I.M. Pei Overview

When newly elected Socialist President Francois Mitterand announced that I.M. Pei had been hired to design the subterranean entrance to the Louvre, many critics flew to their respective podiums. How could a political party so outspoken about American imperialism allow an... [more]

When newly elected Socialist President Francois Mitterand announced that I.M. Pei had been hired to design the subterranean entrance to the Louvre, many critics flew to their respective podiums. How could a political party so outspoken about American imperialism allow an American to resurrect their most sacred space? Many balked at the American association, scowling as they remembered art's exodus from the caf's of Paris to the lofts of New York. Pei's supporters pointed out that he was American who was born in China, a perfect consolidation of the West's flashiness and the East's efficiency. Pei had also been schooled in the Modernist tradition, a European baby if there ever was one. After all, at Harvard he had studied under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, two revered Bauhaus masters. When the Louvre's new glass pyramids (one of which towered 70 feet above the ground) were uncovered, a vast public gasp was heard across Paris. The juxtaposition seemed outrageous, to say the least. The great French tradition had been compromised. The aesthetic line of the venerable structure had been ripped to shreds by these angular shapes erupting from amongst the cobblestones. Again, his supporters came out in droves. They contended that only abstract forms and materials were simple enough to compliment the Louvre's beauty. His open atrium proved incredibly efficient, enlivened by balconies and escalators descending into a modernized space. Meanwhile, I.M. Pei had become perhaps the most recognized name in architecture since Frank Lloyd Wright. Of course, the Louvre renovation is only the tip of Pei's career, even if it remains the most scandalous. Winner of numerous awards, this architect claims more than 50 structures to his credit. The Hancock Building, the Christian Science Center, and the JFK Library in Boston; the Four Seasons and the Javitz Center in New York; the new wing in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.; the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland; the Bank of China in Hong Kong, which is still the tallest building in Asia. Pei's materials are simple: stone, glass, and concrete. Yet he uses these materials to graft advanced technology onto the roots of the existing environment. The results point to a solid yet elegant geometry that not only fits the space it occupies, but also adds to it. As Pei explained upon his acceptance of the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1982, "It is easy to say that the art of architecture is everything, but how difficult it is to introduce the conscious intervention of an artistic imagination without straying from the context of life." [show less]