Towering over a low-income area of Chicago, and wrapped in a speech that\u2019s hard to decipher, this controversial monolith feels like a menacing sci-fi HQ. Is it a monument \u2013 or a mausoleum?<\/p>\n
The Egyptians had their pyramids. The Anglo-Saxons had their barrows. And the Americans have their presidential libraries \u2013 the chief difference being that the leaders the US venerates are usually still alive at the opening.<\/p>\n
Lacking a royal family or a state religion, the US presidency has swelled to fill the void, transforming over the decades into a national personality cult, complete with its own secular temples to these powerful men. The latest pharaonic edifice is about to open on Chicago\u2019s south side, where it looms on the skyline as a towering totem to the 44th president, Barack Obama<\/a>. He might have seemed humble in office, but in his post-presidential, Netflix-producing afterlife, Obama has erected the largest, costliest and most audacious complex of them all. Behold the $850m Obamalisk \u2013 or, as it sometimes feels morbidly like, the Obamausoleum.<\/p>\n
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