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March 14, 2008, 07:42 AM ET
A Note About the Bush Library Contest
The Chronicle has received a few phone calls and letters from people who say that it is unfair to hold a contest for the George W. Bush Presidential Library when we never held one for the William J. Clinton Presidential Library. “Oh, the designs that one would have brought in!” the complaint goes. Phallic towers. Intern-recreation rooms. Trailer-style buildings. You get the idea.
Keep in mind that our selection of finalists in the Bush Library contest includes a disproportionate number of serious, politically neutral designs compared with what came in. Also, might we point out that even the evangelical Christians at World magazine thought the contest was “fun to look at,” if “tragically ideologized and terribly juvenile.”
But here’s the deal: Had we thought of a library-design contest back when the Clinton Library was proposed, you can bet we would have done it. And there is already talk around here about doing the design contest again with the next president, no matter who it is. You’ll just have to wait four to eight years.
Who knows? Chronicle readers may yet get a chance to design a Clinton library. —Scott Carlson
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