| The Clinton Presidential Center has been designed to encompass the vision of President Clinton and capture the imagination of the millions of visitors who pass through its doors or linger in its gardens. The Center, located within a 30-acre city park along the south bank of the Arkansas River, is a gift to the American heartland. The Presidential Center site includes the Presidential Library and Museum and the renovated Choctaw Station, built in 1899, which houses the Clinton School of Public Service and Clinton Foundation office. Another feature piece of the Center and Park is the Rock Island Railroad Bridge that will be renovated into a pedestrian bridge crossing the Arkansas River.
The Clinton Presidential Center
Photo by Timothy Hursley for the William J. Clinton Foundation
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Recognizing President Clinton's commitment to the environment, the Center features sustainable buildings that emphasize state of the art strategies for site development, water savings, energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality.
The Clinton Presidential Library and Museum was designed by the Polshek Partnership Architects, LLP., the award winning architectural firm whose work includes the Rose Center
for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. For four decades, the Polshek principals have been creating architectural works of art that are both "technically and socially relevant to their place and time."
Exhibits in the 20,000-square-foot museum were designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates of New York. Among its numerous notable achievements, Appelbaum and Associates created the powerful exhibits at The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
The Clinton Presidential Library stretching out over
the Arkansas River.
Photo by Timothy Hursley
for the William J. Clinton Foundation
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The main public portion of the Library and Museum is enclosed in a glass bridge cantilevered over the Arkansas River. The concepts of openness and physical accessibility are realized throughout the building. The building is as useful as it is elegant featuring an 80-seat theater, multi-purpose event facilities, café, research offices and support space for archivists and scholars. The secure collection of the Clinton Presidential archives, administered by the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA), is located at and below grade in the Archive building whose north side is defined as a two-story pavilion. Seventy six million pages of paper documents, 75,000 museum artifacts, and nearly 2 million photographs form the core collection.
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