Serhii Chrucky photographs the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago

Obama Presidential Center, Location: Chicago IL, Architect: Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, Landscape Architect: Michael van Valkenburgh Associates © Serhii Chrucky/Esto

Serhii Chrucky photographed the newly opened Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.

The Center’s architecture is designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (TWBTA), with landscape architecture by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, and a typographic installation on the façade designed by Pentagram featuring an excerpt from President Obama’s 2015 ‘You Are America’ speech. The Center establishes an engaging new landscape within historic Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago, and is comprised of the iconic Museum tower, the Forum, and the Library, to honor the Obama Presidency while serving as a hub of local civic engagement and a beacon of democratic values.

A presidential library without a library. Every prior complex of this type was built to house paper records. The majority of Obama's records were born digital, and the paper that does exist sits in offsite National Archives facilities. The tower is then a monument with programming. It is concrete clad in New Hampshire granite, corners canted after the work of Brâncuși. The rest of the site is low slung. A forum and a branch of the Chicago Public Library share the central plaza. The parking structure sits under regraded ground that rises and falls in low hills. New parkland extends the campus south: meandering paths, a wetland walk, a fruit and vegetable garden, and a playground. Home Court, a gymnasium, anchors the southern end. Obama’s Selma speech is wrapped around the tower’s corner in tall concrete letters, facing west and south.

View the full suite of images on Esto’s archive here.