I.M.

Pei
I.M. Pei, in full Ieoh Ming Pei (born April 26, 1917, Guangzhou, China), Chineseborn American architect noted for his large but elegantly designed urban buildings
and complexes.
Pei went to the United States in 1935, enrolling initially at the University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and then transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, as a student of architectural engineering. He graduated in
1939 and, unable to return to China because of the outbreak of World War II, carried
out various architectural contracts in Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles. During
World War II he 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. He became a U.S. citizen in 1954.
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 in Denver, Colorado (1955), the Hyde Park Redevelopment in Chicago
(1959), and the Place Ville-Marie in Montreal (1965).
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, actually four buildings joined by bridges. For the Federal
Aviation Agency, Pei designed a type of pentagonal control tower that was installed
in many American airports.
On the basis of a 1960 design competition, Pei was selected to design the
multiairline 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. Peis innovative East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C. (1978), 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 New York City Convention Center,
the Gateway office complex in Singapore, and the Dallas Symphony Hall. Peis other

works include the John Hancock Tower in Boston (1973), Indiana University Museum
(1979), the west wing of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1980), Nestl Corporate
Headquarters (1981), El Paso Tower (1981), the Beijing Fragrant Hill Hotel (1982),
and a controversial glass pyramid (1989) for one of the courtyards in the Louvre
Museum in Paris. In his Miho Museum (1997) inShiga, 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. One of the architects later projects was his design for the
offshore Museum of Islamic Art (2008) inDoha, Qatar.
In general, Peis designs represent an extension of and elaboration on the
rectangular forms and irregular silhouettes of the prevailing International Style. He is
notable, 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 museum in Doha, which extended his signature style to embrace elements
characteristic of Islamic architecture in various eras. His numerous honours included
the Pritzker Architecture Prize (1983), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1993), a
lifetime achievement award from the Cooper-Hewittmuseum (2003), and the
Royal GOLD Medal (2010) awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects. He
also was made an officer of the Legion of Honourin 1993.

I. M. Pei FAIA, RIBA

Founder

Ieoh Ming Pei was born in China in 1917, the son of a prominent banker. At
age 17 he came to the United States to study architecture, and received a
Bachelor of Architecture degree from MIT in 1940. Upon graduation he was
awarded the Alpha Rho Chi Medal, the MIT Traveling Fellowship, and the
AIA GOLD Medal. In 1942, Pei enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School of
Design where he studied under Walter Gropius; six months later, he
volunteered his services to the National Defense Research Committee in
Princeton. Pei returned to Harvard in 1944 and completed his M.Arch in 1946,
simultaneously teaching on the faculty as an assistant professor (194548).
Awarded the Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship by Harvard in 1951, he traveled
extensively in England, France, Italy and Greece. I. M. Pei became a
naturalized citizen of the United States in 1954.
In 1948, William Zeckendorf invited Mr. Pei to accept the newly created post of
Director of Architecture at Webb & Knapp, a real estate development
corporation, resulting in many large-scale architectural and planning projects
across the country. In 1955 he formed the partnership of I. M. Pei & Associates,
which became I. M. Pei & Partners in 1966, and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners in
1989. The partnership received the 1968 Architectural Firm Award of the
American Institute of Architects.
Mr. Pei's personal architectural style blossomed with his design for the National
Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado (196167). He
subsequently gained broad national attention with theEast Building of the
National Gallery of Art in Washington (196878) and the John Fitzgerald
Kennedy Library in Boston (1965-79) two of some thirty institutional projects
executed by Mr. Pei. Others include churches, hospitals, and municipal
buildings, as well as schools, libraries, and over a dozen museums, most
notably the Grand Louvre in Paris (1989), Miho Museum in Shiga, Japan
(1997), Suzhou Museum in Suzhou, China (2006), and the Museum of Islamic
Art in Doha (2008). Among Mr. Pei's skyscraper designs are the 72-story Bank
of China Tower in Hong Kong and the Four Seasons Hotel in midtown
Manhattan. He completed two projects in his native China: the Fragrant Hill
Hotel in Beijing (1982) and Suzhou Museum, each designed to graft advanced
technology onto the roots of indigenous building and thereby sow the seed of a
new, distinctly Chinese form of modern architecture.
Mr. Pei's deep interest in the arts and education is evidenced by his numerous
memberships on Visiting Committees at Harvard and MIT, as well as on
several governmental panels. He has also served on the AIA Task Force on the
West Front of the U.S. Capitol. A member of the AIA National Urban Policy

Task Force and of the Urban Design Council of the City of New York, he was
appointed to the National Council on the Humanities by President Lyndon
Johnson in 1966, and to the National Council on the Arts by President Jimmy
Carter in 1980. In 1983, Mr. Pei was chosen the Laureate of the Pritzker
Architecture Prize: he used the $100,000 award to establish a scholarship fund
for Chinese students to study architecture in the United States (with the proviso
that they return to China to practice their profession). Among the many
academic awards bestowed on Mr. Pei are honorary doctorates from Harvard
University, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, New York
University, Brown University, the University of Colorado, the Chinese University
of Hong Kong, the American University of Paris, and the University of Rome.
Mr. Pei is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a Corporate
Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and has also been elected
to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of
Design, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1975
he was elected to the American Academy itself, which is restricted to a lifetime
membership of fifty. Three years later he became Chancellor of the Academy,
the first architect to hold that position, and served until 1980. Mr. Pei was
inducted a "Membre de l'Institut de France" in 1984, and decorated by the
French government as a Commandeur in the "Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" in
1985. On July 4, 1986, he was one of twelve naturalized American citizens to
receive the Medal of Liberty from President Ronald Reagan. Two years later
French president Franois Mitterrand inducted I. M. Pei as a Chevalier in the
Lgion d'Honneur, and in November 1993 he was raised to Officier. Also in
1993 he was elected an Honorary Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts
in London. In 1997 the Acadmie d'Architecture de France elected him Foreign
Member.
The many professional honors accorded to Mr. Pei include the GOLD Medal
for Architecture of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Gold
Medal of the American Institute of Architects (both 1979); the Grande Mdaille
d'Or of the Acadmie d'Architecture de France (1981); the Pritzker Architecture
Prize (1983); the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects
(2010); and the Gold Medal of the International Union of Architects (UIA; 2014).
He was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush in
1993 and received the Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts
in 1994 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Smithsonian Institution's
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in 2003.

Mr. Pei is the design principal for the following projects executed by the
firm:
Muse d'Art Moderne
Kirchberg, Luxembourg
Completed 2006
Buck Institute for Age Research
Marin County, California
Completed 1999
Republic of Korea Permanent Mission to the United Nations
New York, New York
Completed 1999
La Caixa Bank Headquarters
Barcelona (Sant Cugat), Spain
Design completed 1998
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum
Cleveland, Ohio
Completed 1995
Four Seasons Hotel
New York, New York
Completed 1993
Grand Louvre
Paris, France
Phase I completed 1989
Phase II completed 1993
Guggenheim Pavilion,
The Mount Sinai Medical Center Expansion & Modernization
New York, New York
Completed 1992
The Kirklin Clinic, University of Alabama Health Services Foundation
Birmingham, Alabama
Completed 1992

Gateway Towers
Singapore
Completed 1990
Bank of China Tower
Hong Kong
Completed 1989
Choate Rosemary Hall Science Center
Wallingford, Connecticut
Completed 1989
Creative Artists Agency
Beverly Hills, California
Completed 1989
IBM Office Building Complex
Somers, New York
Completed 1989
The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
Dallas, Texas
Completed 1989
Museum of Fine Arts
West Wing and Renovation
Boston, Massachusetts
Phase I completed 1981
Phase II completed 1986
Raffles City
Singapore
Completed 1986
IBM Corporate Office Building [now MasterCard International Global
Headquarters]
Purchase, New York
Completed 1984
Wiesner Building / Center for Arts & Media Technology,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Completed 1984

Fragrant Hill Hotel

Beijing, China
Completed 1982
Sunning Plaza
Hong Kong
Completed 1982
Texas Commerce Tower
United Energy Plaza
Houston, Texas
Completed 1982
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library
Boston, Massachusetts
Completed 1979
Extension completed 1991
National Gallery of Art, East Building
Washington, D.C.
Completed 1978
Dallas City Hall
Dallas, Texas
Completed 1977
Ralph Landau Chemical Engineering Building, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Completed 1976
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Centre
Singapore
Completed 1976
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce,
Commerce Court
Toronto, Canada
Completed 1973
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
Completed 1973

Paul Mellon Center for the Arts,

The Choate School
Wallingford, Connecticut
Completed 1973
Tte de la Dfense
Paris, France
Design completed 1971
American Life Insurance Company Building
(renamed Wilmington Tower)
Wilmington, Delaware
Completed 1971
National Airlines Terminal
(renamed TWA Terminal Annex)
JFK International Airport, New York, New York
Completed 1970
Bedford-Stuyvesant Superblock
Brooklyn, New York
Completed 1969
Cleo Rogers Memorial County Library
Columbus, Indiana
Completed 1969
Columbia University Comprehensive Master Plan
New York, New York
Planning completed 1969
Des Moines Art Center Addition
Des Moines, Iowa
Completed 1968
Everson Museum of Art
Syracuse, New York
Completed 1968
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, Colorado
Completed 1967

New College Dormitories, Student Union and Academic Center

Sarasota, Florida
Completed 1967
University Plaza, New York University
(with James Ingo Freed)
New York, New York
Completed 1967
Central Business District Project I-A Development Plan
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Planning completed 1966
FAA Air Traffic Control Towers (50)
(with James Ingo Freed)
Various cities, United States and abroad
Completed 1965
Cecil and Ida Green Center for Earth Sciences,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Completed 1964
School of Journalism S. I. Newhouse Communications Center
Syracuse, New York
Phase I completed 1964
Society Hill
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Completed 1964
Central Business District General Neighborhood Renewal Plan
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Planning completed 1964
Luce Memorial Chapel
Taichung, Taiwan
Completed 1963
Kips Bay Plaza
(with James Ingo Freed)
New York, New York
Completed 1963

Southwest Washington Urban Renewal Plan

Washington, D.C.
Planning completed 1962
Government Center Urban Renewal Plan
Boston, Massachusetts
Planning completed 1961
Courthouse Square
Denver, Colorado
Completed 1960
Washington Square East Urban Renewal Plan
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Planning completed 1959
Mile High Center
Denver, Colorado
Completed 1956
Hyperboloid
New York, New York
Design completed 1956
Gulf Oil Building
Atlanta, Georgia
Completed 1949
Helix
New York, New York
Design completed 1949