The Obama Presidential Center Museum is scheduled to open to the public on Juneteenth 2026 in Chicago's Jackson Park, with four levels of exhibits spanning nearly 35,000 square feet. The exhibition design is by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, with media production by batwin + robin Productions.
According to the design team, the museum tells the story of President and Mrs. Obama, described as America's first Black president and First Lady, through a journey about history, democracy, public service and the power of people to create change.
Four exhibition levels
Visitors move through four named levels: Toward a More Perfect Union, Working for the Common Good, The People's House and We the People. Taken together, the galleries trace a line from the nation's founding ideals and unfinished work, through the people, movements, policies, challenges and accomplishments that shaped the Obama presidency, and into the civic questions of today and tomorrow.
The designers combine artifacts, large-scale and immersive media, storytelling and hands-on digital and analog interactives, presenting democracy as a living practice shaped by ordinary people working together.
From an 88-foot media canvas to a civics exhibit
Among the highlights is Power of Words, described as an 88-foot-tall media canvas blending speech, sound, image, poetry and art to show how words can move people toward change. The opening gallery, Toward a More Perfect Union, is an illuminated, prismatic space that links founding ideals and contradictions to the movements that have pushed American democracy toward greater justice and inclusion.
A circular gallery devoted to the Yes We Can campaign uses a panoramic media installation with volunteer voices and crowd-sourced campaign objects to place visitors inside the 2008 grassroots movement. Democracy 101 is a hands-on civics exhibit built around approachable interactive experiences intended to build knowledge, confidence and participation.
Inside the presidency and the People's House
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, playful look at how the Obamas opened the house through traditions, celebrations, performances and public programs. A collection of fashion, state gifts and sports memorabilia, labeled Life in the White House Artifacts, is presented as a way of showing a White House made to feel open, inclusive, personal and reflective of the country's diversity.
Participation, art and access
Imagine Your Impact runs as a recurring interactive thread across all four levels and culminates in a shared media experience with a large-scale digital art commission, inviting visitors to see how individual actions join into collective change. Contemporary works are woven through the building, including Norman Teague's custom-designed benches and commissions by Jeffrey Gibson, Jules Julien and María Magdalena Campos-Pons.
Inclusive design is treated as foundational. The museum lists tactile stations and replicas, captioning, ASL interpretation, audio description, assistive listening, clear wayfinding and interactive opportunities, all intended to support visitors of all ages and abilities.
The exhibits place the Obamas' journey within a wider civic narrative rooted in Chicago's South Side, shaped by national and global movements for justice and carried forward by people still making change in their communities, including participants in the Obama Foundation's Global Programs. The stated aim is that visitors leave with a deeper understanding of the Obamas' legacy and a renewed sense of their own agency in democratic work at home and abroad.