MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO04

The Barack Obama Community Library

The Barack Obama Community Library

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MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO llc |

| MICHAEL SORKIN STUDIO llc

The Barack Obama Community Library

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 Clintons allegiance, it is, like the pledge, a fairly new 152,000 square foot Bridge to the Future. one. The first presidential library was FDRs 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 (Carters 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: Nixons, which its holdings and materials. And finally, its reproduces the Lincoln Sitting Room instead, location is completely discretionary; there and JFKs, which displays the furnishings of are no presidential libraries in the nations 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 Roosevelts, 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. Johnsons 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 LBJs 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. Bushs branch (invade Iraq!) or the life-size statues of Golda Meir and Anwar Sadat at Nixons. Obamas 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 citys 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 Worlds 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, Woodlawns 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

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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.

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 Woodlawns 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 countrys 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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The Barack Obama Community Library

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The Barack Obama Community Library

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 Chicagos 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 Obamas 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 universitys 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 plannings 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 organizers 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 its 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!

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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

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U of C Charter School

Th e M h ic le el Ob
Community Fitness Center

am a Ag ric ul tu

S Elis Ave

S Woodlawn Ave

l ra ee Gr nw ay

The Barack Obama Community Library

Obama Museum of African- American Politics

Hyde Park Suzuki Institute Ratner Gym S mart Museum of Art University of Chicago Alumini House Henry Crown Field Hyde Park Union Church House Gym Religious Society Regenstein Library of Friends William Ray Elementary School

DuSable Museum of African -American History

Trauma Center

Joe and Rika Mansueto Library

Washington Park
Carter Elementary School

University of Chicago
John Crerar Library University of Chicago Medical Center Renaissance Society Museum

Student Counseling Service Oriental Institute Museum

Uof C Laborat

Midway Plaisance
Community Healthcare Center Ross Elementary School Logan Center for Art Sexton Elementary School Legal Aid Clinic

Michigan Avenue Adult Education Center

Community Fitness Center

Langley Avenue Church of God Fiske Elementary School

Woodlawn
Community Film Workshop

Woodlawn Technical Training Center

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E63rd Street
Dulles School of Excellence Counseling Service Bessie Coleman Library

Obama Presidential Library

Obama-Alinsky School of Community Organization U of C Charter School Obama Highschool of Public Affairs

The Michelle Obama Agricultural Greenway

Community Fitness Center

S Elis Ave

S Woodlawn Ave

Emmett Till School

Dumas Elementary School Brownell Elementary School

Woodlawn Elementary Community School

Oak Woods Cemetery

Chaturanga Holistic Fitness Harte Elementary School

Museum of Science and Industry

tory Schools

Laboratory School

Pedestrian Way Orthogenic School Existing Museum and Cultural Institution New Museum

Community Fitness Center Andrew Carnegie School

Jackson Park

Universiy of Chicago High School Elementary School

Hyde Park Academy High School Curves, Fitness Club

New School YWCA, Children Fitness Existing Religious Institutions Existing Community Institution New Community Institution Woodlawn Organization Child New Residential Existing Commercial Community Fitness Center New Commercial CTA Station

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Mount Carmel High School

Masterplan

Metra Rail Station

The Barack Obama Community Library

Washington Park

University of Chicago

Midway Plaisance

Woodlawn
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E63rd Street

Oak Woods Cemetery

S Elis Ave

S Woodlawn Ave

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Jackson Park

Vacant Lots

The Barack Obama Community Library

Obama Museum of African- American Politics

Trauma Center

Washington Park
The Michelle Obama Agricultural Greenway

University of Chicago

Midway Plaisance
Community Healthcare Center

Community Fitness Center

Woodlawn
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Woodlawn Technical Training Center

E63rd Street
Counseling Service The Michelle Obama Agricultural Greenway

Obama Presidential Library

Obama-Alinsky School of Community Organization Obama Highschool of Public Affairs

Community Fitness Center

Oak Woods Cemetery

S Elis Ave

The Michelle Obama Agricultural Greenway

S Woodlawn Ave

Community Fitness Center

Jackson Park
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Pedestrian Way New Museum New School New Community Institution New Residential Community Fitness Center New Commercial

New Development

The Barack Obama Community Library

Washington Park

University of Chicago

Midway Plaisance

Community Farm/ Energy Farm/ Park

Woodlawn
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E63rd Street
The Michelle Obama Agricultural Greenway

Obama Presidential Library

Oak Woods Cemetery

S Elis Ave

S Woodlawn Ave

Jackson Park
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Pedestrian Way Existing Green Space New Greenway Community Farm/ Energy Farm

Green

The Barack Obama Community Library

Obama Museum of African- American Politics

Hyde Park Suzuki Institute Smart Museum of Art

DuSable Museum of African -American History

Joe and Rika Man- Regenstein Library sueto Library

Washington Park

University of Chicago
John Crerar Library Renaissance Society Oriental Institute Museum

Midway Plaisance
Logan Center for Art

Woodlawn
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E63rd Street
Bessie Coleman Library

Obama Presidential Library

Oak Woods Cemetery

S Elis Ave

S Woodlawn Ave

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

Jackson Park
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Pedestrian Way Existing Museum and Cultural Institution New Museum

Museums

The Barack Obama Community Library

William Ray Elementary School

Washington Park
Carter Elementary School

University of Chicago

Uof C Laboratory Schools

Midway Plaisance
Ross Elementary School Sexton Elementary School

Michigan Avenue Adult Education Center

Woodlawn
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Fiske Elementary School

Woodlawn Technical Training Center

Community Film Workshop

E63rd Street
Dulles School of Excellence

Obama Presidential Library

Obama-Alinsky School of Community Organization Obama Highschool of Public Affairs U of C Charter School

S Elis Ave

S Woodlawn Ave

Emmett Till School

Dumas Elementary School Brownell Elementary School

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
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Hyde Park Academy High School

Mount Carmel High School

Pedestrian Way Universiy of Chicago

Woodlawn Organization Child

High School Elementary School New School

Education

The Barack Obama Community Library

New Life Covenant Church

Ratner Gym

Coppin Memorial AME Church

Trauma Center

Henry Crown Field House Gym Hyde Park Union Church Religious Society of Friends University Church First Unitarian Church-Chicago

True Church of Holiness

Washington Park

University of Chicago
University of Chicago Medical Center

Student Counseling Service

St Augustines Cathedral AO

Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

Midway Plaisance
Community Healthcare Center Christ Unity Evangelical Church Freedom Temple Church of God in Christ Legal Aid Clinic

Saint Edmunds Episcopal Church

Community Fitness Center

Langley Avenue Church of God

F Christ Way Baptist Woodlawn Baptist Church

Woodlawn
Saint Philips Lutheran Church

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E63rd Street
Counselling Service

Obama Presidential Library

Concord B South Side Gospel Church Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer Woodlawn AME Church Community Fitness Center Shrine of Christ the King

Christian Temp Woodlawn Union Baptist Church Lincoln Memorial Congregational United Church of Christ Woodlawn Union Baptist 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 Vernon Baptist Church

First Presbyteri

First House of Prayer Church

First Paradise Missionary Baptist

Oak Woods Cemetery

S Elis Ave

S Woodlawn Ave

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
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Curves, Fitness Club YWCA, Children Fitness

Baptist Church

ple Baptist Church

ian Church of Chicago

Pedestrian Way Existing Religious Institutions Existing Community Institution Community Fitness Center New Community Institution

Community

The Barack Obama Community Library

Washington Park

University of Chicago

Midway Plaisance

Woodlawn
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E63rd Street

Oak Woods Cemetery

S Elis Ave

S Woodlawn Ave

Within Woodlawn Neighbourhood

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

Jackson Park
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Pedestrian Way Existing Commercial New Commercial

Commercial

The Barack Obama Community Library

Washington Park

University of Chicago

Midway Plaisance

Woodlawn
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E63rd Street

Oak Woods Cemetery

S Elis Ave

S Woodlawn Ave

Within Woodlawn Neighbourhood

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

Jackson Park
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Pedestrian Way New Residential

Residential Opportunity

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

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MIcHael sorKIN stUDIo

ADDRESS
180 Varick Street #1220 New York NY 10014

CONTACT
sorkin@thing.net www.sorkinstudio.com 212.627.9120

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.
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180 VARICK STREET #1220 NEW YORK NY 10014 USA T +(1) 212.627.9120 E INFO@SORKINSTUDIO.COM W SORKINSTUDIO.COM