‘Like a Klingon prison’: inside Barack Obama’s audacious, near-windowless, $850m presidential library (opens in new tab)

Towering over a low-income area of Chicago, and wrapped in a speech that’s hard to decipher, this controversial monolith feels like a menacing sci-fi HQ. Is it a monument – or a mausoleum?The Egyptians had their pyramids. The Anglo-Saxons had their barrows. And the Americans have their presidential libraries – the chief difference being that the leaders the US venerates are usually still alive at the opening.Lacking a royal family or a state religion, the US presidency has swelled to fill the...