Seven stellar architectural firms — four based in New York, two in Europe and one in Chicago — were named finalists Monday for one of Chicago's, and the nation's, most sought-after design commissions: the Barack Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side. Obama's foundation announced in May that the presidential center would be built in Chicago.
In alphabetical order, the firms are:
- London-based Adjaye Associates, lead by Tanzanian-born architect David Adjaye, whose projects include the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, set to open next year. Adjaye sat with the president at a 2012 state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron.
- New York-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro, whose portfolio includes New York's High Line and the University of Chicago's future Rubenstein Forum at 60th Street and Woodlawn Avenue. In 1999, two of the firm's partners, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, became the first architects to win a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant.
- The Renzo Piano Building Workshop, lead by Italian Renzo Piano, a Pritzker Prize winner who designed the museum's Modern Wing, and with offices in Genoa, Italy, Paris, and New York. Earlier this year, Michelle Obama attended the opening of the Piano-designed Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and raved about the building. If either man gets the job, he would be the first foreign architect to design a U.S. presidential library.
- Chicago-based John Ronan Architects, which has won national honor awards from the American Institute of Architects for the Comer Youth Center and the elegantly understated Poetry Foundation headquarters in River North.
- New York-based ShoP Architects, which drew widespread attention for the swooping Barclays Center in Brooklyn and is designing the headquarters of Uber in San Francisco.
- Snøhetta, which was founded in Norway but now calls New York home. Last year, Obama spoke at the dedication of the firm's National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion, calling it "a sacred place of healing and hope." (The New York firm of Davis Brody Bond was the lead architect of the underground museum.)
- New York-based Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, best known for its Barnes Foundation art museum in Philadelphia and academic buildings like the University of Chicago's Logan Center for the Arts at Drexel Avenue and 60th Street. Obama awarded Williams and Tsien a 2013 national arts medal.
The finalists were culled from a field of 140 architects from 25 countries who submitted qualifications for the Obama center. Of those, nearly 100 were U.S.-based, and many were from Chicago. The architects are expected to make individual presentations to the Obamas at the White House during the first quarter of 2016.
