CHICAGO — The Obama Foundation started its search for an architect for the Barack Obama Presidential Center, but won’t make a decision until early 2016.
The foundation on Wednesday publicly released guidelines for architects hoping to land the contract to design the presidential library, which will include spaces for research and records, museum exhibits and event space as well as retail and dining, community gardening and sports facilities.
“We're casting a pretty broad net,” Marty Nesbitt, chairman of the Obama Foundation, said during a Wednesday call with the media. “It was distributed pretty broadly.
According to Nesbitt and former New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger, who was brought in to help design the process of selecting an architect, about 90 percent of the firms asked to participate are American.
“Of the Americans, it’s pretty heavily skewed to Chicagoans,” Nesbitt said.
He declined to give the number of total firms, but said there were “several” minority-owned firms in the group.
Architects have until Sept. 16 to come up with a basic idea for the president and first lady to review before a group of finalists is selected to come up with more detailed plans.
Goldberger said the process was specifically designed to avoid a design competition and none of the groups would be coming up with detailed visions for the appearance of the library, partially because a final site has not yet been selected.
“We’re not asking for a design, we’re trying to get to know them and their qualifications and their level of interest,” Goldberger said.
The foundation has yet to decide on a final location for the library and is still debating between two South Side sites in Jackson and Washington parks.
A decision about the location is expected around the end of the year.
Nesbitt said the selection of the architect could influence which site is chosen.
A landscape architect will be chosen later after an architect is selected. It was unclear what the process would be for choosing the firm that would design what are expected to be extensive grounds around the presidential library.
The Obama Foundation chose Chicago as the site of the president's future library in museum over Columbia University in New York and Honolulu, Hawaii. There were originally 13 location proposals submitted to the foundation, including one near the University of Illinois in Chicago.
The library is estimated to cost $500 million and will be funded through private donations.
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