Designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (TWBTA), the centerpiece of the 19 acre Obama Presidential Center is its 225-foot, eight-story Presidential Museum. Michael Bierut and team collaborated closely with TWBTA and the Obama Foundation on the design of the inscription that wraps the tower’s upper south- and west-facing corners.
Cast in concrete to match the tower’s New Hampshire granite, the text is an excerpt from President Obama’s 2015 speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, delivered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where Civil rights marchers were attacked by police in 1965.
Early architectural concepts by TWBTA showed a perforated upper section with an abstract patter which would introduce and element of transparency to the building’s crown. Pentagram was asked to explore language as an alternative. This raised questions. What words? How many? How legible? And how could they function not as an applied sign but as an integral part of the architecture itself? The Pentagram team tested a range of options, including excerpts from President Obama’s inauguration ceremonies. The Selma speech, filled with words, phrases and themes so characteristic of the Obama presidency, was the ultimate selection.
Entitled Words of Hope, the installation is composed of 103 words made up of 458 4ft. 4 in. tall letters, each the typographic equivalent of 5,350 point Gotham Bold. The complex connections between the letters – technically referred to as ligatures – enable an integrated design that supports significant weight while working within strict constraints on letter size, spacing, and proportion. The letters were cast in 39 unique one-foot-deep panels, the largest weighing up to 20,000 pounds. The result can be read both as a complete passage and as an impressionistic collage.
