translated from Spanish: Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei dies at 102 years old

Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei, author of great works such as the Pyramid of the Louvre Museum in Paris or the bank of China in Hong Kong, died on Thursday at 102 years, confirmed sources of the architecture studio of his children , Pei Partnership Architects. The newspaper the New York Times reported his death during the night shortly before, citing his son Chien Chung Pei. Ieoh Ming Pei imposed a certain idea of modernity and classicism in his daring projects. Considered the last master of Modern architecture and winner of the prestigious Pritzker Prize, equivalent to the Nobel laureate of Architecture, in 1983, he is also the author of great works such as the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, or the east wing of the National Art Gallery , in Washington DC. Born on April 26, 1917 in Canton, China, in an old family of Suzhou, “Venice of the Orient”, near Shanghai, Ieoh Ming Pei departed in 1935 to the United States, to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he graduated. He then studied design at Harvard University (1948), where he was a student of Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus and one of the theorists of the international style. Naturalized American in 1954, he was adjunct professor at Harvard (1945-1948), then director of Architecture at the Webb & Knapp Studio (1948-1955) before creating his own studio, I.M. Pei and Associates, in 1955.
The construction of the Mile High Center in Denver, Colorado (1956) was its first major commission of a long series, including among others the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado (1967) or the John Hancock Tower in Boston (1973). During the years ‘ 70 his study enjoyed a growing prestige in the United States and the world: he built the mayor’s office in Dallas, Texas (1978), the J.F. Kennedy Library in Boston (1982), the Xiangshan Hotel in Beijing (1983) and the Congress and Exhibition Center in New York ( 1985).
In 1983, and although Pei was not well known in France, French president François Mitterrand commissioned him to rethink the Louvre. His daring project, which unleashed violent passions, was inaugurated in 1988. ” Ieoh Ming Pei has offered to this century some of its most beautiful interior spaces and exterior shapes. The meaning of his work goes far beyond them, because his restlessness has always been the environment in which their buildings rise, “said in 1983 Carleton Smith, former secretary of the Pritzker Prize jury, announcing the award.



Original source in Spanish