On a Sunday morning in Chicago, I walked into the newly opened Obama Presidential Center expecting a museum about Barack Obama’s presidency. What I found was something broader: a place built around history, art, architecture, community and Chicago.
Located in Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side, the Center includes the Museum, a Chicago Public Library branch, public spaces, gardens and commissioned artwork.
What struck me first was the building. The Museum tower rises above the campus with words incorporated directly into its exterior. Nearby, a bronze sculpture of Barack and Michelle Obama walking hand in hand creates a more human-scale introduction to the Center.
A bronze sculpture of Barack and Michelle Obama on the Center’s grounds.
Art and architectural details appear throughout the Museum experience.
Once inside, video, photographs, objects and large-scale installations move visitors through American history, Obama’s path to the presidency, the White House years and Michelle Obama’s work as first lady.
There were rooms where I stopped to read, others where video carried the story, and spaces where the design itself became part of the experience.
Visitors move through multimedia historical exhibits inside the Museum.
From the Campaign to the White House
The Yes We Can installation is immediately recognizable. Elsewhere, timelines, campaign memorabilia and exhibits document the presidency and Michelle Obama’s work as first lady.
Rather than relying on one presentation style, the Museum moves between objects, film, graphics and immersive spaces.
An exhibit documents Michelle Obama’s work and initiatives as first lady.
A miniature recreation presents a performance inside the White House East Room.
The full-size replica of Obama’s Oval Office was another highlight for me. Visitors can actually enter the room, sit behind the desk and take photographs.
Yet With a Steady Beat
Some of my favorite spaces had less to do with presidential artifacts and more to do with art.
Jeffrey Gibson’s Yet With a Steady Beat fills its space with words, symbols and references to different movements and communities. It is also one of the most visually striking installations in the Museum.
We the People
As the galleries continue upward, the scale and atmosphere keep changing.
Historical material increasingly shares the space with contemporary art before the Museum finally opens into the Nelson Mandela Sky Room.
Idris Khan’s Sky of Hope spreads across the ceiling of the Nelson Mandela Sky Room.
At the top is the Nelson Mandela Sky Room, where Idris Khan’s Sky of Hope spreads across the ceiling. Thousands of individually stamped words drawn from Obama’s 2015 Selma anniversary speech radiate outward from the skylight.
“It is impressive, but the view is what stayed with me.”
From the Sky Room, Chicago’s South Side stretches out below. After spending several floors looking backward through history, suddenly you’re looking outward at Chicago as it exists now.
Visitors to Chicago can easily spend most of their time downtown. From here, another part of the city is placed directly in front of you.
The Sky Room looks outward across Chicago’s South Side.
Carrie Mae Weems’ The Cool Blue Wind in the Sky Room Vista.
Nearby, Carrie Mae Weems’ The Cool Blue Wind adds another visual layer to the Sky Room. The combination of artwork, architecture and the city outside made this one of my favorite parts of the Center.
Campaign signs, buttons, shirts and memorabilia fill one of the Museum displays.
The experience doesn’t end with the exhibition floors.
The campus includes a functioning branch of the Chicago Public Library. Inside, I spent time looking through the displays before reaching the President’s Reading Room.
A Quieter Space
Compared with the scale of the Museum, the library felt quieter and more intimate.
Books fill the tall wood-lined shelves while visitors can sit, browse and read.
I actually wished the library were a little larger. But that’s probably because I enjoyed being there.
The President’s Reading Room inside the Chicago Public Library branch.
Visitors browse and read inside the President’s Reading Room.
As I moved through the Museum, parts of the experience reminded me of visiting the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. There was something familiar in the way history, photographs, video and immersive spaces were brought together to place individual events inside a larger American story.
By the end of my visit, I was left with two feelings: nostalgia and hope.
Walking through campaign memorabilia, the White House years and moments I remember happening in real time brought back memories of a period that feels very different from where we are today.
But I didn’t leave feeling stuck in the past.
“It started with nostalgia. It ended with hope.”
I walked into the Obama Presidential Center curious about a new presidential museum.
I walked out thinking about what had been, where we are now, and what the future might still become.
It started with nostalgia. It ended with hope.
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