Ieoh Ming Pei

Ieoh Ming Pei was born in China in 1917, the son of a prominent banker. At age 17 he came to the United States to study architecture, and received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from MIT in 1940. He was awarded the Alpha Rho Chi Medal, the MIT Traveling Fellowship and the AIA Gold Medal upon graduation. In 1942, Pei enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he studied under Walter Gropius; six months later, he volunteered his services to the National Defense Research Committee in Princeton. Pei returned to Harvard in 1944 and completed his M.Arch in 1945, simultaneously teaching on the facu1ty as assistant professor (1945-48). Awarded the Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship by Harvard in 1951, he traveled extensively in England, France, Italy and Greece. I.M. Pei became naturalized citizen of the United States in 1954.

In 1948, William Zeckendorf invited Mr. Pei to accept the newly created post of Director of Architecture at Webb & Knapp real estate development corporation, resulting in many large-Scale architectural and planning projects across the country. In 1955 he formed the partnership of I.M. Pei & Associates, which became I.M. Pei & Partners in 1966, and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners in 1989. The partnership received the 1968 Architectural Firm Award of the American Institute of Architects.

Mr. Pei's personal architectural style blossomed with his design of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado (1961-67). He subsequently gained broad national attention with the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington (1968-78) and the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston (1965-79) — two of some thirty institutional projects executed by Mr. Pei, including church, hospital and municipal buildings, as well as schools, libraries, and over a dozen museums. His most recent works include the Museum of Modern Art in Athens, the Miho Museum in Shiga, Japan, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, the Grand Louvre in Paris, and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. Among Mr. Pei's skyscraper designs are the 72-story Bank of China in Hong Kong and the newly opened Four Seasons Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Other hotels by Mr. Pei include the Hotel Place d'Iena in Paris (in design), Raffles City in Singapore, and Fragrant Hill Hotel in Beijing (1982), design to graft advanced technology onto the roots of indigenous building and thereby sow the seed of a new, distinctly Chinese, form of Modern architecture.

Mr. Pei's deep interest in the arts and education is evidenced by his numerous memberships on Visiting Committees at Harvard, MIT, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as on multiple governmental panels. He has also served on the AIA Task Force on the West Front of the U.S., Capitol. A member of the AIA National Urban Policy Task Force and the Urban Design Council of the City of New York, he was appointed to the National Council on the Humanities by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966, and to the National Council on the Arts by President Jimmy Carter in 1980. In 1983, Mr. Pei was chosen the Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, using the $100,000 award to establish a scholarship fund for Chinese students to study architecture in the United States (with the strict proviso that they return to China to practice their profession). Among the many academic awards bestowed on Mr. Pei are honorary doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, New York University, Brown University, the University of Colorado, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the American University of Paris, among others.

Mr. Pei is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a Corporate Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Design, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1975 he was elected to the American Academy itself, which is restricted to a lifetime membership of fifty. Three years later he became Chancellor of the Academy, the first architect to hold that position, and served until 1980. Mr. Pei was inducted a "Membre de l'Institut de France" in 1984, and decorated by the French Government as a Commander in the "Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" in 1985. On July 4, 1986, he was one of twelve naturalized American citizens to receive the Medal of Liberty from President Ronald Reagan. Two years later French president Francois Mitterand inducted I.M. Pei as a Chevalier in the Lêgion de Honneur, and in November 1993 he was raised to Officier. Also in 1993 he was elected an Honorary Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. In 1997 the Académie d'Architecture de France elected him Foreign Member.

Among Mr. Pei's many professional honors are The Arnold Brunner Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1963); The Medal of Honor of the New York Chapter of The American Institute of Architects (1963); The Thomas Jefferson Medal "for distinguished contribution to the field of architecture" (1976); the Gold Medal for Architecture of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1979); The Mayor's Award of Honor for Art and Culture (New York City, 1981); and The Gold Medal of Alpha Rho Chi, the national professional fraternity of architects (1981). In 1979 Mr. Pei received the AIA Gold Medal — the highest architectural honor in the United States. Three years later he received the Grande Medaille d'Or from the Académie d'Architecture de France. In 1989, the Japan Art Association awarded him the Praemium Imperiale for lifetime achievement in architecture, and in the following year UCLA bestowed the University's Gold Medal. In 1991, Mr. Pei received the Excellence 2000 Award and the Colbert Foundation's First Award for Excellence. Most recently he was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President George Bush (1993); the Medal of Arts by the National Endowment for the Arts (1994); the Jerusalem Prize for Arts and Letters by the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design of Jerusalem (2994); and the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal by the Municipal Arts Society of New York City (1996). Of the many honors extended, Mr. Pei has accepted the Independent Award of Brown University (1997), the Edward MacDowell Medal of the MacDowell Colony (1998), and the American Philosophical Society's Thomas Jefferson Medal for distinguished achievement in the arts (2001). Most recently, he accepted the Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction Technology awarded by the National Building Museum in 2003, and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution National Design Award: Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.