The Obama Presidential Center Museum will open to the public on Juneteenth 2026 in Chicago's Jackson Park, occupying four levels of exhibits across nearly 35,000 square feet. Designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates with media produced by batwin + robin Productions, the museum presents the story of President and Mrs. Obama, America's first Black president and First Lady, organised around history, democracy, public service and the power of people to create change.
Four exhibition levels
The visitor journey runs through four major exhibition levels: Toward a More Perfect Union, Working for the Common Good, The People's House and We the People. Taken 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 on to the civic questions of today and tomorrow. The museum combines artifacts, large-scale and immersive media, storytelling, and hands-on digital and analog interactives, framing democracy as a living practice shaped by ordinary people working together.
Opening galleries and campaign history
Among the highlighted exhibits is Power of Words, an 88-foot-tall media canvas blending speech, sound, image, poetry and art to show how words can inspire action and move people toward change. Toward a More Perfect Union is described as an illuminated, prismatic opening gallery that links the nation's founding ideals and contradictions to the people and movements that have pushed American democracy toward greater justice and inclusion.
The Yes We Can Campaign circular gallery centres on a panoramic media installation featuring volunteer voices, shown alongside crowd-sourced campaign objects, immersing visitors in the grassroots movement of 2008. Democracy 101 is a hands-on civics exhibit that lets visitors explore how democracy works through approachable, interactive experiences intended to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
The presidency and the People's House
Panorama of a Presidency is 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. On 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 titled Life in the White House Artifacts brings together fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia, presented as a way of showing 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 a range of traditions.
Art, interactives and inclusive design
Imagine Your Impact is a recurring interactive thread across all levels of the museum, 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 building: alongside Norman Teague's custom-designed benches, commissioned works by artists including Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien and María Magdalena Campos-Pons bring layered visual expressions of identity and hope into the experience.
Inclusive design is described as foundational to the project. Intended to support visitors of all ages and abilities, the museum integrates multisensory and accessible elements, from tactile stations and replicas to captioning, ASL interpretation, audio description, assistive listening, clear wayfinding and interactive opportunities for participation.
A civic narrative rooted in the South Side
The exhibits place President and Mrs. Obama's journey within a broader American civic narrative, one 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 museum frames its subject as a story about possibility, and expects visitors to leave with a deeper understanding of the Obamas' legacy and a renewed sense of their own agency in the ongoing work of democracy at home and abroad.