The Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago’s Jackson Park is scheduled to open to the public on Juneteenth 2026. The museum will occupy four exhibition levels totaling nearly 35,000 square feet and will tell the story of President and Mrs. Obama, the United States’ first Black president and First Lady. Its narrative centers on history, democracy, public service, and the capacity of ordinary people to bring about change.
The exhibition credits Ralph Appelbaum Associates and batwin + robin Productions. Visitors will move through displays that examine both the promise and the complexity of American democracy, the experiences that shaped the Obamas, the work of the presidency, and the shared responsibility of building a more perfect union.
Four levels, one civic arc
The four main exhibition levels are Toward a More Perfect Union, Working for the Common Good, The People’s House, and We the People. Together they are intended to move from the nation’s founding ideals and unfinished work through the movements, policies, challenges, and achievements associated with the Obama presidency, then toward current and future civic questions.
The museum plans to use artifacts, large-scale and immersive media, storytelling, and both digital and analog interactives. The goal is to present democracy as a living practice shaped by people working together rather than as a fixed historical display.
Featured galleries
Among the highlighted spaces is Power of Words, an 88-foot-tall media canvas combining speech, sound, image, poetry, and art to show how language can prompt action. Toward a More Perfect Union is described as an illuminated, prismatic opening gallery that links founding ideals and contradictions with the people and movements that have pushed American democracy toward greater justice and inclusion.
The Yes We Can Campaign circular gallery will feature a panoramic media installation with volunteer voices and crowd-sourced campaign objects, placing visitors inside the grassroots movement of 2008. Democracy 101 will offer a hands-on civics exhibit with interactive experiences intended to build knowledge, confidence, and participation.
Panorama of a Presidency is 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. Detailed miniature White House rooms will offer a smaller-scale, playful look at how the Obamas opened the residence through traditions, celebrations, performances, and public programs. Life in the White House Artifacts will display fashion, state gifts, and sports memorabilia to show how the Obamas sought to make the White House feel open, inclusive, personal, and reflective of American diversity.
Participation, art, and access
Imagine Your Impact is designed as a recurring interactive thread across all levels. It culminates in a shared media experience with a large-scale digital art commission that asks visitors to consider how individual actions can combine into collective change. Contemporary works are also woven through the museum, including custom benches by Norman Teague and commissioned pieces by Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien, and María Magdalena Campos-Pons.
Inclusive design is treated as a foundation of the project. The museum is intended to serve visitors of all ages and abilities through tactile stations and replicas, captioning, ASL interpretation, audio description, assistive listening, clear wayfinding, and opportunities for participation.
The museum frames the Obamas’ story within a wider American civic narrative rooted in Chicago’s South Side and shaped by national and global movements for justice. It also connects that story to people continuing community work, including participants in the Obama Foundation’s Global Programs. The intended takeaway is a deeper understanding of the Obamas’ legacy and a renewed sense of visitors’ own agency in democratic life.