The Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago's Jackson Park is set to open to the public on Juneteenth 2026, with four levels of exhibitions spread across nearly 35,000 square feet. Credited to Ralph Appelbaum Associates and batwin + robin Productions, the museum presents the story of President and Mrs. Obama, America's first Black president and First Lady, through a journey about history, democracy, public service and the power of people to create change.
Four exhibition levels
The visitor journey unfolds across four major exhibition levels: Toward a More Perfect Union, Working for the Common Good, The People's House and We the People. Together, the galleries move visitors from the nation's founding ideals and unfinished work, through the people, movements, policies, challenges and accomplishments that shaped the Obama presidency, and into the civic questions of today and tomorrow.
Through artifacts, large-scale and immersive media, storytelling and hands-on digital and analog interactives, the museum aims to connect history to action, inviting visitors to see democracy as a living practice shaped by ordinary people working together.
Media canvases and campaign history
Exhibition highlights include Power of Words, described as a soaring 88-foot-tall media canvas of speech, sound, image, poetry and art that reveals how words can inspire action and move people toward change. Toward a More Perfect Union is an illuminated, prismatic opening gallery connecting the nation's founding ideals and contradictions to the people and movements that have pushed American democracy toward greater justice and inclusion.
The Yes We Can Campaign circular gallery houses a panoramic media installation featuring volunteer voices alongside crowd-sourced campaign objects, immersing visitors in the grassroots movement of 2008. Democracy 101 is a hands-on civics exhibit that helps visitors explore how democracy works through approachable, interactive experiences intended to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
The presidency and the People's House
Panorama of a Presidency is a sweeping media room that surrounds visitors with a behind-the-scenes view into the many activities and places that together make up the daily work of the presidency. At a smaller scale, detailed miniature White House rooms offer a playful, intimate look at how the Obamas opened the People's House through traditions, celebrations, performances and public programs. Life in the White House Artifacts adds a collection of fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia that, according to the museum, reveals how the Obamas made the White House feel open, inclusive, personal and reflective of America's diversity and vibrancy.
Interaction, artwork and accessibility
Imagine Your Impact runs as a recurring interactive thread across all levels of the museum, culminating in a shared media experience with a large-scale digital art commission that invites visitors to see how individual actions can join together to create collective change. Contemporary artwork is woven throughout the experience: Norman Teague created custom-designed benches, while commissioned works by Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien and María Magdalena Campos-Pons bring what the museum describes as layered visual expressions of identity and hope.
Inclusive design is presented as foundational. Intended to support visitors of all ages and abilities, the museum integrates multisensory and accessible elements including tactile stations and replicas, captioning, ASL interpretation, audio description, assistive listening, clear wayfinding and interactive opportunities for participation.
A broader civic narrative
The exhibits place the Obamas' journey within a wider American civic narrative, one rooted in the South Side of Chicago, shaped by national and global movements for justice, and carried forward by people who continue to make change in their communities, including participants in the Obama Foundation's Global Programs. The museum frames its purpose as a story about possibility: what becomes possible when ordinary people organize, participate, lead, listen and act in common purpose.