I. M. Pei

Ieoh Ming Pei
Architect I.M. Pei in the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg
Personal information
Name	Ieoh Ming Pei
Nationality	American
Birth date	April 26, 1917 (1917-04-26) (age 92)
Birth place	Guangzhou (Canton), China
Work
Practice name	Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
Significant buildings	Louvre Pyramid Bank of China Tower Javits Convention Center East Building, National Gallery of Art
Awards and prizes	AIA Gold Medal Presidential Medal of Freedom Pritzker Prize

Ieoh Ming Pei (貝聿銘) (born April 26, 1917), commonly known by his initials I. M. Pei, is a Pritzker Prize-winning Chinese-born American architect, known as the last master of high modernist architecture. He works with the abstract form, using stone, concrete, glass, and steel.

Early life and education

Pei was born in the city of Guangzhou (Canton), in Guangdong, China on April 26, 1917, to a prominent family from Suzhou, Jiangsu. His family has lived in Suzhou since the 15th century. His father, a banker, was later the director of the Bank of China and the governor of the Central Bank of China. His family later moved to Hong Kong, where he lived until he finished junior high school, and then moved to Shanghai when his father took up the directorship of Bank of China in Shanghai. The Pei family's ancestral residence is in a renowned garden in Suzhou, now part of the World Heritage Site listed Classical Gardens of Suzhou. The house was called the Garden of the Lion Forest, and consisted of many rock sculptures carved naturally by water. Pei loved how the buildings and the nature were combined, and especially liked the way light and shadow mixed.

His first education was at St. Paul's College (primary school), Hong Kong and then at Saint John's University (high school), Shanghai before moving to the United States to study architecture at the age of 18 at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940. He is a 1940 recipient of the Alpha Rho Chi Medal, the MIT Traveling Fellowship, and the AIA Gold Medal. He then studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Shortly after his studies there, he was a member of the National Defense Research Committee in Princeton, New Jersey. ^[1]

In 1944, he returned to Harvard, studying under Walter Gropius, who was previously associated with the Bauhaus. He received a Master's degree in Architecture in 1946. He was a member of the Harvard faculty subsequently attaining the rank of assistant professor. He received the Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship in 1951 and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1954.^[2]

Career

In 1948, William Zeckendorf hired Pei to work at the real estate development corporation Webb and Knapp in a newly created post, Director of Architecture. While at Webb and Knapp, Pei worked on many large-scale architectural and planning projects across the country and designed his buildings mostly in the manner of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. ^[3]

Pei founded his own architectural firm in 1955, which was originally known as I. M. Pei and Associates and, later, I. M. Pei & Partners until 1989 when it became known as Pei Cobb Freed & Partners recognizing James Ingo Freed and Henry N. Cobb.

Honors

Ambassador Ann L. Wagner hosts a reception for American Architect I.M. Pei to celebrate the opening of his latest project, the Musee d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM) in Luxembourg

I.M. Pei is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a Corporate Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He 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, which is restricted to a lifetime membership of fifty members. In 1978, he became Chancellor of the American Academy, the first architect to hold that position. He 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 François Mitterrand inducted I. M. Pei as a Chevalier in the Légion d'Honneur 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 Académie d'Architecture de France elected him Foreign Member.^[4]

Family and later life

In 1990, Pei retired from his firm but still maintains an office there. He has 4 children, 2 of them architects. Two of his sons, Chien Chung (Didi) Pei and Li Chung (Sandi) Pei, after leaving their father's firm, established their own practice, Pei Partnership Architects in 1992. I. M. Pei still participates in design work with both Pei Cobb Freed and Partners and Pei Partnership Architects ^[1]. ^[5]

Selected works

2007 — time-lapse video of the construction of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center (Direct link).

Project list

Main article: List of I.M. Pei Projects

References

External links

• Pei Cobb Freed & Partners website
• Interview with I.M. Pei (June 2004)
• New York Architecture Images- Pei, Cobb, Freed
• Pritzker Prize biography, Photo Gallery, and Acceptance Speech
• Ieoh Ming Pei information at Structurae
• Biography (World of Biography)
• Concept sketches for The Musée d'Art Moderne by I.M. Pei