The Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago’s Jackson Park is scheduled to open to the public on Juneteenth 2026. The museum will contain four levels of exhibitions across nearly 35,000 square feet, devoted to the story of President and Mrs. Obama and to broader themes of history, democracy, public service and citizen-led change.
The project credits Ralph Appelbaum Associates and batwin + robin Productions. The visitor experience 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. The galleries move from the nation’s founding ideals and unfinished work through the people, movements, policies, challenges and accomplishments associated with the Obama presidency, then toward civic questions facing the present and future.
Media, speeches and the 2008 campaign
Among the featured installations is Power of Words, an 88-foot-tall media canvas combining speech, sound, image, poetry and art. Its stated aim is to show how words can inspire action and move people toward change. The opening gallery, Toward a More Perfect Union, is described as an illuminated, prismatic space that links the country’s founding ideals and contradictions with the people and movements that have pushed American democracy toward greater justice and inclusion.
A circular gallery dedicated to the Yes We Can campaign uses a panoramic media installation with volunteer voices and crowd-sourced campaign objects to immerse visitors in the grassroots movement of 2008. Elsewhere, Democracy 101 is a hands-on civics exhibit designed to help visitors explore how democracy works through interactive experiences intended to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
White House life and collective impact
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. 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. A collection called Life in the White House Artifacts includes fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia, presented as evidence of how the Obamas sought to make the White House feel open, inclusive, personal and reflective of American diversity while upholding and expanding traditions.
Imagine Your Impact is designed as a recurring interactive thread across all museum levels, culminating in a shared media experience and 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 are included.
Accessibility and the civic narrative
Inclusive design is described as foundational to the museum. The project is intended 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 frames democracy as a living practice shaped by ordinary people working together, and it places the Obamas’ journey within an American civic narrative rooted in Chicago’s South Side, shaped by national and global movements for justice, and carried forward by community change-makers, including participants in the Obama Foundation’s Global Programs.
The museum’s stated goal is for visitors to leave with a deeper understanding of the Obamas’ legacy and a renewed sense of their own agency in the work of democracy at home and abroad.