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Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh The history of Carnegie Museums is book-ended by two periods of growth and diversification. The first was a decade of furious expansion, starting with the founding of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh in 1895. Andrew Carnegie called this great building his “monument,” and he considered it the chief satisfaction of his life. That’s saying a lot, considering that this son of a poor Scottish weaver grew up to become one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and philanthropists. In 1896, Carnegie Museums held the first Carnegie International, second only to the Venice Biennale as the world’s oldest and most prestigious international exhibition of contemporary art, and the museum’s collection of art quickly grew as a result. Two years later, in response to news that the bones of “colossal” prehistoric creatures were being found out west, Carnegie sent a scientific crew to Utah, where they would find their first of many dinosaur specimens. To make room for the display of his new namesake, Diplodocus carnegii, Andrew Carnegie broke ground on Carnegie Museums’ first major expansion in 1904. While the most famous product of that expansion was the great Dinosaur Hall, its neighboring hall, the Hall of Architecture, perhaps best embodied Andrew Carnegie’s desire to “bring the world” to the people of Pittsburgh. He knew that most of those people would never leave their neighborhoods, their city, let alone the country. So he created a room filled with the casts of some of the greatest architectural wonders of the world. The hall itself is modeled after one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and its rare collection of casts is the largest on display anywhere in the world today. Carnegie Museums’ second most ambitious period of growth began in 1974, with the opening of the Sarah Scaife Galleries, which gave Carnegie Museum of Art’s constantly growing collections their own elegant space. Between 1980 and 1993, Carnegie Museum of Natural History added a number of new exhibit halls: Hillman Hall of Minerals & Gems, Polar World, the Benedum Hall of Geology, the Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt, and the Hall of African Wildlife. And in 1991, Carnegie Science Center entered the Carnegie Museums fold through a partnership between Carnegie Museums and the Buhl Foundation. Home to Buhl Planetarium, an IMAXå theater, and hundreds of interactive science exhibits, the Science Center now attracts more than half a million people a year. By the time of its 10-year anniversary in 2001, the Science Center opened UPMC SportsWorks, the largest collection of sports and science exhibits in the world. In 1994, Carnegie Museums again brought something new and irreplaceable to Pittsburgh and the world: The Andy Warhol Museum. In addition to presenting the vast archives of Andy Warhol, the museum quickly became a center for dialogue about a diverse range of topics, as well as a global ambassador to Pittsburgh’s cultural richness and diversity through its many traveling exhibitions. In 2002, Carnegie Museum of Natural History announced the historic dismantling of its Dinosaur Hall and plans to build in its place Dinosaurs in Their World, which will be nearly three times the size of the original hall. And in 2003, Carnegie Museum of Art accomplished its most important and most visitor-focused transformation since the opening of the Scaife wing with the reopening of its Scaife Galleries after an 18-month renovation, which included a new presentation of its vast collections and the display of 70 percent more artwork. Today, the four Carnegie Museums directly reach more than 1.3 people each year through exhibitions, educational programming, outreach, and special events. And the values and priorities of the museums continue to reflect Andrew Carnegie's founding vision: to help people improve their lives through superior educational and cultural museum experiences. Through expanded services and the addition of two new museums over the past 15 years, Carnegie Museums has strengthened its impact, enhancing the region's economic vitality, attracting regional, national, and international tourists, and helping to educate and inspire the workforce of the future.
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