I M Pei designed the most daring structures in the world
Legacy of I M Pei and his work are celebrated in retrospective exhibit
I. M. Pei outside John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1979 © Ted Dully/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
I M Pei Life is Architecture
How can an exhibition accurately portray the legacy of I M Pei? His long and prolific career resists simple explanations.
The pyramid at the Grand Louvre (1983–1993), Paris
With a curious mind, I sat down with Shirley Surya, the co-curator for the I M Pei: Life is Architecture at M+ Museum.
Shirley has immersed herself in everything Pei for years, consequently, I noticed that she frequently asks questions in Pei’s voice.
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This literary device is helpful in understanding Pei’s creative process, so while they are not quotes from I.M. Pei, they do convey truth about his creative process.
I. M. Pei and French president François Mitterrand inspecting a glass sample for the Louvre pyramid, 1987 © Marc Riboud/Fonds Marc Riboud au MNAAG/Magnum Photos
I began the conversation by expressing surprise that the museum hired an expert in architecture, which is not a typical museum attraction. She corrected me, pointing out: “It’s our remit. M+ is a visual culture museum with three key disciplines …moving images, design and architecture, and visual art. This is a core discipline for us.”
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The challenge for an architectural exhibition is that it doesn’t have the spectacular appeal of a Yayoi Kusama exhibition; with architecture, you have to tell the story, which is difficult.
I.M. Pei at the Louvre during construction of the iconic Pyramid
Although Shirley and her team had access to sketches, drawings, pictures and scale models, the breakthrough was finding out that Pei’s firm had videos and documentaries on all his major projects.
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She realised that this was the easiest way to tell the story. Video screens throughout the exhibition allow visitors to encounter the person, Mr I M Pei, talking about his projects in context.
To narrow the scope of our discussion, I asked Shirley about the influence of Chinese gardens on Pei’s work.
Suzhou and its garden culture was profoundly influential
She mentioned that the classic gardens in Suzhou, where he grew up, were one of the three locations the exhibition describes that influenced him.
Pei family portrait in the garden of Tsuyee Pei’s house, which belonged to the Bank of China, on Route Ferguson (now Wukang Road) in Shanghai’s French Concession, Back row: I. M. Pei (third from left), Tsuyee Pei (sixth from left). Seated: I. M. Pei’s grandfather Bei Li-tai (fifth from left), 1935 © All rights reserved. Courtesy of Patricia Pei
Pointing out, “He is as influenced by the city, as much as he is influenced by the garden.” He considered it a responsibility to understand what was in his past or the past, and not just about China.
In realising all his work, Suzhou had this foundational imprint on him, amplified because, during his university days, the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II left him isolated in the US.
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Shirley says Pei asked himself, “What about China that is specific, that I should understand, that I should also manifest? At the same time, what about the world? What about technology? What about modernisation I can also bring in?”
I. M. Pei (front row, third from the left) with classmates at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1936
In wrestling with these questions, the use of the Chinese garden in the re-engagement or reinterpretation of history through design is moving from something superficial about China – whether it’s the bamboo or the colour red – to something that is spatial.
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She clarifies, “Spatial here means you cannot necessarily see it in one look. You have to be there, to walk through it, and go through the path in relation to how the building interacts with the landscape.”
Pei attended MIT and Harvard
From 1942 to 1946, Pei attended Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. For his thesis project, Pei designed a Museum of Chinese Art, one appropriate not just for Western but also for Chinese art.
View of glazed facade towards the altar, Luce Memorial Chapel (1954–1963), Tunghai University, Taichung , 2021 © Lee Kuo-Min, I. M. Pei
Be that ceramics, scholars’ rocks or ink paintings, Chinese artworks were conceived in dialogue with the natural environment, so they should be viewed in relation to a garden.
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His design for rooms with bare white walls overlooking rectangular courtyards met this requirement. The design reflected, in an abstract way, the traditional arrangement of historic gardens in Suzhou.
Media coverage of I. M. Pei
Pei’s next question was, “How do I make modern architecture not identical in every part of the world?
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How do I address diversity of contexts and lifestyle and tradition and histories?” His answer was the Taiwan Pavilion at Expo 70.
This was a complete leap because this garden was not a garden. It is three triangular volumes crossed by zigzag bridges.
Ink painting by Zao Wou-Ki installed in a room next to the Four Seasons Courtyard of Fragrant Hill Hotel (1979–1982), Beijing, 2021 © Tian Fangfang
So, where’s the garden? How Chinese is this? But that’s how he sold it to the Taiwanese government.
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While not an outwardly obvious Chinese form, it is something deeper, it is how you move through the space.
That’s why going through a circuitous unfolding sequence of spaces in the pavilion is also a very Chinese garden, but it’s vertical and completely, dramatically abstract.
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Fragrant Hill Hotel in Beijing is another interpretation of the Chinese garden, but this time, it was not about appeasing tradition. 1979 was the beginning of the open reform era in China.
I. M. Pei with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and guests at Fragrant Hill Hotel’s opening
There was a rush to modernise and an expectation that Pei would design a skyscraper hotel. He refused and instead proposed a traditional hotel at the site of a former imperial hunting ground.
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At issue were ancient trees that needed protecting. How do you save trees while still building a hotel? You build traditional low-rise rooms around the trees, with courtyards like a traditional Chinese garden.
Chinese officials viewing model of Fragrant Hill Hotel
It’s not just because he liked it but because it was an appropriate design for the site.
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Likewise, the site for the Bank of China Tower drove the design. The problem was the site was super tiny and, with a flyover to the front, so ugly.
Bank of China Tower site drove the design
How do you make the site dignified? Pei was very good at associating a supposedly pragmatic, neutral form with something that could resonate with the client or even the public.
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He understood that the challenge for the Bank of China was not about trying to storytell its Chineseness.
Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong, to withstand earthquakes and meet local wind load requirements, the building is designed with criss-crossing diagonal supports
It was about hitting that symbolic height that represented the Bank of China’s rise to power right at that particular point in time before the handover.
The issue was how to build a soaring-high tower with one-seventh of the budget of the HSBC tower that could withstand wind and earthquake.
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A tapered structure is necessary to maintain stability and achieve soaring heights. I M Pei had the idea of using three blocks with sloped ends. As you move up, they become thinner, so stability-wise, it’s more structurally stable.
Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong
Externally, I M Pei considered how the tower complemented the surrounding buildings and landscape.
The multifaceted design is important as each dynamically reflects the neighbourhood, and the edges point towards the first three administrative districts of Hong Kong: Central, Wan Chai and Kowloon.
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Internally, where the tapered facets meet, natural light comes into atrium spaces. There are three of these within the tower. So, even in a very narrow tower, Pei was able to provide atriums.
I. M. Pei walking up the stairs at the National Gallery of Art East Building, Washington, D.C. © Marc Riboud/Fonds Marc Riboud au MNAAG/Magnum Photos
At the base, he created a Chinese garden with terraced fountains and rocks, a monument rising from the earth before becoming a glass and steel tower.
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Pei’s design for the Suzhou Museum provides another interpretation of the Chinese garden. It is located next to the Classical Gardens of Suzhou, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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The museum is radically different from the garden, but the compositions are similar, so it respects history while creating something new. The roofs are similar in colour but different in form and scale, and they allow natural light to come into the galleries.
The Central Hall’s framed views of the garden’s key features including the stone landscape, Suzhou Museum (2000–2006), Suzhou, 2021 © Tian Fangfang
Chinese gardens cannot be looked at the same way as those of the British or French. The latter take a picturesque approach and are not necessarily designed in relation to other forms of artwork.
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By contrast, Chinese gardens are designed as scholarly pursuits meant to be experienced like poetry. As you wander through the Suzhou Museum, poetry phrases on the doors and walls are there to be discovered.
Likewise, there are paintings on the walls informing each other.
Chun Qiu: Project for the New Galleries of Suzhou Museum, Cai Guo-Qiang, 2006
The rest of the museum uses classical ingredients, including rocks from Yunnan, the stone forest like in Fragrant Hill Hotel, and the Bank of China Tower, but they’re composed in different ways because they address different sites.
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Although Pei’s Chinese heritage influenced his designs, it did not define him. He continued to ask himself, “How do I make modern architecture not identical in every part of the world? How do I address diversity of contexts and lifestyle and tradition and histories?”
View of the faceted central structure, Museum of Islamic Art (2000–2008), Doha, 2021 © Mohamed Somji
For example, when considering museum projects like the Miho in Japan, the Grand Louvre, or even the Museum of Islamic Art in the Middle East, he would not force the same reference. Instead, he would reference those places.
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The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is a good example. The main reference point is the Pueblo cave dwellings, but this was not just a vernacular reference.
View of NCAR on the mesa, National Center for Atmospheric Research (1961–1967), Boulder, Colorado, 2021, © Naho Kubota, I. M. Pei
He had good questions: How do I build in a way that is in dialogue with the Rockies? What elemental forms are the dwellings made? To sit with nature, you need elemental forms that can address the mountains.
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The material used for Pueblo dwellings is earth. You can’t use rammed earth for such a big-scale building. Instead, reddish-brown stone aggregate from a nearby quarry mixed with concrete provided a material that complemented the local mountains.
Exterior view, Miho Institute of Aesthetics Chapel ca.2012, digital print © Higashide Photo Studio
Window designs were also driven by local requirements. Most openings were irregular, slim, and tiny; only one provided a vista for the scientists.
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This design element not only protects the scientists from the very hot environment and harsh winds but also complements the surrounding landscape.
View from Miho Museum’s main hall, with the top of the Joy of Angels Bell Tower visible on the far left, Miho Museum (1991–1997) Shigaraki, Shiga, 2021 © Yoneda Tomoko
Pei’s design philosophy didn’t fetishise the Chinese Garden, but its core ideas have always been his tried-and-tested way of designing. He could reuse and reinterpret it for different projects depending on the solution they needed.
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I M Pei has been criticised for not being an intellectual architect, which, to some degree, is correct. He’s not a composer with three volumes of text that he published for the world to buy his ideas.
Portrait of I. M. Pei taken when he was selected to design the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Dorchester, Massachusetts 1965 © John Loengard/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
He’s a builder whose projects happen to be very effective in society. Pei knew how to address the city, address the public, and exercise neighbourliness in designing something; these are fundamental things.
Text Martin Wray / Photos Cammy Yiu & courtesy of M+ Museum
