University Libraries Architecture Archives

The Carnegie Mellon University Architecture Archives collects, conserves and promotes the use of architectural records that document the architects and architecture of Carnegie Mellon University, the city of Pittsburgh, and its region. Settlement, industrialization, urbanization, and redevelopment have each left a profound imprint on the reginal built environment. Regional architecture bears testimony to the forces that shaped it. But buildings themselves can tell only part of their stories. The particular histories of their conception, design, and construction are contained in the drawings and other documents by which ideas and information have been communicated between clients, architects, and contractors. Such architectural records document an irretrievable past (for buildings demolished or left unbuilt), facilitate the preservation and reuse of extant buildings, and inform our understanding of our surroundings.

The Architecture Archives' collections document thousands of projects and the work of hundreds of designers. Records have been obtained from architects and firms, architects' families, property owners and governments. The Architecture Archives collects preliminary or schematic sketches, construction drawings and blueprints, presentation renderings, files of contracts, specifications and other papers, photographs, and selected architectural models. The Architecture Archives also collects sketchbooks, marketing brochures, and other ephemera.