I. M. Pei

Ieoh Ming Pei ( YOH ming PAY; Chinese: 貝聿銘; pinyin: Bèi Yùmíng; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was a Chinese-American architect. Born in Guangzhou into a Chinese family, Pei drew inspiration at an early age from the garden villas at Suzhou, the traditional retreat of the scholar-gentry to which his family belonged. 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. Unhappy with the focus on Beaux-Arts architecture at both schools, he spent his free time researching emerging architects, especially Le Corbusier. After graduating from MIT, Pei enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) where he befriended faculty members Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, both of whom had formerly taught at the Bauhaus. Beginning in 1948, Pei worked as an in-house architect for New York City real estate developer William Zeckendorf. In 1955, he established an independent design firm, I. M. Pei & Associates. In 1966, the firm was reorganized as I. M. Pei & Partners, and in 1989 reorganized as Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. Pei retired from full-time practice in 1990. In his retirement, he worked as an architectural consultant primarily with his sons' architectural firm Pei Partnership Architects. Pei's first major recognition came with the Mesa Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado (designed in 1961, and completed in 1967). His new stature led to his selection as chief architect for the John F. Kennedy Library in Massachusetts. He went on to design Dallas City Hall and the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. He returned to China for the first time in 1975 to design a hotel at Fragrant Hills and, fifteen years later, designed Bank of China Tower, Hong...