barack Obama Community Library New Life Covenant Church

Ratner Gym

Coppin Memorial AME Church

Henry Crown Field House Gym Hyde Park Union Church Religious Society of Friends University Church

Trauma Center

University of Chicago

Washington Park

True Church of Holiness

First Unitarian Church-Chicago

Student Counseling Service University of Chicago Medical Center

St Augustine’s Cathedral AO

Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

Midway Plaisance Community Healthcare Center

Saint Edmunds Episcopal Church

Legal Aid Clinic

Freedom Temple Church of God in Christ

Christ Unity Evangelical Church

Community Fitness Center

F

Langley Avenue Church of God

Woodlawn

Christ Way Baptist Woodlawn Baptist Church

Saint Philips Lutheran Church

Obama Presidential Library

E63rd Street Counselling Service

Concord B

Christian Temp Woodlawn Union Baptist Church

Vernon Baptist Church

Shrine of Christ the King

Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer Woodlawn AME Church

Woodlawn Union Baptist Church

Community Fitness Center

First House of Prayer Church

Parkway Garden Christian Church New Beginnings Church of Chicago Sword of the Spirit Church Sword of the Spirit Church New Gideon Missonary Baptist Church

New Paradise MB Church Prayer Center Church of God in Christ

S Woodlawn Ave

Lincoln Memorial Congregational United Church of Christ

South Side Gospel Church

S Elis Ave

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Oak Woods Cemetery

First Paradise Missionary Baptist

First Presbyteri

Chaturanga Holistic Fitness Within Woodlawn Neighbourhood

Saint Stephens Church of God in Christ

Proposed New Community Facilities Total Floor Area: 156,000 sq ft

Community Fitness Center

First Mount Calvary Baptist Church Church

Jackson Park

Curves, Fitness Club YWCA, Children Fitness

ple Baptist Church

ian Church of Chicago

Pedestrian Way Existing Religious Institutions Existing Community Institution Community Fitness Center

New Community Institution

Community

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Baptist Church

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The Barack Obama Community Library

Washington Park

University of Chicago

Midway Plaisance

Woodlawn E63rd Street

S Woodlawn Ave

S Elis Ave

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Oak Woods Cemetery

Within Woodlawn Neighbourhood

New Commercial Space Total Floor Area: 246,500 sq ft

Jackson Park 27

Existing Commercial New Commercial

Commercial

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Pedestrian Way

The Barack Obama Community Library

Washington Park

University of Chicago

Midway Plaisance

Woodlawn E63rd Street

S Woodlawn Ave

S Elis Ave

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Oak Woods Cemetery

Within Woodlawn Neighbourhood

New Residential Space Total Floor Area: 7,200,000 sq ft 5,000 units 11,500 new residents

Jackson Park 29

New Residential

Residential Opportunity

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Pedestrian Way

PROJECT TEAM Michael Sorkin Makoto Okazaki Ying Liu Jie Gu Trudy Giordano Michael Parkinson

MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO llc |

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ADDRESS 180 Varick Street #1220 New York NY 10014

CONTACT [email protected] www.sorkinstudio.com 212.627.9120

| MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO llc

Michael sorkin studio

Michael Sorkin is Principal of the Michael Sorkin Studio, a global design practice working at all scales with a special interest in the city and green architecture. The studio has undertaken major projects – including the design of new cities, districts, and buildings – in China, Malaysia, Turkey, Germany, Austria, India, the U.S. and other locations around the world. Sorkin is President and founder of Terreform, a non-profit institute dedicated to research into the forms and 31 practices of just and sustainable urbanism. Sorkin is also President of the Institute for Urban Design, and Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at The City College of New York, was previously Professor of Urbanism at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and has held professorships at Cooper Union, Yale, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Harvard, SCI-Arc, Aarhus, and other schools. He is the author or editor of more than 15 books on architecture and urbanism and is the architecture critic for The Nation. Sorkin is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, in 2013, won the National Design Award as “Design Mind.”

180 VARICK STREET #1220 NEW YORK NY 10014 USA T +(1) 212.627.9120 E [email protected] W SORKINSTUDIO.COM