First Look at the Future Obama Presidential Center

The Chicago Tribune breaks the news that Barack and Michelle Obama announced the initial designs for the planned Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park, Chicago.

The trio of Angela Caputo, Katherine Skiba, and Blair Kamin report that the campus will include "three buildings highlighted by an eye-catching museum, whose height and splaying walls would make a bold architectural statement."

"The design appears to call for closing Cornell Drive, a major thoroughfare that runs through Jackson Park, to create a campus-like setting for the presidential center. That is likely to draw fire from thousands of drivers who each day use Cornell, which links South Lake Shore Drive, Stony Island Boulevard and the Chicago Skyway," according to the article.

The article includes more detail about the proposed design, the cost of the project, and the ongoing outreach for the high-prifile project. The article includes a photo gallery with renderings, photos of the scale model of the proposed design, and photos of the existing conditions at the site.

Miriam Sitz also takes a first look at the project in a separate article for Architectural Record.