Typographic Installation for the Obama Presidential Center
Pentagram turned Obama’s words into load-bearing architecture.
Pentagram designed a monumental typographic installation titled 'Words of Hope' for the façade of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. The piece integrates 458 large-scale Gotham Bold letters cast in concrete, forming an excerpt from President Obama’s 2015 Selma speech as an architectural element that invites reflection and inspiration.
Set in Gotham
Insights- Pentagram didn’t add graphics to the Obama Presidential Center — it turned President Obama’s 2015 Selma speech into the building’s surface, with 458 Gotham Bold letters cast into the concrete façade of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects’ museum tower, replacing the architects’ earlier abstract perforation scheme.
- The work, titled Words of Hope, uses 103 words from Obama’s "You Are America" speech, chosen after reviewing many presidential speeches; Dr. Louise Bernard, director of the museum, called it “the central narrative theme etched into the exterior.”
- The typography is engineered, not merely decorative: 39 unique one-foot-deep concrete panels, letters 4 ft 4 in tall, and panels weighing up to 20,000 lb required ligatures and spacing to function as structural elements.
- Pentagram matched the concrete to the tower’s New Hampshire granite, and the inscription wraps the upper south- and west-facing corners so the words read differently from the ground than from the Sky Room above.
- Public reaction was divided when the letters were revealed in February 2026; critic Lee Bey said they were “tough to read,” while photojournalist Tyler LaRiviere said they looked good only from a very specific vantage point or from the air.
