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What's Inside

Black and white image of a 1940s Jane Addams Homes kitchen. A mother stands at the counter with her two sons.

Historic Apartments

Experience the texture and fabric of public housing throughout time by visiting three recreated historic apartments showcasing different families’ experiences at different moments in public housing history between 1938 and 1975. The intimate individual, family and community stories become the lens to understand large national public housing policies and their impact…

View from above, a white, purple, orange, and blue geometric mural turns a parking lot into a play space

OOPS & HOOPcycle

Conceptualized by artist Marisa Morán Jahn and architect Rafi Segal, the mobile art installation HOOPcycle offers a reimagined sports experience that challenges norms and unites communities through play.

Two wooden bookends, each with a copper baby shoe inscribed with the name “Daniel,” sit on a wooden table.

History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Public Housing

“What is an object that tells a story about your life and experiences in public housing?” History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Public Housing is a national effort to collect objects from public housing residents in diverse communities across the USA, and work with residents in storytelling and writing workshops to write their own labels…

On a sideways piece of lined notebook paper with old fashioned handwritten text, a pencil drawing of three indigenous women wrapped in blankets look directly at the viewer. At the top of the page is a sliver of a Chicago street map.

Still Here

Still Here uses art, archives, and public dialogue to explore and connect histories of displacement on the land where the National Public Housing Museum is located. As an institution that addresses displacement of public housing residents, we also want to understand the forcible removal of Indigenous peoples that came before and grapple with how those experiences are interwoven…

Workers on a lift hang a large mural on the facade of a brick building

Invitation Wall

Invitation Wall is the museum’s 40-foot outdoor public art exhibition space that reflects the museum’s commitment to radical hospitality.

Taylor Street Memories

As you walk down Taylor Street, meet one of our founders, Commissioner Deverra Beverly and learn about the changing neighborhood through the stories of past residents. These exhibits are accessible from the outside of the museum.

Feeling At Home

Beyond the uniform exteriors of public housing buildings, there are apartment units with unique, enthralling, and carefully curated interiors. We partnered with Jayah Arnett from My Projects Runway to collect family photos of public housing apartments. From these photos, we share their stories and select fabric to adorn the seats in our main gathering hub.

A screen-printed poster shows a black blob with squiggly lines that depict a virus or bacteria and a sun shining on towards it on a light-blue background. The text reads, “PLANNED HOUSING FIGHTS DISEASE.”

Art for All, Posters for the People

No government program has left a more visible legacy on the American landscape than the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration. Along with the construction of hundreds of federally funded buildings, including the Jane Addams Homes, the program employed thousands of artists.

A black and white image from the 1940s shows a courtyard surrounded by brick buildings. In the courtyard, children in swimsuits play in water spraying out from the concrete and climb on stone animal statues surrounding the fountain.

Animal Court

Experience the enchanting seven-piece sculpture Animal Court by Edgar Miller, which has been lovingly restored and placed in our courtyard. The sculpture garden is free and open to the public during museum hours…

A concrete wall with peeling layers of tan and blue paint. Graffiti in the top left corner says “Abandon Hope.” In the bottom left corner, graffiti that once said “ENTER HERE” is peeling off and obstructed so it only reads “NTER HE.”

Care to Look

Throughout the National Public Housing Museum, you will encounter objects that were salvaged from the original Jane Addams Homes building that now serves as our home. You are invited to consider what these preserved artifacts from the building have to say about the style, culture, and history of public housing…

Landscape view centered on a high rise building, Millers River Apartments, undergoing renovation, with scaffolding surrounding it. [Cambridge Housing Authority]

Case Studies for Truly Public Housing: Millers River

What does it take to create and maintain truly public housing? Each year, we invite guest curators  to examine a single case study that we believe demonstrates a creative commitment to public housing to learn from housing projects across the country…

Archival photos of black gymnasts standing and tumbling are collaged onto a field of blue and a layer of repeating leaf-like daubs of gold, red, purple, and green paint.

ReCreation

ReCreation is a monumental floor to ceiling mural by Marisa Morán Jahn that celebrates energetic, ground-up civic initiatives.

A close up of several paint chips of different colors–red, yellow, blue, orange–stacked on top of each other.

Resilient Hues

This vividly colored installation by Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous welcomes visitors to the National Public Housing Museum

At night in a concert setting, a group of kids dance with a Black woman holding a microphone. The crowd of young people and adults are joyously dancing and enjoying music.

REC Room

From Brooklyn to Los Angeles, Houston to Chicago, Minneapolis to Memphis. From Klezmer to Hip-Hop, Country to Latin Rock, the music that has emerged from public housing projects represents a range of popular sounds that have expanded our idea of American culture and American identity…

Title card for the TV show "Good Times" with a cityscape background featuring buildings and parked cars.

Good Times

When American sitcom Good Times came out in 1974, it was the first time public housing residents saw themselves on mainstream television. We worked with Maurice Edwards, Cabrini-Green Homes Community Development Corporation President, to ask current Cabrini-Green residents to tell us their favorite episodes, clips of which are on view in our Lower Level gallery.