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 covering nearly 35,000 square feet. The museum will present the story of President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, described as America’s first Black president and First Lady, through a narrative focused on history, democracy, public service and the power of people to create change.
Project credits include Ralph Appelbaum Associates and batwin + robin Productions. According to the project description, visitors will 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, then examines the people, movements, policies, challenges and accomplishments that shaped the Obama presidency, before turning to civic questions of today and tomorrow.
Immersive media and campaign history
Among the highlighted exhibits is Power of Words, an 88-foot-tall media canvas combining speech, sound, image, poetry and art. The opening gallery, Toward a More Perfect Union, is described as an illuminated, prismatic space connecting the nation’s 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 features a panoramic media installation with volunteer voices and crowd-sourced campaign objects, placing visitors inside the grassroots movement of 2008. Democracy 101 is a hands-on civics exhibit designed to help visitors explore how democracy works through approachable interactive experiences intended to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
White House life and visitor 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 offer a smaller-scale, 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 fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia, showing how the Obamas sought to make the White House open, inclusive, personal and reflective of America’s diversity and vibrancy.
Imagine Your Impact runs as a recurring interactive thread across all levels and culminates in a shared media experience with a large-scale digital art commission. The exhibit invites visitors to consider how individual actions can combine to create collective change. Contemporary artwork is also woven throughout the museum, including Norman Teague’s custom-designed benches and commissioned works by Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien and María Magdalena Campos-Pons, which the project describes as layered visual expressions of identity and hope.
Accessibility and civic narrative
Inclusive design is presented as a foundational part of the museum. The project incorporates multisensory experiences for visitors of all ages and abilities, including tactile stations and replicas, captioning, ASL interpretation, audio description, assistive listening, clear wayfinding and interactive opportunities for participation.
The museum frames the Obamas’ journey within a broader American civic narrative rooted in Chicago’s South Side and shaped by national and global movements for justice. It also points to people continuing to make change in their communities, 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 the ongoing work of democracy at home and abroad.