The Obama Presidential Center opened Friday, fittingly on Juneteenth, and even from afar, the opening ceremonies were a welcome palate cleanser. And for a gardenblog, there’s plenty of plant-related news to report.

The Obama Center “campus” is lots more than plants

The Obama Center isn’t a traditional presidential library but instead, an $850 million privately funded civic campus that includes a museum, public library, community center, athletic facility, gardens, classrooms, and public gathering spaces on Chicago’s South Side. According to its website, it “aspires to remake a historically poor, Black neighborhood across 19.3 acres of storied Jackson Park. There are ballfields, playgrounds, barbeque grills and picnic tables. There’s a teaching kitchen, with a fruit and vegetable garden, overseen by the Chicago Botanic Garden.”

So let’s not judge the almost-20-acre site as we would a public garden because its purpose is to be a community amenity. Here’s how Michelle Obama urged the community to use the space in her opening ceremony speech: 

Get your hands dirty in my garden. Push your baby on a swing in the playground. Have a romantic picnic on the Great Lawn…

And to my fellow South Siders, I want you all to make this campus a part of your lives, be inspired by the world-class art, check out the books from our beautiful public library – and bring them back on time – drop some beats in the recording studio, hit some corner threes at Home Court, hold birthday parties, jump-start clothing drives, host city-wide clean-up dates. Here. Use this campus to show off this place we call home.

Right “garden,” right place. And this place won’t be competing as a horticultural gem or showcasing elite design trends.  The focus here is serving the community.   

How “green” is it?

Because inevitably, new outdoor spaces are judged by how strictly they adhere to the current trends and demands for eco-gardening, let’s see how the Center represents itself in that arena. From its website: 

The Presidential Center’s landscape will promote wellness, while respecting native ecosystems. Within our sustainable design, 30 percent of the campus site will be restored with native or adapted vegetation, and the use of pesticides and fertilizers will be minimized in all maintenance efforts…

The campus will feature dozens of native plants and vegetation for visitors to learn about, explore, and enjoy.

And elsewhere on the site, there’s mention of Center’s use of  “native and adapted plants” or “sustainable plants.” Clearly not going as far as many native-plant advocates would prefer.

But wait – I see a Threads post about the Center using “over 10,000 native plants designed to support local wildlife and pollinators. ” That number wasn’t to be found on websites of the Center or its landscape designer, but AI did find the source for that number – the plant wholesaler that sold the Center the native plants! (They wisely alerted the media.) 

The Gardens of the Obama Center

The best source of images and info about the 19.3-acre landscape is here on the Michael van Valkenburg website.  He’s a landscape “starchitect” with a long portfolio to his credit, with highlights including the Brooklyn Bridge Park and the redesign of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, post 9/11. 

Eleanor Roosevelt Fruit and Vegetable Garden

The edibles garden has room for “garden gatherings… an event series celebrating wellness and creativity. Every other week this summer, we’ll transform our garden into a space for music, hands-on gardening activities, and opportunities to connect with neighbors.”

Ann Dunham Terrace

“The introspective and intimate Ann Dunham Water Terrace will honor the life and legacy of President Obama’s mother. The Water Terrace will include a stone sculptural water feature created by world-renowned artist and architect Maya Lin, best known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.”

The Women’s Garden

This is a “revitalized renovation of Jackson Park’s historic Women’s Garden, originally designed by May McAdams in 1937 in tribute to the Suffrage Movement.”

Great Lawn!

More proof that the Center isn’t aiming for eco-wokeness, it includes and celebrates a “Great Lawn”!  “From casual afternoon picnics to winter sledding, enjoy a day with friends and family on our sprawling 58,000 square foot lawn. Stop by and join one of our outdoor activities hosted for the community.” Sledding and rolling downhill on the grass are suggested.  

Nature-based playground

Wetland Walk 

“In an effort to support water conservation, the Obama Presidential Center will feature a Wetland Walk, which will capture stormwater that will be treated and reused to irrigate the landscape. The Wetland Walk will contain walking paths that thread through the area, a tree canopy, and a place for children to play. Seating will be built out of large stone blocks that can be used for classes, small gatherings, or simply as a spot to stop and enjoy the park.”

See, even the stormwater management system is designed for human activity.

Seeing photos of the gardens

I can hardly wait to see photos of all these gardens – but I’ll just have to because gardens take a while to develop.  Good gardens, anyway.

So I predict that your photos this season will underwhelm, but by next year I hope a reader visits and lets us post their photos and commentary.  None of us at the Rant are local to Chicago.

Then there’s that Tower!

There’s been much eye-rolling over the dominant building on site – the modern 225-foot-tall tower, called an “Obamalisk” and “formidable” by critics. While I do appreciate that the building’s height minimizes its footprint, allowing for most of its acreage to be used as open space. And I do appreciate some Modern architecture, but not this example.

The absence of windows is mentioned by critics, but isn’t that normal for museums?

Overall, I appreciate the boldness of the vision and love what I read about the activities inside the building but to most people, brutalism (or whatever this is called) is more off-putting than inviting.

New Couple Portrait is an Unqualified Hit

I’ll sign off on a super-positive note – the unveiling on Thursday of the first-ever commissioned portrait of the Obamas together, the portrait now hanging in the lobby of the Obama Center. The artist is Njideka Akunyili Crosby, who based the portrait on photographs she took of the couple.

From the website: “The narrative portrait combines colored pencil and charcoal with photo transfers. The work is infused with meaningful images and symbols from throughout their lives, from childhood to the White House and their post-presidential years.”

At first glance I was wow’ed and intrigued enough to examine it very closely, looking for gems from the Obamas’ lives that are tucked into the piece: a view of Mrs. Obama’s childhood home on South Side of Chicago, one of five Emmy awards the couple has won, a framed photo of their daughters when they were young, the Obamas’ four Grammys, a framed photograph from the March on Washington, the cover of the first record album Mrs. Obama received (Steve Wonder’s 1972 “Talking Book”), a basketball, books they love and books they have authored.

(Notice that the First Lady is centered in the portrait.  I’ll have to go back to the National Portrait Gallery to see if any of the powerful subjects pose behind their spouse. I sure doubt it.).

Plants in Portraits

I happily noticed the portrait’s prominent inclusion of flowers – my excuse for writing about it here, reminding me of my post about the portrait of President Obama against a backdrop of plants:  chrysanthemums (official flower of Chicago),  jasmine (evoking Hawaii, where Obama largely grew up) and African blue lilies (for Obama’s Kenyan father) against a background of rose leaves.

In this new portrait, the plants frame the subjects beautifully. There’s also a vase modeled after those made by Dave the Potter that’s filled with flowering plants and vegetables that have symbolic ties to the Obamas, including okra, coral hibiscus, torch ginger, petunia and plumeria.

The artist apparently uses plants extensively in her works. From her bio:

Known for her layered compositions, Akunyili Crosby brings together painting, drawing, photography, and collage to construct deeply personal and culturally resonant images. Her work explores transnational identity, drawing on her experiences between Nigeria and the United States to examine how memory and history intersect in everyday life.

Akunyili Crosby and her team of five — which expanded to eight as the project reached its deadline — used acrylics, colored pencils, charcoal and photos that were transferred through a printmaking technique to create “Springing Forth.” 

“I print out pictures, just with like a regular office printer,” the Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist said. “Then I take the picture I want to transfer … I put it face down on my work and then I put a brush in acetone and I rub the back of the printed paper. I’m really pushing down, so it’s a really physical process. The acetone breaks the binding of the pigment from the printer, and … the printer pigment kind of gets forced into the paper [and] the photo has transferred onto this other surface.”