Obama Foundation Announces Finalists For Presidential Library Design

New York firms dominate the shortlist for the Chicago project, with a winner expected by mid-2016.

**Renzo Piano** | Whitney Museum of American Art | New York
Completed in May 2015, this building offers a grand welcome on one side and a more industrial look on the other.
*Photo © Jeff Goldberg/Esto*

**Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects** | The Barnes Foundation | Philadelphia
Along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadephia, the Barnes Museum presents an unassuming air, with crisp, elegant stone detailing.
*Photo © Michael Moran*

**David Adjaye** | Francis Gregory Library | Washington, DC
On the edge of Fort Davis Park in Washington’s Hillcrest neighborhood, this branch library features a glass exterior wall of diamond-shaped panes. Floating above the pavilion is an aluminum-frame canopy.
*Photo © Edmund Summers*

**Snøhetta** | Ryerson University Student Learning Centre | Toronto
The blue shard of an entrance canopy visually marks the gateway to Ryerson University amid the retail patchwork of a busy downtown street.
*Photo © Doublespace Photography*

**Diller Scofidio + Renfro** | High Line | New York
When DS+R and James Corner Field Operations won the job to transform Manhattan’s abandoned High Line into an elevated urban park in 2004, the two firms faced the challenge of crafting a new identity for the pathway without stretching it too far from its past.
*Photo © Iwan Baan*

**SHoP** | Barclays Center | New York
Swooping bands of weathering steel panels wrap around Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. The firm deployed digital technology and imaginative design to give the arena unexpected civic presence.
*Photo © David Sundberg/Esto*

**John Ronan Architects** | Poetry Foundation | Chicago
Walls of oxidized zinc define this poetry center’s site boundary and are perforated around an interior garden, allowing light in and views out.
*Photo © Steve Hall/Hedrich Blessing*

Seven architectural firms are contending for the commission to design the Barack Obama Presidential Center, to be built in either Washington Park or Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago. The Obama Foundation announced the finalists on Monday, revealing a shortlist that crosses the Atlantic: four New York firms, one based in Chicago, and two in Europe. Selected from a pool of 140 architects, the finalists will present conceptual designs to the Obamas in the first quarter of 2016. A winner is expected to be announced by the middle of the year.

Architectural Record has covered a range of these firms’ projects, from houses to cultural centers. This slideshow rounds up highlights from each firm’s recent work. Read the stories by clicking on the name of each project above.