Its modern steel-frame construction and its spacious landscaped garden; and in its technology, with multiple electric elevators, a fully electrified laundry, and an extremely sophisticated air conditioning system capable of heating, cooling, and humidifying individual rooms 

Arthur Ross Terrace & Garden panorama, May 2016 

Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden in the summer 

When it was built, its location was far from what was then fashionable New York 

It acted as a catalyst for development, giving rise to the neighborhood known as Carnegie Hill; 

The LGBTQIA+ Pride flag  Installed at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in the Arthur Ross Terrace & Garden. Installation produced by Molly Engelman.

Durable materials and plantings that can withstand high traffic and climate fluctuations. 

Striped walkway of the Color Factory Manhattan Color Walk to experience the colors and stories that bring New York City to life, 2018  Saturated-The Allure and Science of Color, the exhibition that the Wall Street Journal calls “vibrant from any angle!”

Great Hall 

Great Hall 

MAN transFORMs Exhibit  After being renovated by Hardy Holzman & Pfeiffer Associates, the Carnegie Mansion opens on October 7 as Cooper-Hewitt, The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Design, with the exhibition MAN transFORMs. Tetrahedrons and octahedrons in Carnegie’s library served as an entry to Buckminster Fuller’s film exploring the “elegantly meshed design of the universe,” part of MAN transFORMs (October 7, 1976–February 7, 1977)

Nature by Design exhibit, 2021 

The Virtue in Vice exhibition, 2017 

Exhibits  

By the people - Designing a better America exhibitions, 2016 

Joris Laarman Lab: Design in the Digital Age Exhibit, 2017 

Tools- Extending Our Reach exhibition, 2014 

Luce Study Center, 1998 

The Arthur Ross Reading Room in the Smithsonian Design Library, 2012, in the former Fox House. 

Carved corbels in the teak room. The differing tones of teak in the room indicate that designer Lockwood de Forest likely used teak from both India and Burma. 

The ceiling of Carnegie’s library 

Lockwood de Forest created stencils for wall and ceiling decorations   Using the patterns found in the pierced brass of stone jalis (screens) that were employed in Indian temples and houses. These created beautiful patterns of light while simultaneously protecting inhabitants from the strong sun. In the teak room de Forest cleverly chose a yellow varnish and a red tone for his stencils, to evoke the golden tones of the sun, the brass, and the red sandstone.

The reception room features a stained-glass tympanum window attributed to Louis Comfort Tiffany 

The ceiling of the reception room, with elaborate plaster decoration 

The Pen, a visitor technology that emphasized play and spoke to the specificities of a design museum, introduced in 2014  The concept for the Pen originated from Local Projects working with Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Its interface with the interactive tables employs the sort of conductive materials common to touchscreen styli. Its interface with the object labels employs near-field communication technology. A sensor in the end of the Pen reads the information on small NFC tags embedded in the object labels. This information is stored in the Pen’s onboard memory and can be read at the interactive tables.

Wallpaper Immersion Room, 2014 

Map of the Upper East Side of Manhattan, 1911. Orange regions represent buildings occupied by the Carnegie family while orange shaded regions represent lots purchased by Carnegie. 

Rendering of the Agnes Bourne Bridge Gallery, 1998 

The fourth-floor hall as it appeared in the 1940s 

Martha “Mattie” Clarke, born in Dundee, Scotland, standing outside the mansion’s service entrance, ca. 1926. She began to work for the Carnegies first at Skibo around 1911  She was sixteen, eventually making the regular journeys between New York and Scotland with the family.

The reception room, open to the garden, 1938 

Carnegie’s personal library 

Cast-iron hot-water boilers made up a system for heating the conservatory and the gardener’s cellar underneath it  A steam boiler was used in the summer for the hot-water heater and the laundry service when the family was in Scotland and the main boilers were shut down

The twin Babcock & Wilcox boilers were each capable of carrying 200 pounds of steam pressure. Carnegie ordered doubles of all systems to provide backup or auxiliary service 

The family library, 1938 

Carnegie Mansion, 1903 

Class of the Womans Art School studying the museum’s collection, 1900 

Earlier exhibits 

Babb, Cook & Willard’s design for the ceiling of Carnegie’s personal library 

Carnegie Mansion Basement Plan, 1901 

Carnegie Mansion Ground Floor Plan, 1901 

Carnegie Mansion First Floor Plan, 1901 

Carnegie Mansion Second Floor Plan, 1901 

Carnegie Mansion Third Floor Plan, 1901 

Carnegie Mansion Fourth Floor Plan, 1901 

Babb, Cook & Willard’s competition drawings were first unveiled to the public in the Architectural Record of July 1899 

Cooper Union foundation building. Painting by Thomas Coke Ruckle in 1861. 

Richard Schermerhorn’s design for the Carnegie garden, 1901  The Carnegie Mansion garden is designed by Guy Lowell, a Boston architect and landscape architect, and Richard Schermerhorn Jr., a Brooklyn native trained in civil engineering.

Hewitt Sisters : Sarah Hewitt (ca. 1890–92) and Eleanor Hewitt (ca. 1888) 

Entrance 

Conservatory 

Exhibits  

Restored wood staircase 

The great hall