Ieoh Ming Pei, commonly known as I. M. Pei, is a Chinese-born American architect often called the master of modern architecture. In 1948 Mr. Pei was recruited by New York real estate magnate William Zeckendorf.

1. Ieoh Ming Pei :
A master of modern architecture

2. Modern architecture
Modern architecture is
characterized by simplification of form and creation
of ornament from the structure and theme of the
building.

3. Nationality :Chinese American
Birth date : 26 April 1917 (1917-04-26) (age 93)
Birth place : Guangzhou (Canton), China
Alma mater :Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Personal information:

4. Practice : Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
Buildings : John F. Kennedy Library, Boston
National Gallery of Art East
Building
Louvre Pyramid, Paris
Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong
Museum of Islamic Art, Doha
Work

5. • Royal Gold Medal
• AIA Gold Medal
• Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Pritzker Prize
Awards

6. •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.
• He was unhappy with the focus at both schools on Beaux-
Arts architecture, and spent his free time researching the
emerging architects, especially Le Corbusier.

7. •After graduating, he joined the Harvard Graduate School of
Design (GSD) and became friends with the Bauhaus architects
Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer.
•Pei spent ten years working with New York real estate
magnate William Zeckendorf before establishing his own
independent design firm that eventually became Pei Cobb
Freed & Partners.

8. Among the early projects on which Pei took the lead were the
L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, DC and the Green
Building at MIT.
L'Enfant Plaza
Hotel
Pei wanted the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel to be "functionally and visually related to the other
parts of L'Enfant Plaza"

9. Green Building, MIT, Massachusetts

10. •His first major recognition came with the National Center
for Atmospheric Research in Colorado;
Pei said he wanted the National Center for Atmospheric Research to look "as if it were
carved out of the mountain"

11. • His new stature led to his selection as chief architect for the
John F. Kennedy Library in Massachusetts.
Pei considers the John F. Kennedy Library "the most important commission in my life".

12. • He went on to design Dallas City Hall and the East
Building of the National Gallery of Art.
Dallas City Hall
Pei wanted his design for Dallas City Hall to "convey an image of the people"

13. East Building of the National Gallery of Art.
TIME magazine headlined its review of Pei's design for the East Building "Masterpiece
on the Mall"

14. He returned to China for the first time in 1974 to design a
hotel at Fragrant Hills, and designed a skyscraper in Hong
Kong for the Bank of China fifteen years later.
Pei was surprised by public resistance to his traditional design of the hotel at Fragrant
Hills. "Many people thought I was being reactionary," he said.
hotel at Fragrant
Hills

15. Bank of China Tower
Pei felt that his design for the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong needed to reflect "the
aspirations of the Chinese people"

16. In the early 1980s, Pei was the focus of controversy when
he designed a glass-and-steel pyramid for the Louvre
museum in Paris.

17. He later returned to the world of the arts by designing the
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, the Miho
Museum in Japan, and the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar.
Although he
usually designed
entirely by hand,
Pei used a
computer to
"confirm the
spaces" for
the Morton H.
Meyerson
Symphony
Center.

18. Miho Museum in Japan
Pei's tunnel through a mountain leading to the Miho Museum was partly inspired by
a story from fourth-century Chinese poet Tao Yuanming

19. Pei has won a wide variety of prizes and awards in the field
of architecture,
• AIA Gold Medal in 1979,
• first Praemium Imperiale for Architecture in 1989,
• Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cooper-Hewitt,
National Design Museum in 2003.
In 1983 he won the Pritzker Prize,
sometimes called the Nobel Prize of architecture.
Awards & Honours

20. Style
•Pei's style is described as thoroughly modernist, with significant
cubist themes.
•He is known for combining traditional architectural elements
with progressive designs based on simple geometric patterns.
•As one critic writes: "Pei has been aptly described as combining
a classical sense of form with a contemporary mastery of
method."

21. •Pei's work is celebrated throughout the world of architecture.
• His concepts, moreover, are too individualized and dependent
on context to give rise to a particular school of design.
•Pei refers to his own "analytical approach" when explaining the
lack of a "Pei School".
•"For me," he said, "the important distinction is between a stylistic
approach to the design; and an analytical approach giving the
process of due consideration to time, place, and purpose.... My
analytical approach requires a full understanding of the three
essential elements ... to arrive at an ideal balance among them."

22. Louvre Pyramid

23. The Louvre Pyramid is a large glass and metal pyramid,
surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main
courtyard of the Louvre Palace in Paris.

24. The large pyramid serves as the main entrance to the Louvre
Museum.
Completed in 1989, it has become a landmark of the city
of Paris.

25. Design and Construction
• Commissioned by the President of France François
Mitterrand in 1984, it was designed by the architect I. M. Pei .
• The structure, which was constructed entirely with glass
segments, reaches a height of 20.6 metres (about 70 feet)
• Its square base has sides of 35 metres (115 ft).
• It consists of 603 rhombus-shaped and 70 triangular glass
segments.

26. Pei found the pyramid shape best suited for stable transparency,
and considered it "most compatible with the architecture of
the Louvre, especially with the faceted planes of its roofs".

27. The pyramid and the underground lobby beneath it were
created because of a series of problems with the Louvre's
original main entrance, which could no longer handle an
enormous number of visitors on an everyday basis.

28. • Visitors entering through the pyramid descend into the
spacious lobby then re-ascend into the main Louvre buildings.
• Several other museums have duplicated this concept, most
notably the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago

29. Controversy
• The construction of the pyramid triggered considerable
controversy because many people felt that the futuristic
edifice looked quite out of place in front of the Louvre
Museum with its classical architecture.
• Others lauded the contrasting architectural styles as a
successful merger of the old and the new, the classical
and the ultra-modern.

30. The main pyramid is actually only the largest of several
glass pyramids that were constructed near the museum,
including the downward-pointing La Pyramide
Inversée that functions as a skylight in an underground
mall in front of the museum.

31. It has been claimed by some that the glass panes in the
Louvre Pyramid number exactly 666, "the number of the
beast", often associated with Satan.
Urban legend of 666 panes

32. In Popular Culture
•The Louvre and its pyramid were depicted being destroyed
in the opening scenes of the 2004 film, Team America: World
Police.
• It was also featured in the 2006 film, The Da Vinci Code. The
film crew were permitted to film inside of the Louvre for
part of the film.

33. The new Louvre courtyard was opened to the public on
14 October 1988, and the Pyramid entrance was opened
the following March. By this time, public opinion had
softened on the new installation
The experience was exhausting for Pei, but also rewarding.
"After the Louvre," he said later, "I thought no project would
be too difficult."

34. The Louvre Pyramid has become Pei's most famous
structure.

35. THE END