[ardecila]

^ While I was hoping to see the prize go to an American designer over Adjaye, now that I see his plan it makes a lot of sense. It is partly a rehash of the NMAAHC in Washington, but it would have tread lightly on the landscape of Washington Park, linked directly to CTA and thus enabled easy access for visitors and outreach programs, and it could have kickstarted high-quality mixed use development on the many acres of vacant land west of King Drive.

I still like Williams/Tsien’s proposal and IMO it is the strongest one in a pure architecture sense, especially with the various rounds of changes that buried more of the center’s program underground ala the Adjaye plan. But the Jackson Park site reflects an old idea about museums (and other institutions) that they should be shining beacons on a hill like the Greek Acropolis, cordoned off from the rest of the city. I don’t think that idea fits the reality of the Obama Foundation or the reality of Barack Obama, the man.