Why visit
The Morgan Library & Museum began as financier J. Pierpont Morgan's private collection of manuscripts, rare books, drawings and prints. Charles Follen McKim designed the intimate Italian Renaissance-style library beside Morgan's Madison Avenue home between 1902 and 1906, using pink Tennessee marble and three richly ornamented principal rooms.
What to see
The historic library contains towering walnut bookcases, painted and gilded ceilings, sculpture and changing displays drawn from the collection. Holdings range from medieval illuminated manuscripts and early printed books to literary drafts, composers' scores, old master drawings, photographs, ancient seals and archival papers.
Plan your visit
Morgan's son transformed the library into a public institution in 1924. Later buildings expanded the campus, and Renzo Piano's 2006 steel-and-glass pavilions joined its historic structures around a luminous central court, adding galleries, storage, a reading room and performance space without replacing the domestic scale of McKim's original rooms.
