:QUOTE [quotetype:plain, subtitle:Barack Obama] This is a place that says: your story matters. What happens in neighborhoods like this one, on the South Side of Chicago, that story is American history. :INFO A New Kind of Presidential Museum The Barack Obama Presidential Center opened to the public on 19 June 2026, Juneteenth, in Jackson Park on Chicago's South Side. It is the first fully digital presidential museum in the United States: no official papers on display, no archival boxes under glass. Instead, four floors of immersive, hands-on exhibits explore the campaigns, the presidency, and the promise of democracy. The $850 million campus spans 19.3 acres of Hyde Park, a neighbourhood that shaped Obama from his days as a community organiser and University of Chicago law professor. The center anchors the South Side's cultural renaissance and is expected to draw three million visitors a year. :STATS :CHECKLIST What to See at the Obama Presidential Center [ ] - The Oval Office Replica: step inside a full-scale recreation of Obama's Oval Office, sit at the desk, and view objects unique to the administration. [ ] - Yes We Can installation: 440 campaign buttons, film, and tactile displays chronicle the 2008 campaign and the organizers who made it possible. [ ] - Michelle Obama's Wardrobe: around a dozen outfits including the black-and-red Narciso Rodriguez dress worn on election night 2008 in Chicago. [ ] - The Sky Room on the upper floor: panoramic views across Chicago's South and West sides, framed by words from Obama's 2015 Selma speech cast in concrete. [ ] - The President's Reading Room: thousands of books selected by the Obamas, two signature striped chairs Obama personally chose for comfort, a place to sit and read. [ ] - America's Story floors: exhibits tracing the Declaration of Independence, the suffrage movement, slavery, Reconstruction, and the civil rights movement. [ ] - The Nobel Peace Prize: original artifacts from Obama's early life and presidency, from elementary-school art to the prize medal. [ ] - 20-plus art installations across the free outdoor campus, including Kerry James Marshall and Julie Mehretu's 83-foot glass artwork visible from the escalators. [ ] - The community basketball court: a glass-paneled professional-grade court Obama personally requested for neighbourhood programmes. [ ] - The Michelle Obama Garden: lettuce and strawberry plants she designed herself, with public charcoal grills Obama pitched at community meetings a decade ago. :NOTE.half The museum building was designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. The eight-story tower is clad in New Hampshire granite. Long etched lines and strategic corner cuts soften the scale. The form was described by the architects as four hands coming together and reaching upward. | :NOTE.half Hyde Park has been an intellectual hub since the University of Chicago opened in 1890. Obama lived here for two decades, taught constitutional law blocks away, and launched his political career in the neighbourhood. The Center closes a circle that began at a community meeting in 1995. :STATS :NOTE The Center is the first presidential museum to hold no physical government records on site. All of Obama's presidential papers are digitised and held by the National Archives. This makes the Chicago campus a living cultural institution rather than a document archive, and allows it to evolve its exhibits over time. :LINK https://www.obama.org/visit/ Obama Presidential Center: plan your visit