It’s been called a “trash can.”
Also, a “hulking grey monolith” and “a totalitarian command center dropped straight out of ‘1984,’” and “ugliest ever.”
One commenter said, “It would take someone who really, really hates themselves to build something like that.”
The presidential library for Barack Obama, which will hold digital versions of documents from his term, not the originals, is expected to come in with a total cost of under a billion dollars.
The concrete behemoth is located in Chicago, and in recent days has become the target of online trolling. MUCH online trolling.
Matt Schlapp suggested it “makes me want to cling to my religion and my guns.”
This makes me want to cling to my religion and my guns https://t.co/t0LnKiw4Ox
— Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) October 14, 2025
Sen. Ted Cruz likened it to “the Death Star,” and said locating it in Chicago “was a bold move.”
Locating the Death Star in Chicago was a bold move. https://t.co/Kz2MkuRuq7
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 14, 2025
Commentator Byron York observed it is “ugly.”
It’s kind of…ugly. https://t.co/SGwMpbTTj6
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 14, 2025
“Looks like a house the villain would live in, in a Roald Dahl children’s novel,” said another.
This is the Obama Presidential Library.
It looks like a house the villain would live in, in a Roald Dahl children’s novel. pic.twitter.com/RNEtlDgoLN
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) July 25, 2025
The ugliest structure ever built by man. Obama library. pic.twitter.com/0oHkRTNlZy
— assailed (@assailed) October 12, 2025
Pardon my lack of expertise, but as someone who studied architecture for seven years, I believe that if I had submitted this as a library design for a project, it would likely have been rejected. It seems that the firm designing this library for Obama may have confused it with a… pic.twitter.com/lpTi787hB1
— ULTRA MAGA KEVIN (@KEVINMAGA2024) October 15, 2025
obama presidential library is mimeographed soviet socialist public monument from ca. 1979. i have whole coffee table book full of buildings from russia and eastern europe like this. they all look like some mixture of crashed alien spaceship and social housing project. pic.twitter.com/LFe0SgQi4G
— eugyppius (@eugyppius1) July 26, 2025
The Washington Examiner was the one describing how the monstrosity “became the butt of many jokes…”