This week, former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama revealed their ambitious plans for the upcoming Obama Presidential Center, to be built by 2021 in Jackson Park, on Chicago’s South Side.
If plans are successful, the three-building complex will feature more than just a library, as it turns out.
In addition to a library, auditorium, restaurant, and public garden, the space will include a recording studio, a certain first for a presidential library.
According to a recent New York Times interview, Obama dreamed up the studio space with fairly specific intentions.
“I could invite Chance or Bruce Springsteen, depending on your tastes, to talk about how you could record music that has social commentary and meaning,” he said.
But Obama also had cinema in mind, envisioning “a studio where I can invite Spike Lee and Steven Spielberg to do workshops on how to make films.”
Regardless, it’s an interesting choice for the space, and a positive addition to encourage the arts.
