July 17, 1997
Contact:
Helen Dalrymple (202) 707-1940
I.M. Pei Donates Papers to Library of Congress
Internationally acclaimed architect I.M. Pei has
selected the Library of Congress as the major repository for
his personal and professional papers. One of the world's
most celebrated architects, Mr. Pei has designed such
outstanding buildings as the East Building of the National
Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (1978), the Bank of China
Tower in Hong Kong (1989), and the Grand Louvre in Paris
(1989, 1993). Over the past half century, Mr. Pei and his
partners have executed more than 150 award-winning projects
across the United States and around the world.
In making the announcement today, Librarian of Congress
James H. Billington said: "We are delighted with the
donation of this significant body of work, which documents
the creation of some of the most distinguished buildings of
the late 20th century and the life and times of the gifted
architect who designed them. The Pei papers and drawings
will join those of Benjamin Latrobe, Charles Follen McKim,
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Raymond Loewy, and others in
comprising one of the richest repositories in the world for
the study of 19th and 20th century architecture, design and
engineering."
With his documents relating to the National Gallery of
Art previously assigned to that museum's archives, I.M. Pei
said he was "very pleased that Washington, D.C., will become
the center for research about my work when the major part of
the collection is received and arranged at the Library of
Congress over the next few years. It was in Washington,
after all, where I met my first major architectural
challenge," referring to the unique site problems of the
National Gallery project.
His career is studded with prestigious awards: the
Arnold Brunner Award from the National Institute of Arts and
Letters (1961), the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Medal for
Architecture (1976), the Gold Medal of the American
Institute of Architects (1979), La Grande Medaille d'Or from
the French Academy of Architecture (1981), the Pritzker
Architecture Prize -- generally considered the architecture
equivalent of the Nobel Prize--(1983), the Medal of Liberty
-- for outstanding contributions to American life by a
foreign born United States citizen -- (1986), the National
Medal of Art (1988), and the Japanese Praemium Imperiale
(1989).
Ieoh Ming Pei was born in pre-Communist China in 1917,
living in Hong Kong and Shanghai. In 1935 he journeyed to
the United States for his education but, because of
political changes in China, he did not return. Mr. Pei
received his B.Arch. from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in 1940. He went on to study with the
influential architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer at
the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He
received his M.Arch. in 1946, and became an instructor and
assistant professor in 1945-48.
In 1948, Mr. Pei was hired by the prominent New York
real estate developer William Zeckendorf, and spent the next
10 years redeveloping cities across the country. He became
a United States citizen in 1955 and established an
independent architectural firm in 1958. For more than three
decades the firm of I.M. Pei & Associates, then I.M. Pei &
Partners -- a coalition that included the distinguished
architects Henry N. Cobb and James Ingo Freed, and many
other leading practitioners, as well as two of Mr. Pei's
sons -- established high standards of craftsmanship,
technical expertise, and architectural excellence across the
world.
Mr. Pei came to national prominence in 1964 when
Jacqueline Kennedy selected him to design the John F.
Kennedy Library in Boston. Several years later, he was
awarded the commission for the East Building of the National
Gallery of Art, which was subsequently chosen one of the 10 Best Buildings in America by the College of Fellows of the
American Institute of Architects. In 1979, Mr. Pei began
Fragrant Hill Hotel in Beijing, the first major building
undertaken in post-Maoist China. In 1989 he completed such
significant buildings as the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony
Center in Dallas, the 70-story Bank of China Tower in Hong
Kong, and the first phase of the Grand Louvre in Paris. The
second and final phase of the Grand Louvre was completed in
1993. In 1995, at age 78, Pei completed the Rock & Roll
Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.
I.M. Pei & Partners was renamed Pei Cobb Freed &
Partners in 1989, and although he retired from the firm in
1990, Mr. Pei remains very active professionally. Current
works include the Miho Museum in Shiga, Japan, the Musee
d¹Art Moderne in Luxembourg, the Goulandris Museum in
Athens, and the new Schauhaus addition to the German
Historical Museum in Berlin.
I.M. Pei is recognized for the careful siting and
massing of his buildings, their rich contrasts of external
forms and materials, the bold modeling and beauty of their
interior spaces, and their exquisite details. His style
often features trademark geometrical shapes, the use of
natural light, and a primary concern for the people who use
his structures. He designed, for example, the Garden Court
of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art as
a "public indoor piazza." His redesign of the Louvre has
drawn to it a steady stream of people, young and old, from
all over the world.
A minor grouping of the Pei documents arrived at the
Library in 1996. The majority of the papers, photographs
and drawings are expected to arrive in several increments
over the next few years, after which they will be arranged
and described. An announcement will be made when the
materials are available in the Library's Manuscript and
Prints and Photographs divisions.
# # #
PR 97-117
7/17/97
ISSN 0731-3527