Architecture of the Morgan

Today, The Morgan Library & Museum is a complex of buildings of differing styles and periods covering half a city block.

By 1900 Pierpont Morgan decided to build a library next to his brownstone at the corner of Madison Avenue and 36th Street.

For the exterior, McKim used Tennessee pink marble in a classically simple design: a rectangular structure with a recessed portico.

The Library is by far the largest and grandest of the rooms in J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library.

The interior of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library consists of three rooms radiating off the east, north, and west sides of the Rotunda, a vaulted entrance foyer.

The Study is the most sumptuous and yet personal of the library rooms and the one that best reflects the personal tastes of its original occupant.

The Librarian's Office is the smallest of the McKim rooms and was the office of Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950), Morgan's personal librarian.

In 1924, eleven years after Pierpont Morgan's death, J. P. Morgan, Jr. (1867–1943) transferred ownership of the Library to a board of trustees.

In 1988 the Morgan acquired the Morgan House situated on the corner of 37th Street and Madison Avenue.

The Thaw Conservation Center, made possible by a $10-million gift from the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust, opened in February 2002.