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The New York firm that helped shape the recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture will lead the exhibition design for the Obama Presidential Center's museum on Chicago's South Side, the Obama Foundation announced Tuesday.

Ralph Appelbaum Associates will head a team of several firms and individuals with expertise in media, lighting and acoustics, including several Chicago-based collaborators, according to the nonprofit that is developing the library and museum in historic Jackson Park.

The local team members will include the firms Civic Projects and Normal, and the artists and educators Amanda Williams, Andres Hernandez and Norman Teague.

Almost half of the exhibition design work for the OPC will be performed by minority- and women-owned businesses, the foundation said.

RAA, which was not made available to comment, also worked on the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

RAA's exhibit design for the national African-American museum, which opened in September, blends monumentality and minutiae. Dramatic subterranean galleries showcase massive artifacts a prison watch tower, a slave cabin, a train car in an almost cathedral like setting.

Leading into and out of these open spaces, the galleries are stuffed with the narrative, in word and object, of a people's history.

Overall, the design aims to be a metaphor: The history traces a path from the bottom of the structure upward, with the top floors becoming more celebratory, showcasing vibrant looks at the arts, sport and other culture.

The Obama museum team's Civic Projects specializes in bringing community participation to the design process, most recently working with the Bronzeville Retail Initiative and the development of the Englewood Exchange, envisioned as an incubator for food industry start-ups.

Normal has done design work for a number of local institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Foundation and the Theaster Gates Studio.

Williams, who grew up on the South Side, is a visual artist and architect, creator of the Color(ed) Theory series. Hernandez, an artist and educator, is working on a number local projects with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Teague is a designer and educator who examines the complexities and history of communities.

The selections were based on the firms' and individuals' track records on civic projects and "their collective mission to develop interactive, state-of-the art, and dynamic spaces that help visitors connect history to action," David Simas, chief executive of the Obama Foundation, said in a written statement. "We are confident this team will contribute to our building a presidential center that is more than just a library or museum, but that will be an innovative center that inspires communities and individuals to take on our biggest challenges."

kbergen@chicagotribune.com

@kathy_bergen

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Firm that shaped national African-American museum hired for Obama museum - Chicago Tribune