Skip to primary menu Skip to main content Skip to footer content

Our mission is to preserve, promote, and propel the right of all people to a place where they can live and prosper—a place to call home.

    Care to Look

    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.”

    –

    Credit: National Public Housing Museum

    Exhibition

    • Throughout interior and exterior of the museum

    • Free

    Care to Look

    All objects have stories to tell. If you care to look—really look at any object, they reveal important information about the past as it continues into the present. 

    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.

    These objects also serve as a constant reminder that our museum building used to be domestic spaces, homes where people once lived and loved.  The objects invite you to expand the horizon of what we consider worth preserving in society.

    Rusted metal mailboxes with several names written and crossed out.
    Mailboxes in situ
    Yellow wall with bits of red paint peeling off of it. On the wall, a sign reads 'FALLOUT SHELTER'.
    Fallout shelter sign in situ
    Rusted trash chute in a brick wall.
    Garbage Chute in situ

    More exhibitions

    Explore what’s on view
    A person tends a flower garden in front of a brick high-rise apartment building, an image from the exhibit Living in the Shade

    Living in the Shade

    Explore the role of open space—large lawns and tenant gardens, paved paths and play spaces, shady seating areas and public art—in creating more livable, healthy, and thriving communities.

    Read more
    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…

    Read more
    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.

    Read more

    Exhibition Resources

    Additional resources available at the front desk.

    Discover more as a member.
    Join today.