DALLAS | George W. Bush Presidential Library | Completed

[desertpunk]

January 2012

image hosted on flickr

Bush Library Dallas, TX 011212 by nffcnnr, on Flickr

[desertpunk]

3/15

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Photo update: GWBush Library 3/15/12 2pm #SMU #tiltshift by nffcnnr, on Flickr

[Dallas star]

Originally Posted by Laam1199

Is Haliburton paying for the construction cost? I'm sorry, but I just can't get excited about anything to do with Bush.

Actually made me bust out laughing. Main external construction's almost finished.

[Jim856796]

Can any future United States President get his own Presidential Center during his post-presidency?

[geogregor]

Originally Posted by Jim856796

Can any future United States President get his own Presidential Center during his post-presidency?

Yes.

BTW, I just found this thread. What a boring design. I agree with one of the comments that it looks like some below average suburban high school.

[desertpunk]

Library nearly finished (scroll far right)

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Snowy SMU campus @ GWBush Library 12/26 7:53am by nffcnnr, on Flickr

[desertpunk]

Quick Take: Robert A. M. Stern Architects’ George W. Bush Presidential Center

The George W. Bush Presidential Center, designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects and located on the campus of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, does not reflect the colorful nature of the 43rd president’s personality. Nor does it symbolically suggest the fact that Bush was the first president of the 21st century. Although the three-story brick-and-limestone building is the first presidential library to contain e-mails—some 200 million—its design is traditional, not contemporary. The 260,560-square-foot structure, which also houses galleries, a museum store, policy institute, restaurant, and 360-seat auditorium, succeeds best as a sedate and sustainable (LEED Platinum–certified) piece of abstracted classical architecture, meant to fit in with SMU’s early-20th-century Georgian Revival buildings.

Freedom Hall, the museum’s central area, is topped by a 67-foot-high limestone-and-glass lantern that dramatically ushers in natural light by day and glows at night. Below the lantern, a 20-foot-high, 360-degree, high-definition LED screen displays changing digital artwork.
The exhibitions promise to keep us pondering, with interactive “What would you have done?” scenarios, historical objects, a re-created Oval Office, and an authentic, reassembled White House Situation Room. Yet the architecture might reveal more about the taste of former librarian and schoolteacher Laura Bush, who was, according to Stern, “the principal client throughout the process.” Her touch can be seen everywhere, including in a Texas-style White House Rose Garden, complete with native plants from the Bushes’ Crawford ranch, and carpets in the institute by Afghan rug company ARZU. The latter were executed as part of the Bush Institute’s Afghan Women’s Project, which the first lady began championing during her husband’s presidential terms.

Laura Bush’s choice of the architect was boosted by recommendations from her design committee, whose members included developer Roland Betts, George W. Bush’s fraternity brother at Yale and co-owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team with him from 1989 to 1994; family friend Deedie Rose, whose husband, Edward “Rusty” Rose, was also involved in the ownership of the Rangers; and architect and professor Witold Rybczynski, whom the Bushes appointed to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts in 2004. Stern is also the dean of the architecture school at Bush’s alma mater. “And SMU is my alma mater,” says Laura Bush. “It was a perfect fit.”

[...]

The library and museum is now complete.



http://www.manhattanconstructiongroup.com/2013/04



http://www.manhattanconstructiongroup.com/2013/04

[desertpunk]

Ceremony

[desertpunk]

Annnndd:

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (C ) is pictured as a translator repeats remarks by former U.S. president George W. Bush (not pictured) at the dedication ceremony of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, April 25, 2013. U.S President Barack Obama is in Texas to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Bush in what could serve as a powerful reminder of the ongoing struggle against terrorism, from the Sept. 11 attacks to the Boston Marathon bombings.

Credit: Reuters