The Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago's Jackson Park is scheduled to open to the public on Juneteenth 2026, with four levels of exhibits spread across nearly 35,000 square feet. Designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates with media and interactive work by batwin + robin Productions, the museum presents the story of President and Mrs. Obama, America's first Black president and First Lady, through a narrative about history, democracy, public service and the power of people to create change.
Visitors move through four major exhibition levels: Toward a More Perfect Union, Working for the Common Good, The People's House and We the People. The sequence begins with the nation's founding ideals and unfinished work, continues through the people, movements, policies, challenges and accomplishments that shaped the Obama presidency, and closes with civic questions the museum frames as urgent for today and tomorrow.
Exhibition highlights
- Power of Words — an 88-foot-tall media canvas combining speech, sound, image, poetry and art, intended to show how words can inspire action and move people toward change.
- Toward a More Perfect Union — an illuminated, prismatic opening gallery linking founding ideals and contradictions to the people and movements that pushed American democracy toward greater justice and inclusion.
- Yes We Can Campaign — a circular gallery with a panoramic media installation featuring volunteer voices alongside crowd-sourced campaign objects, immersing visitors in the 2008 grassroots movement.
- Democracy 101 — a hands-on civics exhibit exploring how democracy works through interactive experiences designed to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
- Panorama of a Presidency — a media room that surrounds visitors with a behind-the-scenes view of the activities and places that make up the daily work of the presidency.
Smaller-scale elements complement the large media pieces. Detailed miniature White House rooms offer an intimate look at how the Obamas opened the residence through traditions, celebrations, performances and public programs, while a collection of fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia is presented as evidence of how they made the White House feel open, inclusive, personal and reflective of America's diversity.
Across all levels, an interactive thread called Imagine Your Impact culminates in a shared media experience built around a large-scale digital art commission, inviting visitors to see how individual actions can combine into collective change. Contemporary art is woven through the building: Norman Teague designed custom benches, and commissioned works by Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien and María Magdalena Campos-Pons add what the museum describes as layered visual expressions of identity and hope.
Inclusive design
Accessibility is treated as a foundational part of the design rather than an addition. The museum says it has built multisensory experiences for visitors of all ages and abilities, including tactile stations and replicas, captioning, ASL interpretation, audio description, assistive listening, clear wayfinding and opportunities for participation.
The exhibits place the Obamas' journey within a broader American civic narrative — rooted in the South Side of Chicago, shaped by national and global movements for justice, and carried forward by people working in their own communities, including participants in the Obama Foundation's Global Programs. The museum's stated aim is that visitors leave with a deeper understanding of the Obamas' legacy and a renewed sense of their own agency in the ongoing work of democracy at home and abroad. It frames the project around a single proposition: what becomes possible when ordinary people organize, participate, lead, listen and act in common purpose.