The structural engineer behind the controversial Obama Presidential Center in Chicago is firing back at critics who called the design a “monstrous insult” to architecture.
Chris Bird, a Washington, D.C.-based structural engineer, told Fox News Digital the towering design was exactly what Barack Obama wanted — something bold.
“The architects knew with the client that they wanted to do something bold at the top of the tower, and the vision of the speech came to life,” Bird said just before the site opened to the public Friday.
Bird designed the upper quadrant of the tower, which features 91 words from Obama’s speeches wrapped around a corner of the building. The installation includes 433 individual letters, each standing at around five feet tall.
“Working with the design architects and also their graphic designers to figure out how to shape and move a speech, splice it and put it on a building is actually really unprecedented. There’s no architectural precedent, in my opinion.”
The 19.3-acre campus drew thousands during its public opening Friday, with visitors using words like “phenomenal,” “breathtaking,” and “futuristic” to describe the center.
But online detractors have been less kind. Critics on social media ripped the design as a “monstrous insult” to architecture, a “concrete nightmare,” and a “monstrosity.”
Bird is undeterred by the criticism.
“Now that it’s complete, it feels like it really anchors this site and this neighborhood,” he said. “It’s able to blend in with the park in a way that’s really nice.”
He said the opening-day crowd’s reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.
“It’s nothing but smiles and some tears sometimes. I think everyone finds a bit of themselves that they knew or didn’t know they needed here, which is really special.”
Bird rejected the “monstrosity” characterization outright.
“The tower itself is an incredible gesture in the rest of the park,” he said. “We’re reaching toward the sky, it is tall, but it’s not much taller — I mean it’s kind of matched in size by lots of the buildings around this area.”
“I think to say that it’s a monstrosity is wrong. I would say that it’s a really grand gesture and a bold statement.”
