The Obama Presidential Center Museum will open to the public on Juneteenth 2026 in Chicago's Jackson Park, with four levels of exhibits spread across nearly 35,000 square feet. The exhibition design is 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 levels, one civic arc
The visitor route is organised around 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 what the museum frames as the urgent civic questions of today and tomorrow.
Rather than relying on a single mode of display, the museum combines artifacts, large-scale and immersive media, storytelling, and hands-on digital and analog interactives. The stated aim is to connect history to action and to present democracy as a living practice shaped by ordinary people working together.
Exhibition highlights
- Power of Words: an 88-foot-tall media canvas of speech, sound, image, poetry and art, built around how words can inspire action and move people toward change.
- Toward a More Perfect Union: 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.
- Yes We Can Campaign: a circular gallery with a panoramic media installation featuring volunteer voices and crowd-sourced campaign objects, immersing visitors in the grassroots movement of 2008.
- Democracy 101: a hands-on civics exhibit exploring how democracy works through approachable, interactive experiences intended to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
- Panorama of a Presidency: a sweeping media room that surrounds visitors with a behind-the-scenes view of the many activities and places that make up the daily work of the presidency.
- Miniature White House rooms: detailed models offering 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: a collection of fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia that, in the museum's telling, shows how the Obamas made the White House feel open, inclusive, personal and reflective of America's diversity and vibrancy as they sought to uphold and expand traditions.
Art, interaction and access
Imagine Your Impact runs as a recurring interactive thread across all levels, 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 museum: alongside Norman Teague's custom-designed benches, commissioned works by Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien and María Magdalena Campos-Pons bring layers of identity and hope into the experience.
Inclusive design is described as foundational. Planned for visitors of all ages and abilities, the museum integrates accessible, multisensory experiences ranging from tactile stations and replicas to captioning, ASL interpretation, audio description, assistive listening, clear wayfinding and interactive 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 who continue to make change in their communities, including participants in the Obama Foundation's Global Programs. The intended result, as described, is a deeper understanding of the Obamas' legacy and a renewed sense of visitors' own agency in the ongoing work of democracy at home and abroad.