I.M. Pei

I.M. Pei (born April 26, 1917, Guangzhou, China—died May 16, 2019, New York, New York, U.S.) was a Chinese-born American architect noted for his large, elegantly designed urban buildings and complexes. He received the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1983. Although Pei is perhaps best known for the glass pyramid (1989) he designed for the Louvre in Paris, other familiar works include the East Building (1978) of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Bank of China Tower (1989), Hong Kong; and the offshore Museum of Islamic Art (2008), Doha, Qatar.

Early life, marriage, and education

Pei was born in Guangzhou, China, to Tsuyee Pei, a prominent banker, and Lien Kwun, who came from an educated family. The family moved to Hong Kong when I.M. Pei was still a baby and then to Shanghai when he was age 10. While growing up, Pei frequently visited Suzhou, the home of his ancestors, during holidays. He went to the United States in 1935 and enrolled initially at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He then transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, as a student of architectural engineering and graduated in 1939. While visiting a friend in New York City in 1938, Pei met Eileen Loo, a student at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, whom he married in 1942. They went on to have three sons, T’ing Chung (born 1944), Chien Chung (born 1946), and Li Chung (born 1949), and a daughter, Liane (born 1960). Although Pei and his wife both planned to return to China after their marriage, they were unable to because of the outbreak of World War II. Instead, Pei carried out various architectural contracts in Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles and worked with a unit of the National Defense Research Committee. From 1945 to 1948 he was an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University, where he received a master’s degree in 1946. He became a U.S. citizen in 1954.

Early architecture career

In 1948 Pei joined the firm of Webb & Knapp, New York City, as director of the architectural division. Working closely with the real estate developer William Zeckendorf, head of the firm, Pei created such urban projects as the Mile High Center (1955) in Denver, the Hyde Park Redevelopment (1959) in Chicago, and the Place Ville-Marie (1965) in Montreal.

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Artists, Painters, & Architects

Founding of I.M. Pei & Associates and projects from the late 1950s to the early ’80s

Pei formed his own architectural firm, I.M. Pei & Associates (later Pei Cobb Freed & Partners), in 1955. Among the notable early designs of the firm were the Luce Memorial Chapel, Taiwan; the Mesa Laboratory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, which, located near mountains, mimics the broken silhouettes of the surrounding peaks; and the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, which consists of four buildings joined by bridges. For the U.S. Federal Aviation Agency, Pei designed a type of pentagonal control tower that was installed at many American airports.

On the basis of a 1960 design competition, Pei was selected to design the multi-airline terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. In 1964 he was also chosen to design the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at Harvard University. Pei’s innovative East Building (1978) of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., is an elegant triangular composition that was hailed as one of his finest achievements. In addition to designing public buildings, Pei was active in urban renewal planning. He was chosen to design the Javits Convention Center (1986), New York City, the Gateway office complex (1990), Singapore, and the Myerson Symphony Center (1989), Dallas. Pei’s other works included the John Hancock Tower (1973) in Boston, Indiana University Art Museum (1979; later the Eskenazi Museum of Art) in Bloomington, the west wing (1980) of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Texas Commerce Tower (1981; later the JPMorgan Chase Tower) in Houston, and the Beijing Fragrant Hill Hotel (1982).

Grand Louvre project

After visiting the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in the early 1980s, French Pres. François Mitterrand chose Pei as the architect of his proposed Grand Louvre project, a renovation that he hoped would better accommodate the millions of people who visited the museum each year. By the 1980s the entrance spaces were inadequate for the crowds, and the curatorial facilities were in need of improvement. Pei’s solution was to organize visitor circulation by creating a large and airy central underground lobby that offered access to the museum’s three wings. The entrance was topped with Pei’s iconic glass pyramid, which was initially controversial but over time came to be celebrated. In addition to the new centralized entrance, Pei designed new exhibition spaces, collection storerooms, a ticket office, an auditorium, a shopping center that connected to the nearest Metro station, and other facilities.

Bank of China Tower and projects of the 1990s and early 2000s

In 1989, the same year that the Grand Louvre project was completed, Pei’s Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong was also completed. Designed to resemble a bamboo shoot, the building is composed of four vertical shafts that decrease in number as the tower rises to a single triangular point. The triangle is echoed throughout the structure in the triangular and diamond-shaped outlines of its cross bracing, which lights up at night. Although the Bank of China Tower is no longer the tallest building in Hong Kong, it remains one of the most recognizable. For the Miho Museum (1997) in Shiga, Japan, Pei achieved a harmony between the building—much of it underground—and its mountain environment. The Suzhou Museum (2006) in China combines geometric shapes with traditional Chinese motifs.

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Characteristics of Pei’s architecture and later work

In general, Pei’s designs represent an extension of and elaboration on the rectangular forms and irregular silhouettes of the prevailing International Style. He was noted, however, for his bold and skillful arrangements of groups of geometric shapes and for his dramatic use of richly contrasted materials, spaces, and surfaces. Although Pei retired from his firm in 1990, he continued to design buildings, such as the offshore Museum of Islamic Art (2008) in Doha, Qatar, which extended his signature style to embrace elements characteristic of Islamic architecture in various eras.

Honors

In addition to the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Pei’s numerous honors included the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize for architecture (1989), the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (1993), a lifetime achievement award from the Cooper Hewitt museum (2003), and the Royal Gold Medal (2010) awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects. In addition, he was made an officer of the French Legion of Honor in 1993.