Ieoh Ming Pei :A master of modern architecture

Modern architecture

Modern architecture is characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building.

Nationality :Chinese AmericanBirth date : 26 April 1917 (1917-04-26) (age 93)Birth place : Guangzhou (Canton), China Alma mater :Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Personal information:

Practice : Pei Cobb Freed & Partners

Buildings : John F. Kennedy Library, BostonNational Gallery of Art East

BuildingLouvre Pyramid, ParisBank of China Tower, Hong KongMuseum of Islamic Art, Doha

Work

• Royal Gold Medal • AIA Gold Medal • Presidential Medal of Freedom • Pritzker Prize

Awards

•In 1935 he moved to the United States and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania's architecture school, but

quickly transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• He was unhappy with the focus at both schools on Beaux-Arts architecture, and spent his free time researching the emerging architects, especially Le Corbusier.

•After graduating, he joined the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and became friends with the Bauhaus architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer.

•Pei spent ten years working with New York real estate magnate William Zeckendorf before establishing his own independent design firm that eventually became Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.

Among the early projects on which Pei took the lead were the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, DC and the Green Building at MIT.

L'Enfant Plaza Hotel

Pei wanted the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel to be "functionally and visually related to the other parts of L'Enfant Plaza"

Green Building, MIT, Massachusetts

•His first major recognition came with the National Centerfor Atmospheric Research in Colorado;

Pei said he wanted the National Center for Atmospheric Research to look "as if it were carved out of the mountain"

• His new stature led to his selection as chief architect for the John F. Kennedy Library in Massachusetts.

Pei considers the John F. Kennedy Library "the most important commission in my life".

• He went on to design Dallas City Hall and the East Building of the National Gallery of Art.

Dallas City Hall

Pei wanted his design for Dallas City Hall to "convey an image of the people"

East Building of the National Gallery of Art.

TIME magazine headlined its review of Pei's design for the East Building "Masterpiece on the Mall"

He returned to China for the first time in 1974 to design a hotel at Fragrant Hills, and designed a skyscraper in Hong Kong for the Bank of China fifteen years later.

Pei was surprised by public resistance to his traditional design of the hotel at Fragrant Hills. "Many people thought I was being reactionary," he said.

hotel at Fragrant Hills

Bank of China Tower

Pei felt that his design for the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong needed to reflect "the aspirations of the Chinese people"

In the early 1980s, Pei was the focus of controversy when he designed a glass-and-steel pyramid for the Louvre museum in Paris.

He later returned to the world of the arts by designing the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, the Miho Museum in Japan, and the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar.

Although he usually designed entirely by hand, Pei used a computer to "confirm the spaces" for the Morton H. MeyersonSymphony Center.

Miho Museum in Japan

Pei's tunnel through a mountain leading to the Miho Museum was partly inspired by a story from fourth-century Chinese poet Tao Yuanming

Pei has won a wide variety of prizes and awards in the field of architecture,

• AIA Gold Medal in 1979, • first Praemium Imperiale for Architecture in 1989, • Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in 2003.

In 1983 he won the Pritzker Prize, sometimes called the Nobel Prize of architecture.

Awards & Honours

Style

•Pei's style is described as thoroughly modernist, with significant cubist themes.

•He is known for combining traditional architectural elements with progressive designs based on simple geometric patterns.

•As one critic writes: "Pei has been aptly described as combining a classical sense of form with a contemporary mastery of method."

•Pei's work is celebrated throughout the world of architecture.

• His concepts, moreover, are too individualized and dependent on context to give rise to a particular school of design.

•Pei refers to his own "analytical approach" when explaining the lack of a "Pei School".

•"For me," he said, "the important distinction is between a stylistic approach to the design; and an analytical approach giving the

process of due consideration to time, place, and purpose.... My analytical approach requires a full understanding of the three essential elements ... to arrive at an ideal balance among them."

Louvre Pyramid

The Louvre Pyramid is a large glass and metal pyramid, surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard of the Louvre Palace in Paris.

The large pyramid serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum.

Completed in 1989, it has become a landmark of the city of Paris.

Design and Construction

• Commissioned by the President of France François Mitterrand in 1984, it was designed by the architect I. M. Pei .

• The structure, which was constructed entirely with glass segments, reaches a height of 20.6 metres (about 70 feet)

• Its square base has sides of 35 metres (115 ft).

• It consists of 603 rhombus-shaped and 70 triangular glass segments.

Pei found the pyramid shape best suited for stable transparency, and considered it "most compatible with the architecture of the Louvre, especially with the faceted planes of its roofs".

The pyramid and the underground lobby beneath it were created because of a series of problems with the Louvre's original main entrance, which could no longer handle an enormous number of visitors on an everyday basis.

• Visitors entering through the pyramid descend into the spacious lobby then re-ascend into the main Louvre buildings.

• Several other museums have duplicated this concept, most notably the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago

Controversy

• The construction of the pyramid triggered considerable controversy because many people felt that the futuristic edifice looked quite out of place in front of the Louvre Museum with its classical architecture.

• Others lauded the contrasting architectural styles as a successful merger of the old and the new, the classical

and the ultra-modern.

The main pyramid is actually only the largest of several glass pyramids that were constructed near the museum, including the downward-pointing La PyramideInversée that functions as a skylight in an underground mall in front of the museum.

It has been claimed by some that the glass panes in the Louvre Pyramid number exactly 666, "the number of the beast", often associated with Satan.

Urban legend of 666 panes

In Popular Culture

•The Louvre and its pyramid were depicted being destroyed in the opening scenes of the 2004 film, Team America: World Police.

• It was also featured in the 2006 film, The Da Vinci Code. The film crew were permitted to film inside of the Louvre for part of the film.

The new Louvre courtyard was opened to the public on 14 October 1988, and the Pyramid entrance was opened the following March. By this time, public opinion had softened on the new installation

The experience was exhausting for Pei, but also rewarding. "After the Louvre," he said later, "I thought no project would be too difficult."

The Louvre Pyramid has become Pei's most famous structure.

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