Advertisement

arts entertainmentArchitecture

I.M. Pei was a quiet architect whose 'sharp-edged modernist work' in Dallas and beyond made headlines

The architect's Dallas works are diverse in style, scale, and purpose, and include the 'brooding monument in concrete' City Hall, the Meyerson Symphony Center and 'prismatic' Fountain Place .

I.M. Pei, the architectural mandarin whose sharp-edged modernism can be found in cities the world over, died at the age of 102.

Pei's death was confirmed Thursday by Marc Diamond, a spokesman for the architect's New York firm, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. One of Pei's sons, Li Chung Pei, told The New York Times his father had died overnight.

Although Pei left significant imprints on New York, Boston, and Paris, there is no city that is quite so defined by his vision as Dallas. His works here are diverse in style, scale, and purpose, but together they evince his sense of cool modern forms. Those projects include Dallas City Hall of 1978, a brooding monument in concrete, and the 1989 Meyerson Symphony Center, an exercise in complex geometry and formal elegance. His firm, Pei, Cobb, Freed Partners, was also responsible for three of the city's more distinguished skyscrapers: One Dallas Centre (1979), Energy Plaza (1983), and the prismatic Fountain Place (1986).

Advertisement

One of his only private residences was built in Fort Worth, for the Tandy family. Set in Westover Hills, it is identifiable by a sail-like triangular projection that acts as a light source for the living space within.

News Roundups

Catch up on the day's news you need to know.

Or with:

Architect I. M. Pei is photographed with a model of his design for a new Dallas City Hall in...
Architect I. M. Pei is photographed with a model of his design for a new Dallas City Hall in 1970.(1970 File Photo / Staff )

"I.M. Pei helped make Dallas, reshaping and reinvigorating the city as we emerged from the darkness of the assassination of President Kennedy," said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, in a statement. "He helped Dallas achieve cultural heights with the elegant Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Hall, one of the great symphony centers in America."

Advertisement

Pei was a quiet man, but his work made headlines. His most prominent project remains the Grand Louvre, the glassy pyramid in the courtyard of the Parisian museum. He was the winner of the Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honor, in 1983.

"I.M. Pei was not the greatest formgiver of his generation — that would more likely be Louis Kahn — but he did more than anyone to bring a warmed-up modernism to American cities, and to make it popular and approachable," said Michael Cannell, his biographer.

Ieoh Ming Pei was born to a wealthy family in Canton, China, in 1917. He came to America to study architecture, first at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He graduated from Harvard in 1946, part of a golden generation of modernists that included Edward Larrabee Barnes, John Johansen, Philip Johnson, Dan Kiley, Paul Rudolph, and Hugh Stubbins.

Advertisement
People walk around the pyramid of the Louvre, designed by Chinese-American architect I.M....
People walk around the pyramid of the Louvre, designed by Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei, outside the Louvre museum in Paris.(2017 File Photo / Agence France-Presse)

Pei stood out at once, different from the others not only because he was Chinese, but because he seemed more mature, both in his person and his work. His thesis project was for a museum of Chinese art, a single-story structure with a patchwork of open courtyards that was undeniably modern but also spoke clearly to Chinese tradition. It was published widely, and he was immediately branded a rising star.

But unlike many of his peers, who either opened their own offices or began to work at architectural firms, Pei joined up with the New York developer William Zeckendorf, becoming his house architect.

Even after Pei established his own practice, his history as a commercial architect stayed with him, and he remained apart (by his own choice) from the clubby world of architecture.

No architect was more deft in handling concrete. Pei was maniacal in detailing that material, from which he could draw sharp shadows that accentuated the crisp geometries that defined his work. In New York, projects like the Kips Bay and Silver Towers demonstrated that ability.

There was a dark side to this affection, however. Pei's Christian Science Complex in Boston was notorious as windswept and unforgiving, an example of modernism run amok, as the critic Peter Blake argued in his book Form Follows Fiasco. The same criticisms could be made of his plaza in front of his city hall for Dallas.

In the 1960s, Pei became involved in the reformist urban renewal movement. His plan for Oklahoma City was responsible for the destruction of much of that city's historic core.

Advertisement

It was that planning work, however, that caught the attention of Dallas movers, who were looking to reinvent the city in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. Pei was brought in by mayor J. Erik Jonsson to take part in the Goals for Dallas program, which led to his work on a new city hall.

Always, he was a shrewd judge of clients. "I.M. Pei is the greatest artist and salesperson I've ever met," said Morton H. Meyerson, who led the selection committee that chose Pei for the concert hall that bears his name. "He is totally unique. I've met great artists, architects, musicians; I've met great salesman; I've met great executives. But I've never met a person who had all of those characteristics."

Architect I.M. Pei (center) with Stanley Marcus (left) and sculptor Eduardo Chillida braved...
Architect I.M. Pei (center) with Stanley Marcus (left) and sculptor Eduardo Chillida braved the Dallas cold to envision firsthand how Chillida's sculpture would look in front of Pei's Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.(File Photo / Staff)

Pei will likely be best remembered for his public buildings, in particular his museums. In addition to the Grand Louvre, he designed the modern East Building expansion to the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C. Bold in its geometry, critics rightly attacked it for privileging Pei's architecture over art.

Advertisement

For much of his career, Pei was in fact plagued by a reputation as a formalist, and more popular with clients than critics.

But the last few years have seen a change in that thinking, a reassessment that has embraced Pei's monumentality and seriousness, especially in projects like his Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell (1973), and his Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse (1968), both works of quiet dignity and supreme force .

Dallas is a fine place to think about that legacy, as it is not just his, but ours.

Mark Lamster is the architecture critic of The Dallas Morning News, a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Architecture.

Advertisement

UPDATED, 10:41 P.M.: This story has been updated with comments by Morton H. Meyerson.