 Good evening. I'm Pamela Horn, the cross-platform publisher at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. I'm delighted to welcome you to Cooper Hewitt on behalf of our director Caroline Bowman. We're thrilled to be co-hosting this joint program with the American Scottish Foundation, Landmarks NYC 50, the Scottish Government, and Visit Scotland all during Tartan Week. As you may know, Cooper Hewitt underwent a major transformation over three years ago. It's mansion, galleries, and finally the garden are now open for the public to enjoy. Fittingly, a reopening occurred in 2014 on December 12th, 110 years later to the day that Andrew, Louise, and Margaret moved into this exclusive mansion. I have a suspicion I was asked to greet you all because I delved deeply into the history of the mansion and the stories of the Carnegie's, having created and published Life of a Mansion, which some of you may be familiar with. As head publisher at Cooper Hewitt, this was one of the four books that we published upon a reopening. But my alignment with Mr. Carnegie is way deeper. I am tremendously proud to report that I'm an undergraduate alum of Carnegie Mellon. Yes, I'm a tartan, a Scotty, and my student center used to be called Scevo. Our cafeteria was called Kilty Cafe, and having taken my position here as cross-platform publisher, I'm wholly and fully committed to being forever linked to this remarkable mansion. So now, please enjoy the Carnegie immersion that awaits you as I introduce the executive director of the American Scottish Foundation, Camilla Helman. Good evening. Good evening and welcome. We're so honored to be able to be co-hosting this program tonight, which is part of a series of lectures we have been undertaking for the past 18 months. We received one of those wonderful emails that you never know where it's going to take you, telling us from landmarks 50, asking us if we might have a story to tell of the Scots and their involvement in the building of New York. And landmarks 50 was a project that started to celebrate and commemorate the landmarks law of 50 years ago. As we began to work on this project, we found it so fascinating. We've undertaken three lectures so far, one on McKim, Mead and White, and one on McComb, and then we began our work around Andrew Carnegie. We also have the modernist, which will happen next month. And none of this would have been possible without the research and time given by John Keneer, who is headed up the programs for us. He is the president of the American Friends of the Georgian Group and the board member of the American Scottish Foundation. But before he begins, we're very honored this evening to be joined by Andrew Carnegie's great grandson, the former chairman of the Coupier-Hurit, Kenneth Miller. As Henry VIII said to his many wives, I won't keep you long. I want to say something about intentionality, which, as all of you know, is a central element in the world of design, and certainly was a central element in great-grandfather's building program being, as he was, a very determined son of the Scottish Enlightenment. And I would like to propose, but not being an architect myself, I leave the proof to John, that Grombeneggi had a keen sense of sacred spaces. What we mean by sacred space has, of course, changed over time. I do not mean sacred for the ancients, in which the metaphysical was actually an explicit part of the physical world. And the gods were agents in that world and actually believed to be alive in the architecture. And I don't mean the sacred of the medieval world, in that sense, where the world was a closed, divinely built system and the sacred was determined, as was all of knowledge, by revelation. I mean, rather, the sacred of the later Enlightenment, a humanist system in which universal education is fundamental, a fundamental building block of freedom and in which observation and discovery are the foundation for knowledge, not revelation, so that we can think for ourselves. And also that there is strong evidence for the upward, the ever upward march and progress of humanity, all of which great-grandfather believed very strongly. And that sanctity is explicit in the buildings that he paid to erect. Literally, the strategic locations, the openings, the vaulted spaces, the attention to materials, the integration, the acoustics, the integration of pastoral elements, and more importantly, the purposes. And in case you were wondering, the purposes were very much both Andrews and Louise's. They were partnered in the enterprise. That was specified in the pre-nuck. And that purpose was for the libraries that provided an education for those who helped themselves and serve as gateways to the world of the mind. And for a music hall that in his words transported the listener to a higher realm beyond the material world. And even here in this home and its gardens that transported one, including members of the community who shared it, out of the urban and into a space that had different colors and different textures and different smells. And Proust called it the transpersonal, taking us back to our childhood through specific smells and tastes. The key is that something is being communicated to the person, not in a dogmatic way, but in perhaps an enabling so that the people so that people can reach out to their future selves. So I'd like to think of great grandfather as the secretary of transportation, enabling us to go both physically and spiritually into places that we might not have gone, might not have recognized or recalled. In this world, the feeling resonates as if the object were radioactive. And Socrates called it recollection, all of memory and all of knowledge was as if you had, you were learning something that you had known before. So we're more than 100 years from the start, the creation of these spaces. But I hope for you, as I as I as they do for me, that these buildings will resonate and that they will transport. And John, who has given this much thought will take us there. We're going to be finding out about Andrew Carney as a man as a person. And, and just such an incredible life. I mean, what he accomplished is just mind blowing. Really, I mean, there's 1000 master's thesis in his life. When I started this research into Andrew, I think the first thing I had to get my hands around was how did the young man coming from Scotland, this family, absolutely penniless, how did he and one of many thousands who came over in the mid 19th century, what was about Andrew, that allowed Andrew to become Andrew Carney that we all know. Seems that first of all, he had absolute raw intelligence, just incredibly smart person. That of course, we know isn't always enough. But he's also just an affable person. People from the time he was a child, people wanted to help him, they wanted and he loved people and putting that all together. These two core elements are really what made it all happen. The Carnegie clan comes from Abraham, which is on the east coast of Scotland. And it's just a beautiful part of Scotland. It's still these are modern day pictures, still a thriving area. You can see where it's located. This is the Carnegie's coat of arms. The motto, Dread God, kind of kept that in mind, clan Tartan, he's very and was extremely proud of being a Scott. This stuck with it all through his life. His birthplace, little workers cottage, his father was a hand loom operator and dumb treeland where he was born. That was one of the main things people did in this town. Along comes the beginning of mechanized age. And all these people are out of work. So like Detroit, when the car industry took off around the world. So the family really couldn't stay here. Margaret Morrison, Carnegie, his mother, also their clan goes back to about the same area that the Carnegie clan did. She has a sister who's already in the States. And they said we just have to come over. So they have an auction and they sell everything they own. And it's still not enough money to get the tickets to come to America. So fortunately, one of her friends loans him the extra 20 pounds that need to make it happen. And his mother is a very important element in his life. And we'll see that as we go forward. It's a location done from Lynn, not that far from Edinburgh. It was also a very important town in Scottish history. The Kings of Scotland were based here for a while. The Abbey, the Abbott House, the cemetery around it, in Andrews biography, which is actually an interesting book if you'd like to read about him from his own words. He talks about visiting his uncle who had books, but he had to go through this through the graveyard to get back and forth to his home. And it was a little scary for a little 12 year old. Here he is 16. He's now in America. And that's his younger brother Tom. This is a little bit of a text from his autobiography talking about the song that his father liked to sing about how they're going to all go to America. And with hard work, they're going to do well. As I said, Carnegie never gave up on Scotland or his town. In 1881, he built this library for them. And he also, a few years later, what pricking risk, which was a private estate right on the edge of the town. And he bought it and had it turned into a park for the for the community to use. They moved to Allegheny, which is now part of Pittsburgh. And he got his first job was as a bobbin boy. And they were the young kids that had to get on top of all this machinery and change the threads and very dangerous. And again, though, is very friendly fellow. And before long, someone told him, you know, that the telegraph office is looking for messengers. So he takes that job. And again, this is a little section out of his autobiography, where he talks about seeing New York City for the first time. And they're down near the boat and there's a battery. And they're going to go visit Clinton Castle, which by this time, was somewhat like the Madison Garden of the time. And he meets up with one of the sailors who we befriended, of course, on the ship. And I think by the time they crossed in 50 days, he knew how to sail it. But it talks here about the sailor buying him a sascarella. And he said even much, much later in his life, he said that was one of the most memorable occasions and he can still taste it today. There's a telegraph key. In 1849 he became a messenger. Because he was so intelligent, he could read the sounds of Morse code and never had to write it down. He knew the messages that were coming off the, coming off the key. And he was so good at with people that if he was walking down the street with a telegram for you, he didn't have to go to your office, he'd see you in the street and give you the telegram. He was, he was just again, this raw intelligence. So what happened then is he was promoted and he was running the telegram office by the time he was about 16 years old. During this time, he met up with Colonel James Anderson. Colonel James Anderson had a private library. And he would allow the messenger boys on Saturdays to come and borrow books. And who never forgot that he said it was his window to the world, what he learned from going to this library. Thomas Scott was also another customer of the telegraph. And he realized how incredibly intelligent Andrew was, and he ended up hiring him to be his assistant. And this of course, and Thomas Scott was one of the major players in the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Pittsburgh Division. And he also, Thomas Scott, again, you know, he really liked Andrew and became somewhat of a mentor to him. And he also helped him with his first investment. Andrew Scott knew that this Adams Express company was signing a contract with the Pennsylvania Railroad, and, you know, it was going to be a great success. So Andrew used a bit of money that he had and got some stock in the company. And that was his first investment where he actually had some money to put away. And they also helped him do an investment with the Woodrow Sleeping Car Company, which made a huge difference in the way people traveled. The investment in this company really started putting together a bit of a fortune for Andrew, and he's about 17 years old now. Railroading in the 1860s, this was what it was like. It was really the beginning of railroad. It was wood with a little bit of steel for rails and iron engines. And this is where he was starting to make his fortunes being part of this railroad system. J. Edgar Thompson was the president of the railroad, and he became a good friend of Andrew's also. And later on when they got the steel industry going, Andrew actually named his first major steel mill, the J. Edgar Thompson. Civil War, 1860. This becomes a turning point for Andrew. He realizes that wood is not going to work anymore, and that iron is the future. And with his investments, he's able to take over a small iron company called Freedom Iron. This was the beginning of the steel industry. For the next 40 years, Andrew is building this massive industry. And it was a vertical industry. I don't know if he invented it, or if he just, you know, it started. He owned the companies or his partners with the people that had the raw ingredients to make the steel. He built the factories with the blast furnaces. And then he actually found clients for his steel. He got into the bridge building business. And although he was so busy, he did manage to take some time to do some traveling in Europe at the end of the Civil War. He also would organize these trips for his friends. And they'd go foreign hand coaching all over England for a good part of the summer. And he'd take six or seven friends with him. They'd stay in Inns. And he actually wrote a book about his trips. Louise Whitfield, he met her in 1870. They didn't marry until 1887. I think they got engaged about seven years before the wedding. But she stuck with him. And Andrew had actually, they say, promised not to marry while his mother was still alive. His mother was, they were very close. She was like his business partner. And so she died in 1886. They married less than a year later, which she was very upset about doing. And the next day, they left for a honeymoon in Scotland. A little article in the newspaper, The New York Times, about three sentences long covering the wedding. They also did summer vacations in Crescent Resort, which was in Pennsylvania. It was one of those railroad destination hotels, very popular. And then Carnegie bought the start of the Keystone Bridge Company. And this is the first steel bridge crosses the Mississippi River in St. Louis. And part of his vertical corporation was these cities couldn't really afford bridges like this. So he would put together bonds. And then he would take the bonds to Europe and England and sell the bonds. So he'd have a project to build back here with his, with his business. The Brooklyn Bridge here in town is all, it's all made out of Carnegie steel. 1789, again he's, he just loves to travel. A few of his friends travel around the world. When he was on his honeymoon trip, he met Walter Damroch, who was head of the New York Oratory Society. And Walter told him, you know, we don't have a good musical. New York does not have a proper musical. So they got to be good friends. And Andrew said, well, when we get back to New York, I'm going to build your musical. And Walter said, great. And he said, I will get the best conductors and symphonies out of Europe and they'll play for you. This is the, this is the site. Carnegie bought this land here on 57th Street when the city was not any further north than 42nd Street. Everyone thought no one's going to come to this theater out here. Because Walter was true to his word, he did bring the best talents out of Europe. And they came and the people came. This is the construction of Carnegie Hall. And Carnegie Steel up there. William Tuttle was the architect of the hall. Now William was a little known architect. He was a Scott and it was pretty loyal. And his claim to fame was he was a very, very good cellist. And, you know, he had a good ear. So he kind of based the design on some of the better European musicals and theaters. And this is the last large building in New York to be built out of masonry. No steel except in the roof. And of course people attribute that to a lot of the great acoustics in the hall. Opening night, the place was packed. William, a little nervous, he goes downstairs and he's looking through all his plans to see the calculations for the columns that are holding up all these balconies. Just kind of double checking. Rewind to that scene from the Titanic where the architect has to look at the plans and nope, we're not going to make it. But luckily, Carnegie Hall is still there. It's not looking 1895. A little bit later in 1910 they built the towers, which were studios and places where people could actually stay. There's the interior today, beautifully restored. One of the interesting features of the hall is there are no private boxes which were kind of the rigor back in those days. You know, you can have your own box and set your cutoff from the people next to you. But I think that this would be a little bit more democratic. Here's a wonderful tour of the archivist that the Carnegie Hall gave me, a wonderful tour of the building. It's a stage. Now in the last few years they've done some great great work on the building and they've created this wonderful rooftop garden which is accessible from some public rooms up there. Some of the steel from the building. This is that attic area that we saw in the early construction picture. It's all being used now for offices. It's very effective. Now in the 1960s it almost all came down. Isaac Stern got a group together. It took years but they finally got the state to buy the building and then they started the restoration of it. It almost became a tower. Here it is today. Wonderful, wonderful building. It certainly shows that all buildings, old buildings can certainly be used today and this is a great example as is the mansion. Andrew and Louise had been going to Scotland every summer and they would usually rent a big country house. Louise said well you know I think it's time that we have something we own a place here. So they find Skibo Castle which was built by 1100 and when they bought it it was shambles. It was no running water, no electricity, nothing. Falling down. So they decided that they could do a little fixing up. This is what they did. It's probably about six times bigger than it had started out and they enjoyed it. It's in, I'll show you, a map coming up. Some of the interiors, it was just the entrance way. The stained glass depicts his voyage as a boy in, you know, a little sailing ship all the way up to now he's going to Scotland. These massive crews, you know, ocean liners. It's in Dornrich, which is up in Sutherland County, pretty far north in Scotland. When he went looking for a castle he wanted to find one that had views of the water, the forest, a trout stream and a waterfall. He got most of that, but there's no waterfall there, though. And he had this, by this time he's got himself a nice yacht called the Sea Breeze, and here he is entertaining on a dudar kippling. Now, Skibo was not just a place to go for vacation. He conducted business here also. He had many visitors from all over coming to see them there. And because of the telegraph, it's like their iPhone, he could keep in touch with his, all his operations, no matter where they were. He's never really out of touch. This is the Out of the Sea Breeze, and here's the Skibo Castle today. Now, it's a resort destination. You can go and stay there. It has a private club called the Carnegie Club. He built a golf course. You can golf there, fish. Here's Andrew. Here's his daughter Margaret, who was born in 1897, about the same time, and if he was with Louise in 1915. This is the Carnegie Mansion site. Again, Carnegie decided she's going to build the house, or probably Louise decided they're going to build the house. We left it up to us guys. We'd all been caves, but he was, again, moving much further north than everybody else was. Most of the big houses were down in the 70s, and here we are up in the 90s. And he said the reason was he really wanted a garden, a good-sized garden for Margaret. He had been living in a town house he bought on 51st Street, which was right next to the Vanderbilt Mansion at the time. It's not there now. It's right next door to where the number three East 51st Street Club is. He had a competition for the design of the house. He invited all the big firms, McKim, Meade, and Wye, Karen, Hastings, everybody. He went with Bad Cook and Willard. Cook was a Scott, and he was, according to Carnegie, he was the only one that really listened to what he said about the kind of house he wanted. This shows, I think, what we actually are in now as much nicer than this original design. They took an entire floor off it, which helped quite a bit. Some of the inspiration was the Pratt Mansion done by Cook. This is at Brooklyn, right next to part of the Brooklyn College campus now. Here's the Vanderbilt Mansion. His peers, at the time, were building these massive, you know, Frenchetto style buildings. More like Frick, who was his partner. He builds this wonderful Beaux-Arts building that always looked more like a museum than a house, as far as I can see. Fibs the same thing in other Beaux-Arts Palace. Carnegie decided with his architects that they would do a Georgian-inspired building. And Georgian is a more humanistic style than the Beaux-Arts. Each window is set in a, in this case, a brick wall, so you know, we can identify with doors, windows that kind of have human scale to them. So that makes this a little bit different than even the neighboring buildings around us today. These are the interiors at his time. That's Mercury, who was the goddess of messengers, basically. So he had that right here in the reception room. Interiors were done in pure Edwardian style. This is the, this is the, what's the picture gallery, which is now the bookstore. And this was more or less what we would call today the family room. Now this is the kitchens. Now one thing that's very interesting about this house, it was cutting edge. When it was built, it had all the modern conveniences. It had a form of bare conditioning at the time. It had humidification. It had zoned heating throughout the building. It had the first electric elevator in the house. It had the first house built with a steel frame. And, and you know, it looks Georgian, but it's really cutting edge, modern. This is about the time when we do our next talk on the modernist. The modernist period kind of starts around this era, when steel starts making the way we build buildings so completely different. This is the garden and the Miller House, the townhouse on the right. And that was bought for, for Margaret when she married, so that she could still share the garden with her husband Roswell. And today it's part of the Carnegie Library, the Cooper Yord Library. It's Carnegie in 1901. He sold the business, the steel business, now to J.P. Morgan for $480 million. Huge amount of money in those days. And he decided that he would go into philanthropy. And so the rest of his life, he gave away 90 percent of his money. The house, the house did stay in the family until 46. And today it's the museum that we're here in. It's really, again, it's such an adaptive, wonderful, adaptive reuse of a traditional building. Some of the exhibits that have happened over the years, and I'm sure you had a chance to take a look today, if not come back. I think today it has probably the most cutting-edge presentation of material of any museum anywhere. One of Carnegie's primary projects, and again this all goes back to his childhood when he was given the opportunity to borrow books. He set up in about 1902 a plan to build libraries. He would provide the money for the library building and the community would then have to put the books, furniture, and maintain it going forward. All in all, he's done over three thousand, he supported over three thousand libraries. He also gave quite a bit of the money to the New York Public Library. Before the public theater, the Aster Library, downtown Lafayette Street, that was the New York's public library. This was built in 1908. There are 67 Carnegie libraries here in New York.