Quote:
Originally Posted by BVictor1
Yes, President Obama did all that 
Perhaps the people in those communities wanted the Library/Foundation in their neighborhood. Perhaps the alderman in those areas wanted the institution in their neighborhood. Maybe the mayor wanted this for his city and now it's been done. |
It's not about whether the library is good or bad.
The ends don't always justify the means, and this library has had some pretty messed-up means thus far.
Will you be so supportive if Obama decides to hire RAMSA to design his library? (They already did the Bush one, after all.) That's the problem - by sacrificing the civic debate over the location on public parkland, we're signalling to the Obama Foundation that they have carte blanche and they don't need to listen to the public. They don't need to pay attention to decent urban planning principles, because they're more important than the park's thousands of daily users. They don't need to pay attention to architectural critics, because they're more important than Olmsted or the city's architectural legacy.
Will you be so supportive if the library is built in Jackson Park, but the requirement to supply replacement parkland is ignored and forgotten? That stuff happens all the time.