Ieoh Ming Pei

I. M. Pei was a Chinese-American architect who rose to prominence for his large, elegantly designed urban buildings and complexes. He was born in Guangzhou, China, and moved to the United States in 1935 to study architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and later at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He became a friend and follower of the Bauhaus architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, who influenced his modernist style. In 1948, he joined the New York City real estate developer William Zeckendorf, for whom he designed many projects, including the Kips Bay Plaza and the Society Hill Towers. In 1955, he established his own independent firm, I. M. Pei & Associates, which later became I. M. Pei & Partners and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. Pei's work spanned decades and continents, and he received many awards and honors, including the Pritzker Prize, the AIA Gold Medal, the Royal Gold Medal, the Medal of Freedom, and the Praemium Imperiale. Some of his most famous buildings include the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, the John F. Kennedy Library in Massachusetts, the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio, and the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar. Pei was known for his creative use of geometric forms, his mastery of concrete and glass, and his sensitivity to the context and culture of each site. He was also respected for his professionalism, integrity, and collaboration with clients and colleagues. Pei retired from full-time practice in 1990, but continued to work as a consultant for his sons' architectural firm, Pei Partnership Architects. He died in 2019 at the age of 102.