The Obama Presidential Center Museum is scheduled to open to the public on Juneteenth 2026 in Chicago’s Jackson Park, with four levels of exhibitions occupying nearly 35,000 square feet. Its design team includes Ralph Appelbaum Associates and batwin + robin Productions.
The museum will present the story of President and Mrs. Obama, America’s first Black president and First Lady. Rather than concentrating only on their biographies, the exhibition plan frames their journey through history, democracy, public service and the capacity of people to create change.
Four levels, one civic narrative
The visitor route is organized 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 are intended to move from the nation’s founding ideals and unfinished work through the people, movements, policies, challenges and accomplishments associated with the Obama presidency, and then toward current and future civic questions.
Across those floors, the museum combines artifacts, large-scale and immersive media, storytelling, and both digital and analog interactives. The stated aim is to connect history with action and to present democracy as an ongoing practice built by ordinary people collaborating.
Immersive and hands-on highlights
Several exhibits are designed as major set pieces. Power of Words is an 88-foot-tall media canvas combining speech, sound, image, poetry and art to show how words can inspire action and move people toward change. Toward a More Perfect Union is an illuminated, prismatic opening gallery that links the country’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 that uses approachable interactive experiences to help visitors understand how democracy works and to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
Panorama of a Presidency is a sweeping 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. 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.
A collection called Life in the White House Artifacts brings together fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia. The display is intended to show how the Obamas made the White House feel open, inclusive, personal and reflective of America’s diversity and vibrancy while seeking to uphold and expand traditions.
Art, access and participation
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. It invites visitors to consider how individual actions can combine to create collective change. Contemporary art is also woven through the museum: Norman Teague has designed custom benches, and commissioned works by Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien and María Magdalena Campos-Pons contribute visual expressions of identity and hope.
Inclusive design is described as foundational. The museum is planned to support visitors of all ages and abilities through tactile stations and replicas, captioning, ASL interpretation, audio description, assistive listening, clear wayfinding and interactive opportunities for participation.
The museum’s overall narrative places the Obamas’ journey within a wider American civic story rooted in Chicago’s South Side and shaped by national and global movements for justice. It also points to people who continue to make change in their communities, including participants in the Obama Foundation’s Global Programs. The intended visitor takeaway is a deeper understanding of the Obamas’ legacy and a renewed sense of personal agency in democracy at home and abroad.