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The next presidential library

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Written by Harrison Scott Key

March 5, 11:58 AM

In an unusually frank moment of open bias against President Bush, The Chronicle of Higher Education sponsored a cheeky contest for readers to sketch, on the backs of envelopes, designs for Bush’s future presidential library.

Now that the George W. Bush era is almost over, the world needs a place to archive the legacy of the 43rd president. That place will be Southern Methodist University, in a building designed by Robert A.M. Stern. The building will probably cost $500-million.

The designs are quite pretty, if not tragically ideologized and terribly juvenile critiques of the Bush administration, like something a really talented eighth-grader would come up with. But they are fun to look at for that reason.

Topic: Politics, WorldMagBlog

Keywords: bush

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back to top8 Comments to “The next presidential library”

BY Kyle A 03.05.08 AT 12:24 PM

As you say, they are fun to look at. Some of them are drawn very well.
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BY michelle 03.05.08 AT 12:46 PM

Why doesn’t he just add a wing to his father’s library?

The only presidential library I’ve seen was Ronald Reagan’s last Thanksgiving. I walked through the impressive building and thought, “Pharaoh build monuments to himself, too.”

All is vanity and as a taxpayer, I resent having the parts I end up funding.
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BY NJLawyer 03.05.08 AT 1:30 PM

Michelle’s post reminded me of Ozymandius. But a presidential library isn’t just for the person they are named after. Bush 41’s has some interesting programs going on there.

What we have in NJ is a very small house that Grover Cleveland grew up in a few miles away. Sweet, but I’d rather have the library — especially one designed by Stern. (Kinda liked that Promenade one.)
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BY Peter L 03.05.08 AT 2:16 PM

Several of these look doable.

Michelle- I have only been to the new Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL. There is a lot there about history that cannot be found elsewhere. I do not consider it so much as a useless monument to a great leader, so much as a place to learn about the man and the history of the time in which he lived.
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BY Luke 03.05.08 AT 2:34 PM

Love it!

I voted for the Library & Fun Ranch.
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BY Scroop Moth 03.05.08 AT 2:52 PM

Several entries have a subterranean theme, which seems intuitively right for this president who spent half his life trying to climb out of a private hole, negligently allowed Al Qaeda to open up a physical hole in lower Manhattan, thereafter governed from a bunker, and aspires to go to ground for his “ranch” retirement.

Consequently, we can be sure that Karl Rove has eliminated any hint of earthworks form the actual design of the library. I predict the library will be ostentatiously open and accessible (in a superficial way, of course).

The most disturbing drawings used “W” as a swastika-like design element. The real library won’t do that, but Republican contributors love fascistic graphics and powerful gestures.

The water designs were half-witted, unfortunately. The culmination of Bush’s war presidency, The Surge, deserves a far better representation. A “surge” conveys images of the sea, of course, but small amounts of water can’t express this elemental power. Fountains are too spritzy and pools are too feminine (reflective). A surge is the result of a storm or earthquake or broken dam. Although as powerfully destructive as many hydrogen bombs, a surge is temporary. It recedes. The Surge, however, is capable of pausing for six months and then lasting for 100 years. Wow. Noah’s Flood lasted only 80 days.
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BY Anlir 03.05.08 AT 5:35 PM

Those were some really ingenious designs. Like Luke, I would go for the Library & Fun Ranch.

Of more interest to me is that a Christian University would be building a library for a man who supported the torture of other human beings, and who’s greatest legacy will be a pre-emptive war. The irony is beyond astounding.
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BY Dav 03.05.08 AT 8:53 PM

Yeah, I’m not amused. I have the feeling that if most of these “artists” were to meet the President, they would be shaking in their little weasel-skinned boots.
What kind of cowards sit around and take shots at their superiors?
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