Famous Architect I.M Pei

Pei is a famous Pritzker Prize-winning Chinese architect who built some of the world’s most iconic buildings. This includes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Louvre Pyramid, and the Kennedy library. He also did work on Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and designed the Fragrant Hill Hotel in China.

On the basis of a 1960 design competition, Pei was selected to design the multiairline terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. In 1964 he was also chosen to design the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at Harvard University. Pei’s innovative East Building (1978) of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., is an elegant triangular composition that was hailed as one of his finest achievements. In addition to designing public buildings, Pei was active in urban renewal planning. He was chosen to design the New York City Convention Center, the Gateway office complex in Singapore, and the Dallas Symphony Hall. Pei’s other works included the John Hancock Tower (1973) in Boston, Indiana University Museum (1979), the west wing (1980) of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Nestlé Corporate Headquarters (1981), El Paso Tower (1981), the Beijing Fragrant Hill Hotel (1982), and a controversial glass pyramid (1989) for one of the courtyards in the Louvre Museum in Paris. In his Miho Museum (1997) in Shiga, Japan, Pei achieved a harmony between the building, much of it underground, and its mountain environment. The Suzhou Museum (2006) in China combines geometric shapes with traditional Chinese motifs.