Social Media Erupts Over Obama Presidential Center Design: ‘A Monument Only Its Architect Could Love’

Former President Barack Obama unveiled his long-anticipated Obama Presidential Center on Thursday, June 18, but social media can’t stop talking about the look of the new Chicago landmark.

“The president was very, very hands-on with the design,” architect Billie Tsien told The Guardian earlier this month. “He wanted to make things more angular and cut. To make a form, and then try to work out what goes inside it, is really the opposite of how we’ve worked before. It was a very foreign exercise.”

The seemingly windowless building stands out among its South Side of Chicago surroundings. The 70-meter-high structure is wrapped in words from the former president’s speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the marches from Selma to Montgomery.

“He definitely had big opinions. But he was a very good critic,” Tsien added of Obama, 64.

Online critics have voiced their opinions about the structure with many agreeing that it is “hideous.”

“A monument only its architect could love. It’s horrendous,” one critic shared via Reddit.

“850 million dollars and somehow it ends up being a flat, grey block that looks like an abandoned factory instead of anything meaningful and/or beautiful,” another wrote.

“Unfortunately the ugliest presidential center built yet,” yet another critic voiced.

Others pointed out the illegible text surrounding the southwest corner.

“I think it’s a very poor design on the text wrap around. unreadable font with shadows, a message that can’t be read in one go,” one person shared.

The Obama Presidential Center opened to the public on Friday, June 19, nearly a decade since he left office.