Quick Facts
- NAME: Ieoh Ming Pei
- OCCUPATION: Architect
- BIRTH DATE: April 26, 1917 (Age: 94)
- EDUCATION: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Canton, Guangzhou, China
- ZODIAC SIGN: Taurus
Best Known For
I.M. Pei is a Chinese-born American architect, perhaps best known for his controversial glass pyramid in the courtyard at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
I.M. Pei. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 12:16, Feb 09, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/im-pei-9436323
I.M. Pei [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/im-pei-9436323, February 09
" I.M. Pei." 2012. Biography.com 09 Feb 2012, 12:16 http://www.biography.com/people/im-pei-9436323
' I.M. Pei', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/im-pei-9436323 [accessed Feb 09, 2012]
" I.M. Pei," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/im-pei-9436323 (accessed Feb 09, 2012).
I.M. Pei [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 09]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/im-pei-9436323.
I.M. Pei, http://www.biography.com/people/im-pei-9436323 (last visited Feb 09, 2012).
I.M. Pei, http://www.biography.com/people/im-pei-9436323 (last visited Feb 09, 2012).
Synopsis
I.M. Pei is a Chinese-born U.S. architect. He spent ten years working for a firm in New York before founding Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. His designs are modern and include the National Center for Atmospheric Research building and the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in D.C. He perhaps best known for his controversial glass pyramid in the courtyard at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Quotes
I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity.
Profile
(born April 26, 1917, Guangzhou, China) Chinese-born U.S. architect. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1935 and studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. After working for the architectural firm of Webb & Knapp, he formed his own partnership in 1955. Early in his career he created the Mesa Laboratory building for the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo. (1968), which mimics the broken silhouettes of the surrounding peaks. His innovative East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1978), was hailed as one of his finest achievements. Other works include Boston's John Hancock Tower (1973), Beijing's Fragrant Hill Hotel (1982), a controversial glass pyramid for a courtyard at the Louvre Museum, Paris (1989), and the Suzhou Museum (2006) in China. Pei's designs represent an elaboration on the rectangular forms and irregular silhouettes of the International Style but with a uniquely skillful arrangement of geometric shapes and a dramatic use of varied materials, spaces, and surfaces; in his Miho Museum (1997) in Shiga, Japan, for example, he achieved a harmony between the building, much of it underground, and its mountain environment. In 1983 Pei received the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
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