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I.M. Pei 1917-2019
Born Guangzhou, China
I.M. Pei, who emerged as one of the most influential architects in the decades following World War II, will be remembered for his striking, high-modernist designs. Drawn to the United States to study architecture in 1935, Pei earned his undergraduate degree from MIT and later completed graduate work at Harvard. After first directing the architectural division of a large real-estate concern, Pei founded his own architecture firm in 1955, one year after becoming a U.S. citizen.
As his reputation grew, important projects -- such as the commission for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum -- came his way. Pei went on to create such iconic structures as the critically acclaimed East Wing of the National Gallery of Art (1978) and the distinctive glass pyramid that forms the entrance to the Louvre (1989). He received many major awards, including the coveted Pritzker Prize (1983).
Yousuf Karsh, 1979 |