As a former architectural historian and museum educator living in Little Rock, Arkansas, I find it wholly a pleasure and delightful obligation to write about the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park on the occasion of the 64th birthday of the former leader of the free world.Opened in November 2004 with Silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification under the United States Green Building Council LEED for New Construction program, the Polshek Partnership-designed building later earned Platinum Certification under LEED-EB (LEED for Existing Buildings) in 2007. This puts it in the forefront of a trend that another favorite institution of mine, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, has bolstered: http://www.artmuseumgr.org/home/page/Video%3A+GRAM%27s+Green+Design
Not without political and aesthetic controversy--which is somehow fitting--the Clinton Presidential Center and Park has transformed Little Rock into a tourist destination. Polshek Partnership (now Ennead Architecture: see http://www.ennead.com/#/projects/clinton-presidential-center for wonderful photos) designed the building as a cantilevered structure that strives toward the proximate Arkansas River in a gesture that embodies the President's goal of "building a bridge to the 21st Century." The views in every direction are stunning, and the Great Hall--generously rentable for community events, including the Arkansas Symphony's chamber music series--has become one of the city's signature spaces.
The permanent exhibits in the library, which Ralph Appelbaum Associates designed (more good photos: http://www.raany.com/html/proj_04/portProj_Clinton.html) are an engaging combination of artifact, reproduction (e.g. the Oval Office replica) and interactives. In recent years the Center has brought in a variety of changing exhibitions, from motorcycles to Peter Max to art by Islamic women, with artistic quality sometimes taking a back seat to novelty and relevance to the "post-presidential agenda." In this way, however, it fills a role as kunsthalle that already established institutions such as the Historic Arkansas Museum (http://www.historicarkansas.org/) and the Arkansas Arts Center (http://www.arkarts.com/) cannot and should not attempt to fill.
The building was dedicated in a pouring rain on November 11, 2004. I will always remember sitting in that miserable deluge, entertained by Bono and The Edge (playing a piano that was later refurbished and donated to the Arkansas Arts Center, where I worked at the time--still grateful) and seeing all the surviving U.S. Presidents cheerfully sitting with rain pouring down their collars, enjoying the rare if bone-chilling moment when politics is set aside and history begins.
