Happy Birthday, Mr Pei
April 26, 2017 2:41 PM   Subscribe

IM Pei at 100: 10 of the architect's most significant buildings
Ieoh Ming Pei was born on 26 April 1917 in Guangzhou, China. He moved to the US to study architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, then engineering at MIT and finally Harvard's Graduate School of Design – where he studied under former Bauhaus masters Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. After a stint working for the US National Defense Research Committee towards the end of the second world war, Pei began his architectural career, and worked for American real-estate magnate William Zeckendorf from 1948.
posted by infini (21 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
I support Tribute FPPs for every person who lives to 100, even if they aren't as historically important as IM Pei.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:06 PM on April 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


I have worked in 2 Pei (& Partners) buildings now, and both leaked (one in several places) and had HVAC issues. While they're visually impressive, he exemplifies a lot of the faults of star architects and their work that Stewart Brand articulates well in How Buildings Learn.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:08 PM on April 26, 2017 [6 favorites]


I commute west on Lookout Road in Boulder Colorado. As you crest the ridge looking into the Boulder Valley one of the more prominent man-made features is the his Mesa Labs. The view is always spectacular.

The city of Denver tore down his Zeckendorf Plaza a few years ago. Had to make way for some shitty highrise.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 4:20 PM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Huh, only two comments before someone mentions 'star architects'. A new record?
posted by signal at 4:28 PM on April 26, 2017


Huh, only two comments before someone mentions 'star architects'. A new record?

There are many good reasons for this.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:57 PM on April 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


I got in trouble once for mentioning the Louvre pyramid in a school project. The project was only supposed to include real things, and the teacher accused me of inventing the pyramid, which she insisted could not possibly exist.

She adjusted the grade, grudgingly, but only after my mom sent in a xerox of an encyclopedia entry (and possibly a salty note).
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 5:28 PM on April 26, 2017 [8 favorites]


Dallas City Hall, Dallas, USA, 1978

An inverted triangular section was chosen for Dallas City Hall because the lower civic spaces needed less floor area than the government offices above.


Is this some sort of crypto-libertarian metaphor that, rather than supporting the public, government bureaucrats are supported by the public and are literally crushing overhead?

I guess that would appeal to folks in Dallas.
posted by vorpal bunny at 5:55 PM on April 26, 2017


20 years ago I got to live and play in a Pei building. It was pretty sweet.
posted by gnutron at 5:57 PM on April 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


There are many good reasons for this.

#1 reason is gonna be "most people are utterly clueless about how buildings get conceived, funded, designed and built." #2 is "some people read a Malcolm Gladwell-esque cherrypicked book and think they're not clueless".
posted by LionIndex at 6:00 PM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


I guess that would appeal to folks in Dallas.

Not to this architect...and certainly not as a proud Dallas and Oak Cliff citizen.

I.M. Pei was important to Dallas, and many buildings here are praised and often questioned. City hall was built in the late 70's brutalist fad (exposed aggregate concrete, no soft interiors, almost a dominating feel), but Pei succumbed to the trend at the time. The interior does not feel "crushing" space wise, but it does feel cold and very soviet block era. The offices above, while I understand the macro idea, are not very well organized. It was not his best work, but is no comment on Dallas culture, just an architectural statement that is dated.

Pei's best contribution to Dallas, is the Meyerson Symphony... Great space and it took his 80's vision of large scale architecture down to a pedestrian level. It has inspired the entire arts district.

Happy Birthday Mr. Pei. The architecture community still loves you.
posted by Benway at 6:38 PM on April 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


Pei's Dallas City Hall was also an exterior used in the TV adaptation of The Lathe of Heaven, I believe.
posted by emjaybee at 7:00 PM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


20 years ago I got to live and play in a Pei building. It was pretty sweet.

Hey, me too! For all of the practical issues of living in those dorms (sharp corners, ow), nothing beats sitting in on of the Palm Court balconies on a nice evening with nothing to do but drink, smoke, and watch the party below.
posted by feckless at 8:42 PM on April 26, 2017


I.M. Pei has a positive note in my book. I remember in 6th grade, reading facts about famous people and telling my other Asian American classmates, "Look! How cool! Another Asian made some of the world's most famous buildings!" And they just looked at me blankly and went back to being basic. Why?!? It's such a big deal! How many times do you even know the name of an architect? And he happens to be an Asian one!

I actually think they still probably hold the same attitude today. But that shit has /always/ been cool, and I love 11-year old me for recognizing this.
posted by yueliang at 3:10 AM on April 27, 2017 [6 favorites]


yueliang, yes, exactly.
posted by infini at 3:16 AM on April 27, 2017


#1 reason is gonna be "most people are utterly clueless about how buildings get conceived, funded, designed and built." #2 is "some people read a Malcolm Gladwell-esque cherrypicked book and think they're not clueless".

Have you actually read Brand's book? He's not above criticism, but it is far from being glib, Gladwellesque trash.

The two buildings I worked in were the east wing of the National Gallery of Art in DC and the Holocaust Museum, the latter designed by Pei partner James Ingo Freed. The former had multiple water intrusion problems: the skylights in the library dumped water directly into the patron reading room, and the stone facing was so porous that when it was powerwashed (which it regularly needed) water came straight through the front of the building into the interior. It also has multiple cold and hot spots even when the HVAC system is functioning as designed, a lot of dead air, and is generally just uncomfortable to work in. The Holocaust Museum also has water issues, the most memorable being a glassed in walkway that connects the main archives and library space that has to be lined with rice-filled socks in the winter to keep water from seeping in and freezing, turning them into mini skating rinks.

TLDR: I do have some idea of how buildings get conceived, funded, and built, and I don't think any of it is an excuse for buildings that don't entertain that flesh-and-blood human beings have to work in and maintain them.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:57 AM on April 27, 2017 [4 favorites]


Gehry suffers from the same leaky complaints iirc
posted by infini at 7:38 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


"gosh i don't understand why some people think discarding literally tens of thousands of years of accumulated wisdom and knowledge to make something different for the sake of being different is a bad idea"
posted by entropicamericana at 8:37 AM on April 27, 2017


The National Gallery wing is all right, I suppose, given the odd lot shape, though it does exude a certain amount of Look At Me! when considering its older brother. Inside, there seems to be more empty space than actual gallery space, as if the Gallery part is an afterthought, or worse, a necessary evil. I've always hated the pyramid for screwing up an otherwise wonderfully self contained renaissance courtyard. Moustache, meet Mona. The Luce Chapel I can't look at without thinking of a card board box that's been left out in the rain.

Which, given comments above, makes me wonder if it leaks.
posted by IndigoJones at 10:15 AM on April 27, 2017


guess!
posted by entropicamericana at 10:19 AM on April 27, 2017


I always figured Dallas City Hall the perfect representation of the totalitarian impulse that runs through Dallas money. Deleberitely broken public spaces so demonstrations get lost, a giant hulking dwarf of a building meant to cause chills in the subjects that serve it. D, after all, is best known for killing the only non-Protestant president the US had ever had.

I tried to like Pei's work, but he seems a hack to me. I'm much more a Kahn guy. At least he knew how to give concrete some warmth.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 11:23 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Kahn's red brick though I have a peeve with the article linked in that it's Gujurat's harsh desert climate, not "India"'s
posted by infini at 11:38 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


« Older 😬 amirite?   |   You are actually looking at thirty-meter bushes Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments