The decorative china plates are long gone. Historic metal gadgets and Native American pottery now stand in their stead. Resting on a bookshelf is a framed program from the 1963 March on Washington, where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech.

President Barack Obama gradually has made the Oval Office his own.

To varying degrees, each president puts his own imprint on this celebrated workspace. Even the smallest change - Obama's penholder, for example - is closely watched for symbolism.

While recent presidents have each done a big overhaul upon taking office, Obama decided against major redecorating. It would have struck a sour note in a time of economic distress. But over his first year in the White House, the office has come to reflect his tastes.

The table behind Obama's desk is full of family photos - a wedding picture, shots of his girls as toddlers, a picture from the day he announced for president and more - photos that he says remind him "why I'm doing what I'm doing." Out the window, the president can watch daughters Sasha and Malia climb on the playscape erected for them last spring.

There's now a bust of King in the Oval Office, in addition to the March on Washington program that previously hung on Obama's "wall of heroes" in his Senate office.

"This office, I think, reminds you of what's at stake, how many hopes and dreams are placed in what goes on here at the White House," Obama said in a recent television interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

Perhaps no room in the White House is more closely associated with the presidency.

It is where Obama signs letters to the families of fallen soldiers. Where he told his war council of his decision to ship thousands more troops to Afghanistan. Where he receives daily briefings on the security threats facing the nation and on the state of the economy.

As Obama on updating the look of the Oval Office, in came four pieces of pottery by contemporary Native American artists, all on loan from the National Museum of the American Indian. Also new to the Obama bookshelves are three mechanical devices on loan from the National Museum of American History's patent collection: models for Samuel Morse's 1849 telegraph register, John Peer's 1874 gear-cutting machine and Henry Williams' 1877 feathering paddlewheel for steamboats.

White House curator William Allman said the patent models fit Obama's personality - his "interest in American history, his interest in technology and his interest in the creative spirit."

(Read by Lee Hannon. Lee Hannon is a multimedia journalist at the China Daily Web site.)

(Agencies)