The Carnegie Building is the current home of the Cognitive Science Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in

Troy, New York Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany ...

. It is one of the westernmost buildings on the campus and as such provides scenic views overlooking the city of Troy and the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

. The four-story building is named for

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

who donated $125,000 for its construction, which was completed in 1906.

History

Fires in 1862 and 1904 damaged buildings of downtown Troy and the RPI campus. The destruction in 1862 prompted the construction of the Main Building (literally the main building of Rensselaer at the time). The destruction of the Main Building in 1904 prompted the institute to consider expanding the campus. Being built around a hill, the Institute considered extending the campus downhill within the downtown Troy area and even considered leaving Troy altogether by accepting

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

's proposed merger with its

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

campus. Ultimately, the decision was made to remain in Troy but move uphill, away from the downtown area. In 1905 Andrew Carnegie donated $125,000 to replace the Main Building. As part of the institute's plan to move uphill, the Walter Phelps Warren estate was acquired. There the Carnegie Building was erected, made of Harvard brick and

Indiana limestone Indiana limestone — also known as Bedford limestone in the building trade — has long been an economically important building material, particularly for monumental public structures. Indiana limestone is a more common term for Salem Limestone, ...

. It was completed in September 1906 at a cost of $133,000. The Carnegie Building was dedicated along with the Walker Laboratory on June 12, 1907.Carnegie Building

Architecture

The building was designed by architects Whitfield & King. Henry D. Whitfield was

's brother-in-law. In addition to being built with Harvard brick and Indiana limestone -

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

was used, steel floors, and partitions were used to split rooms. This fireproof building had

terrazzo Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bind ...

floors and its walls lined with white tiling. On the first floor, the four large recitation rooms were utilized by the departments of Geodesy and Drawings while the second floor was occupied by the department of

Mechanics Mechanics (from Ancient Greek: μηχανική, ''mēkhanikḗ'', "of machines") is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects. Forces applied to object ...

and Mathematics. The third floor has a small drawing room and several classrooms. The topmost fourth floor consisted of the largest drawing room of its time (sixty by one hundred feet,) with a small side room for blue-printing. The walls of corridors and the underclass lobby contain drawings and photographs of structures designed by RPI male students, while the walls of the upperclass lobby contain etchings of familiar classic figures. "...Located at the head of the entrance of the Institute grounds; the interior is admirably arranged for the purposes intended, well lighted, heated and ventilated; which all go toward making the work of the students easy."

Current research

The building is home to the Cogworks laboratory, which directs research in cognitive science. The research and doctoral program taking place in the Cognitive Science Department is currently having its current goals set on integrating an interdisciplinary department where the research and teaching is aimed at three powerful, driving ideas: *"Next generation"

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

: designing and constructing artificial cognitive systems that can span across the full range of cognition, from the low-level perception/action to a high level of reasoning. *"Next generation" computation cognitive modeling: designing and implementing

cognitive architectures A cognitive architecture refers to both a theory about the structure of the human mind and to a computational instantiation of such a theory used in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and computational cognitive science. The formalized mode ...

so that they go beyond the current available structure towards Allen Newell’s original dream of a design that accurately reflects the full range of cognitive processes present in natural cognitive systems. *Cognitive engineering: engineering the interface between the natural cognitive systems and task environments by exploiting experimental data. One small program that is held in this building is the Experimetrix where students could sign up to participate in experiments that deal with how the

brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a ve ...

works or cognitive science. Graduate students and professors work together to collect data and in turn analyze them for further development in cognitive research. Students being participants for this research allows them to receive extra credit for their course if allowed by their professor. This area of experiments is currently being held on the second floor of the building. There is also the closely related Rensselaer Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning (RAIR) Laboratory, which is located in the Russell Sage Laboratory.

References

External links

Cogworks LaboratoryCognitive Science Department at RPI
{{Coord, 42.73043, -73.68316, region:US_type:edu, display=title Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Artificial intelligence laboratories Computer science institutes in the United States Buildings and structures in Troy, New York Laboratories in the United States