The Chinese-American Architect Ieoh Ming Pei, commonly known as I.M.Pei turned 100 years old on April 26.
A century of life that has earned him to be considered one of the most important and influential architect of the twentieh century, and widely honoured: he has been awarded with the Praemium Imperiale in 1989, the AIA Gold Medal ten years before, in 1979; the Presidential Medal of Freedom and, in 1983, he won the Pritzker Prize. He didn’t forget his origins, with the money prize, $100,000, he established a scholarship fund for Chinese students to study in the United States with the condition that they returned to China to put in practice what they learned. That’s exactly the philosophy behind Architect-US Career Training Program!
Pei, FAIA and RIBA, has designed some of the most iconic buildings of the contemporary architecture. His most famous project is Le Grand Louvre, the renovation of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, that the same week of Pei’s birthday received the AIA 2017 25 Year Award. Although it was very controversial and lots of Parisians despised the project at the beginning, the carachteristic steel and glass pyramids had become so famous and praised as the Eiffel Tower.
Another famous buildings are the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, the National Gallery of Art – East Building in Washington D.C. and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Pei!
