Name: Ieoh Ming Pei

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• Name Ieoh Ming Pei
• Nationality American
• Birth date April 26, 1917 (1917-04-26) (age 92)
• Birth place Guangzhou (Canton), China
• Work Practice name Pei Cobb Freed Partners
• Significant buildings
• Louvre Pyramid
• Bank of China Tower
• Javits Convention Center
• East Building, National Gallery of Art
• Museum of Islamic Art, Doha
• Awards and prizes
• AIA Gold Medal
• Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Pritzker Prize

Presented by Ankit Singh, B. Arch IV, 061005
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• Philosophy
• Although he is remembered for his buildings, I.
  M. Pei's greatest influence on the architectural
  world is his philosophy of design. Just as his
  designs integrate aesthetics with functionality,
  Pei himself epitomizes the resolution of both an
  artist and engineer.
• He believed that the only issue of contemporary
  concern was life itself buildings should be
  created as living spaces -- spaces of activity
  and thought rather than static monuments.
• An unusual dialogue between two very different
  and very important cultures east and west.
• Interplay between geometry and light
• The relationship between site and building design
• Due to his reliance on abstract form and
  materials such as stone, concrete, glass, and
  steel, Pei has been considered a disciple of
  Walter Gropius.
• To the architectural world, Pei legacy is his
  belief that architecture "is the mirror of life
  itself."

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NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART- EAST WING
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NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART- EAST WING

• PROBLEM
• The new building had to fit an irregularly
  shaped, trapezoidal site.
• Harmonize with John Russell Pope's classicizing
  West Building.
• Two different buildings were required a museum
  to house large travelling exhibitions, and also a
  separate study-center / office facility .
• SOLUTION
• The trapezoidal site was sliced into two
  triangles one for each function with a
  triangular atrium unifying the whole.
• In plan, section and elevation, the interlocking
  volumes merge inseparably.

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NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART- EAST WING
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NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART- EAST WING

• "H"-shaped façade matches the equally severe
  walls of the West Building.
• To correspond in texture and color to the
  original building, the new one is faced inside
  and out with lavender-pink marble from the same
  quarry.
• This structure interlocks complex, shifting
  triangular shapes. To emphasize these sharp
  angles, lighter stone was chosen for all the East
  Building's vertical corners.
• The new and old buildings are functionally united
  into an integrated whole by an underground
  tunnel animated by prismatic skylights, and a
  waterwall.

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NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART- EAST WING
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• The sky lit atrium at the heart of the East Wing
  is a hub of circulation and orientation.
• Organized around it are three flexible towers
  designed to permit the exhibition of one large or
  multiple small shows.
• Adjacent to the public museum is the integral,
  Study Center, which, housed in a smaller
  triangle, provides a light-filled reading room
  and library stacks, as well as offices for
  scholars, curators and administrators.

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LOVURE-PARIS
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• A grand entrance to the museum with a
  larger-than-life 70-foot glass pyramid surrounded
  by a triad of smaller pyramids and reflecting
  pools.
• This new entrance, which connected a large
  underground reception area to the existing art
  galleries, was lauded internationally.
• The concept behind the Pei Pyramids was, to
  create a modern space without taking away from
  the elegance of the existing structure.
• The triangular geometry of the pyramid
  encompasses a small, unobtrusive volume, yet
  creates a distinct space that captures light and
  has surface identification.
• Similarly, by using the Egyptian concept of the
  pyramids, the new structure would be both more
  ancient and more modern than the existing Louvre.