The Carnegie Museum of Art features a distinguished collection of fine art, film, video, sculpture and antiques, as well as exhibits of architectural drawings and models and plaster casts of American architectural masterpieces. It is arguably the first museum of contemporary art in the United States with roots dating back to 1896, when Pittsburgh industrialist Andrew Carnegie began a series of exhibits focused on the nation’s most accomplished artists of the time.

Early acquisitions that included the works of Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler and Camille Pissarro set the foundation of a collection that today is regarded for its American art from the mid-19th century to the present, French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings and its late-20th century works. The museum includes the recently renovated Scaife Galleries, where many of the collection’s paintings, sculptures, works on paper and decorative arts are exhibited.

The museum is also home to the Carnegie International (May 3, 2008 through Jan. 11, 2009). The exhibition – the 55th – presents the work of a wide range of established and emerging artists on the forefront of contemporary art.

Child magazine recently ranked the Carnegie Museum of Art one of America’s five best art museums for children, giving it high marks for its free, weekend drop-in art making programs for children and families, gallery play dates for preschool-aged children, art classes and summer camps, child-friendly audio tour and family-oriented conveniences.

Beginning with the discovery of Diplodocus carnegii some 100 years ago, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History has assembled one of the most heralded dinosaur collections in the world, including the skull of Samson – the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skull yet discovered – and a yet-to-be-named species of oviraptorosaur. After a nearly two-year renovation, the former Dinosaur Hall reopened in November 2007 as Dinosaurs in Their Time that exhibits the museum’s dinosaurs in scientifically accurate, active poses among the plant and animal species that shared their environment, offering a more complete picture of Mesozoic life.

The museum’s exhibit halls are organized under three disciplines: Life science, earth science and anthropology. In addition to the dinosaur collection, there are life science exhibit halls dedicated to North American wildlife, African wildlife and botany exhibits that examine how conditions of temperature and water affect plant life in a Florida everglade, a Mt. Rainier alpine meadow, an Arizona desert and a Pennsylvania valley.

In earth sciences, there are halls dedicated to geology, including a digital “Earth Theater,” and the Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems and the new Wertz Hall of Jewelry and Gems that explores gems, the crystals they come from and jewelry made from them. Halls related to anthropology hold exhibits related to life in the arctic; American Indians, their relationships with the natural world, and contemporary issues and life; and ancient Egypt with more than 2,500 artifacts dating to 3100 B.C., including a mummy and his sarcophagus donated by Pittsburgh industrialist Andrew Carnegie and a 3,800-year old funerary boat excavated more than 100 years ago from a pyramid complex near Cairo.

The highly interactive Carnegie Science Center, recipient of the 2003 National Award for Museum Service, is one of the most visited museums in Pittsburgh. Opened in 1991 on the north shore of the Ohio River as a merger with the 52-year-old Buhl Planetarium, the Science Center today covers five floors with exhibits, traveling exhibits and planetarium shows that connect science to everyday life in ways that are designed to enlighten, inspire and entertain.

The center includes three live demonstration stages: the Kitchen Theater, Science Stage and Works Theater; the Buhl Digital Dome, a high-definition planetarium; the domed Rangos OMNIMAX theater that surrounds its audience with IMAX movies; a 2,000-foot aquarium; and exhibits – more than 250 of them hands-on – that range from the chemistry of cooking to simulated gamma knife surgery. Outside, docked along the Ohio River and open for interactive tours, is the USS Requin, the Navy’s first radar picket submarine that was commissioned during World War II.

Another popular attraction is the UPMC SportsWorks, where the science behind sports is explored in more than 40 exhibits spread throughout an adjacent 36,000-square-foot building. There, you can experience what it is like to race down a bobsled track, learn how ice skaters control their spinning, line up a trick shot in pool and pitch a fastball.

The Andy Warhol Museum, another member of the Carnegie museum family, is a dynamic celebration of the life and art of the Pittsburgh-born artist who transformed contemporary art and a favorite stop for pop culture icons and other celebrities when they are in town. The most comprehensive single-artist museum in the world, it is a primary resource for insights into art and popular culture. Its permanent collection of Warhol art and archives includes more than 12,000 paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, photographs, film and video, as well as ephemera, records, source material for works of art and other documents of Warhol’s life.

The museum exhibits about 500 works from the permanent collection at one time. The collection includes Warhol’s pop art masterpieces such as his portraits of Marilyn, Liz, Elvis, Campbell's Soup Cans, Brillo Boxes and Flowers, as well as series paintings, such as the Maos. The collection also includes student works from the artist’s years at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), commercial art and sketchbook drawings from his early years in New York City, commissioned portraits and photographs, self-portraits and important late works, such as collaborations with the young artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and the Last Supper and Camouflage series.

Special exhibitions focus on specific areas of Warhol's work and the work of related artists from Basquiat and Factory photographer Billy Name to Mariko Mori and Jean Cocteau, as well as specific-theme exhibits. Rounding out the museum is a gift shop offering Warhol prints and souvenirs and an eclectic selection of other curiosities.

The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is an innovative experience for children of all ages designed for them to have fun while exercising their creativity and curiosity. The museum’s permanent exhibits are based on a “play with real stuff” philosophy that uses real things and real processes to challenge children's abilities and help them better understand the world they live in and themselves. Each exhibit also includes an area that meets the developmental needs of infants and toddlers.

The Attic challenges children’s senses and perceptions. There, they can become an apparition, capture their shadows or enter a room where the laws of gravity do not apply. The Garage is a place where children can build things and take things apart, see how machinery and engines run and learn how to fix them when they don’t. They can even get behind the wheel or tinker under the hood of a real MINI Cooper. In the museum studio, they are provided with the materials and instruction they need to paint, sculpt, print and even make paper. The museum also includes a replica of “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood” for children to explore.

ToonSeum, the museum’s newest gallery, showcases original art from more than 100 years of cartoons, comic books and comic strips, including cells, backgrounds and sketches from the animated versions of The Cat in the Hat, Charlotte’s Web, Madeline, Horton Hears a Who, Lord of the Rings, Babar The Elephant and others.

The Forks of the Ohio – where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers meet and where downtown Pittsburgh stands today – was a critical point in the 18th Century struggle between Britain and France to control what was then the western boundaries of European settlement in North America. There, the French and the British built several forts – Fort Prince George, Fort Duquesne, Mercer's Fort and Fort Pitt – to protect their claims to the early West and their ability to trade with the Native American people who populated the wooded hills and valleys of the region.

The Fort Pitt Museum, located in the recreated bastion of the British-built Fort Pitt, uses original artifacts, documents, maps, images, videos, models and interactive kiosks to explain the important role the fort played in the development of western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley, from the events that triggered the French and Indian War to the Whiskey Rebellion and the growth of the City of Pittsburgh.

Key events in Fort Pitt's history from the 1750s to about 1800 are chronicled in the main exhibit gallery. And other exhibits offer visitors a glimpse of what life was like at the Forks of the Ohio some 250 years ago, including a replica trader's cabin like those that 18th Century fur traders built throughout the region, and a replica barracks room and magazine room that depicts a soldier’s life within the fort.

The Stephen Foster Memorial on the University of Pittsburgh campus is Oakland is a comprehensive tribute to Pittsburgh-born Stephen Foster, one of America’s most famous and accomplished composers. This Pennsylvania historic landmark houses The Stephen Foster Memorial Museum, the Center for American Music and two theaters that host Shakespearean productions and concerts. It is open to the public for both guided and self-guided tours.

The museum is home to a collection of musical instruments, including one of the Foster’s original pianos. Exhibits also include copies of the songwriters more than 200 compositions, memorabilia related to the composer’s life and times, and examples of recordings, songsters, broadsides and programs.

The Stephen Foster Collection is the centerpiece of the Center for American Music, a library, archive and museum dedicated to American music and its role in American life. The Center is the world's principal repository for materials related to Foster and documents his life, work and influence. It holds some 30,000 items with an emphasis on American popular culture between 1840 and 1940, including holographs and manuscripts, scrapbooks, account books, correspondence, papers, photographs and music scores. The National Endowment for the Humanities described the holdings as "one of the major research collections for 19th-century American music, and American culture in general, in the entire country.”

Henry Clay Frick, born in 1849 in Westmoreland County, Pa., rose to become one of the leading industrialists of his time, first in the production of the coke that fueled steelmaking and later in steelmaking itself as Andrew Carnegie’s partner in the Carnegie Steel Company, a major player in America’s industrial age. As his wealth grew, so did Frick’s investment in art and at the time of his death in 1919 he was a collector of international standing.

The Frick Art & Historical Center is a complex of museums and historical buildings on five acres of lawns and gardens in Pittsburgh's residential East End devoted to the life and times of Henry Clay Frick. The restored family home, Clayton, a 23-room chateau-style mansion, stands as it was for the 22 years Frick lived there before moving to New York in 1905. More than 90 percent of the artifacts found in the house are original.

Also on the grounds is The Frick Art Museum, built in 1969 to hold the fine and decorative arts collection of Frick’s daughter, Helen Clay Frick. Among the exhibits are porcelains, bronzes, rare 17th- and 18th-century furniture and paintings by Rubens, Boucher, Giovanni de Paolo and others. Guests are also invited to visit the Greenhouse, the Frick children’s playhouse and the Café, which offers fine cuisine and a panoramic view of the grounds. More than 20 vintage automobiles are on display at the Car and Carriage Museum, including Henry Clay Frick’s 1914 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost touring car and Howard Heinz’s 1898 Panhard.

From the adventures of Lewis and Clark and a young George Washington to the men and mills that helped build a nation and the on-field triumphs of the Pittsburgh Steelers, some of the richest regional history in America is on display at the Senator John Heinz History Center located in the Strip District neighborhood on the fringe of downtown Pittsburgh.

The History Center, the largest history museum in Pennsylvania, is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, giving it access to some of the nation’s most treasured historical artifacts. Among its permanent, homegrown exhibits is Points In Time, a walk through 250 years of history seen through the region’s people – from Native Americans and pioneers to immigrant steelworkers, entrepreneurs and suburban families – that includes a reconstructed 1790 log house, 1910 steelworker's home and a 1950's suburban home; hundreds of artifacts, photographs and documents; and a self-guided tour of the African American struggle for freedom. The History Center’s special collections gallery, organized by ethnic group and neighborhood, offers a glimpse of the region’s diverse tapestry of people and cultures with objects such as costumes, toys, household appliances and musical instruments. The newest exhibit traces the tradition of innovation in the region, whose inventions include the Ferris Wheel, aluminum, the Jeep and the Zippo lighter.

The Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, a museum within the museum, blends multimedia sound and vision with more traditional exhibits to relive sports history from Steelers Franco Harris’ “Immaculate Reception” to high school sports, industrial leagues and ethnic games. The History Center also runs special exhibits, such as The Darkest Month (now until June 8, 2008), which explores a pair of mine explosions in December 1907 that claimed the lives of 600 coal miners in two local mines.

The Mattress Factory, housed in a former mattress factory and warehouse located in the historic Mexican War streets section on the city’s North Side, is a museum of contemporary art that exhibits room-sized installations by artists from the United States, Europe and Asia. This "art you can get into" utilizes a variety of media to engage all of the senses and is created on-site by the museum’s artists in-residence.

The museum’s growing permanent exhibits consists of distinctive installations, such as James Turell’s Catso, Red; Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Dots Mirrored Room; Bill Woodrow’s Ship of Fools: Discovery of Time; William Anastasi’s Tresspass; Allan Wexler’s, Bed Sitting Rooms for an Artist in Residence; and Music for a Garden by Rolf Julius. In addition, innovative temporary exhibitions are staged throughout the year, such as a recent two-part exhibition featuring the installations of 10 select artists from India.

Over its 30-year history, The Mattress Factory’s residency program has supported some 300 American and international artists. Each year, selected artists are brought to Pittsburgh to live at the museum, explore, experiment and create new work. Each exhibition of the installations they produced is coupled with educational programs, including hands-on art projects, workshops, lectures and tours.

Photo Antiquities Museum of Photographic History is dedicated to the preservation, presentation and history of photography. Located on Pittsburgh’s North Side, the museum has created a Victorian setting, replete with music of the era, in which visitors can explore nearly 250 years of photography, from the Daguerreotype (circa 1839) – the first commercially viable photographic image produced onto a silver coated copper plate – to the digital photography of today.

The museum’s collection includes tens of thousands of images of people, places and events, as well as cameras and various photographic accessories. Monthly exhibits include explore a range of topics, such as the American Civil War; African American images; Native American images; images of Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania; images of the Great Depression; and photographs of dramatic events, such as the Thanksgiving 1950 killer snow storm that struck the region.

In the museum gift shop, visitors can shop for prints of the photographs that strike them. Reproductions of any of the more than 100,000 negatives and prints in the archives can be made on order in sizes from 8”x10” to mural for home or office.

The Pittsburgh Glass Center broadens the perception of glass from its purely functional use to a medium of artistic expression with critically acclaimed exhibitions of contemporary glass art. One of the top glass art centers in the world, the work showcased at the center ranges from student exhibitions to cutting-edge installations by established glass artists that incorporate light, sound and time-based elements.

The center combines a public access school, gallery and state-of-the-art glass studio to meet its mission of teaching, creating and promoting glass art. It attracts top artists from around the world who come to Pittsburgh to create new work as artists-in-residence. Visitors can watch glassblowing demonstrations from start to finish, see how artists gather, shape and create their work, learn about Pittsburgh’s rich history in glass and explore the center’s contemporary art exhibitions.

The nationally-recognized Hodge Gallery presents acclaimed contemporary glass art exhibitions throughout the year, such as the recent, Recollection, that explores the theme of collecting through a collaboration between two resident artists, Michael Rogers, who works in ceramics, and glass artist, Richard Hirsch. In another recent exhibition, glass artist Dale Chihuly teamed with horticulturalists and landscape designers to fuse nature and art by planting his flamboyantly colorful glass creations in the lush gardens of the city’s Phipps Conservatory.

One of the country's largest museums dedicated to honoring veterans of the armed forces of the United States, from the Civil War to the present day conflicts in the Middle East. Located on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, the century-old museum and memorial relates the stories of ordinary citizens who were called upon to serve in their nation’s military.

Recent exhibitions include an exploration of President-elect Abraham Lincoln’s speech and stay in Pittsburgh on Feb. 14, 1861 en route to his inauguration in Washington, D.C.

The Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, a museum within the Senator John Heinz History Center, blends multimedia sound and vision with more traditional exhibits to explore the sports history of the region from its professional teams to the amateur ranks of high school sports, industrial leagues and ethnic games.

With hundreds of artifacts, more than 70 hands-on interactive exhibits and 20 audio-visual programs, the museum captures the evolution of sports in a region that has produced nearly 50 professional quarterbacks, was the site of the first World Series game and a Negro League baseball stronghold thanks to its legendary clubs, the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords.

Artifacts on display include Franco Harris' "Immaculate Reception" shoes, Mario Lemieux's hockey skates, Satchel Paige's baseball glove; the pitching rubber from the 1960 World Series, Billy Conn's light heavyweight champion belt, Arnold Palmer's golf bag, Chip Ganassi's 2000 Indy 500-winning race car and hundreds of Pirates baseball cards. Interactive exhibits allow visitors to do such things as throw a perfect pass, play a hole at the Oakmont Country Club golf course and drive a power boat.

The museum also offers special exhibitions. The most recent, a celebration of the Pittsburgh Steelers 75th anniversary that runs until February 10, 2008, pairs an unprecedented collection of Steelers artifacts, such as the section of Three Rivers Stadium turf from Franco Harris' "Immaculate Reception" and helmets and jerseys of Steelers Hall of Fame players, with interactive activities, such as a mini-NFL combine that allows visitors to test their vertical leap and clock their time in the shuttle run.

Meaning "Bavarian Hall," this stone mansion high above Sharpsburg is home to a musical museum with 150 mechanical instruments. They were the collection of Charles B. Brown III and include tiny wind-up record players to ornate cabinets that play two violins.

This architectural masterpiece listed on the National Register of Historic Places has a collection exceeding 20,000 individual works from contemporary to colonial, including Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Georgia O'Keefe.

Built as the Kaufmann family's country home, Fallingwater is recognized as Frank Lloyd Wright's most acclaimed work. In a 1991 poll of members of the American Institute of Architects, it was voted "the best all-time work of American architecture." It is a supreme example of Wright's concept of organic architecture, which promotes harmony between man and nature through design so well integrated with its site that buildings, furnishings and surroundings become part of a unified composition.

Honoring Indiana's most famous native son, the museum highlights the popular actor's life. View Stewart film clips in a vintage '30s cinema with state-of-the-art sound. There's also a room dedicated to the Stewart family’s long history in the area.

The Maridon is the only museum in the region with a specific focus on Chinese and Japanese art and culture, housing a permanent collection of over 800 art objects including jade and ivory sculptures, tapestries, landscape paintings, scrolls and artifacts.