CHICAGO — One of the people who helped design the towering Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago’s South Side told Fox News Digital that boldness was the 44th president’s goal in the construction of what has become a polarizing finished product.
“The architects knew with the client that they wanted to do something bold at the top of the tower, and the vision of the speech came to life,” Chris Bird, a Washington, D.C. based structural engineer told Fox News Digital just before the site opened to the public Friday.
Specifically, Bird designed the upper quadrant of the tower comprised of quotes from various speeches delivered by Obama during his two terms in office. The 91 words wrap around a corner of the building and make for a unique look that has been both praised and ridiculed. There are 433 individual letters, which Bird said each stand at around five feet tall.
“Working with the design architects and also their graphic designers to figure out how to shape and move a speech, splice it and put it on a building is actually really unprecedented,” Bird said. “There’s no architectural precedent, in my opinion.”
OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CENTER BREAKS SILENCE OVER CONTROVERSIAL BUILDING DESIGN
Fox News Digital spoke with more than a dozen of the thousands of people who packed the 19.3 acre campus during its public opening Friday, who used words like “phenomenal,” “breathtaking,” “amazing,” “futuristic” and “unique” to describe the center’s design.
The center has been ripped by online detractors as a “monstrous insult to architecture, a “concrete nightmare” and a “monstrosity.”
But Bird is pleased by the result and undeterred by criticism.
OBAMA CENTER OPENS AFTER YEARS-LONG SAGA AS LOCALS WARN ‘MONSTROSITY’ COULD PRICE THEM OUT
“Now that it’s complete, it feels like it really anchors this site and this neighborhood,” he said. “You know, it’s able to blend in with the park in a way that’s really nice. I mean, the landscape architecture — as well as the building — the landscape architectures is incredible.”
He said it invokes emotion in the people he met during the opening festivities.
“I mean, it’s nothing but smiles and some tears sometimes. I think everyone finds a bit of themselves that they knew or didn’t know they needed here, which is really special,” he said.
Bird certainly disagrees with the characterization that the building is a “monstrosity.”
“So, the tower itself is an incredible gesture in the rest of the park,” he said. “We’re reaching toward the sky, it is tall, but it’s not much taller — I mean it’s kind of matched in size by lots of the buildings around this area.”
“I think to say that it’s a monstrosity is wrong. I would say that it’s a really grand gesture and a bold statement.”
Obama Center engineer fires back at online critics ripping architecture as ‘monstrous insult’ 2026 IUSTITIA.BG – Investigations 2009-2025 2026-06-20 11:20:39 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law
