080 I. M. PEI
IN THE FIELD OF architecture, few names evoke as much respect and admiration as I. M. Pei (1917–2019). His seven-decade career left an indelible mark on skylines around the world, with buildings characterised by a fusion of modernist principles, cultural sensitivity and innovation. Best known for designing the great glass and steel pyramid at the main entrance to the Louvre Museum in Paris and the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Pei also created cutting-edge commercial skyscrapers, such as the iconic Bank of China Tower, one of the most recognisable landmarks in Hong Kong. Tis summer, the city’s M+ Museum presents the first major institutional retrospective of the Chinese-born US architect’s influential career. Trough original drawings, architectural models, photographs, films, and rare archival documents, I. M. Pei: Life is
Architecture, which opened on 29 June and runs until 5 January 2025, reveals how his transcultural vision helped shape the built environment for the 20th and 21st centuries. Ieoh Ming Pei was born in Canton (now Guangzhou) on 26 April 1917. His formative years were steeped in a rich tapestry of cultural influences. Growing up in China during a period of political upheaval, he witnessed first-hand the clash between tradition and modernity that would later define much of his architectural ethos. His father, a prominent banker, instilled in him a deep appreciation for art and culture, while his exposure to the works of Chinese gardens and temples ignited his imagination with a sense of spatial harmony and balance. After spending his teenage years in Shanghai and Suzhou, Pei began his architectural education in the US in 1935,
completing his undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940. He then went on to study for his graduate degree at Harvard, where he was exposed to the teaching of German modernist architect Walter Gropius, whose principles of functionalism and geometric clarity would leave an indelible mark on his design philosophy.
In 1948, two years after graduating from Harvard, Pei moved to New York to head the architectural division of Webb & Knapp. His commercial projects there included a prototypical experiment in low-cost housing called Kips Bay Plaza (1957–1962); one of Denver’s first post-war skyscrapers, Mile High Center (1952–1956); and a brutalist housing complex comprising three 31-storey skyscrapers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, called Society Hill (1957–1964). But Pei did
M+, HONG KONG, PHOTOGRAPHED WITH PERMISSION PEI COBB FREED & PARTNERS
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