Posted on 05/17/2019 3:50:21 AM PDT by C19fan
I. M. Pei, who began his long career designing buildings for a New York real estate developer and ended it as one of the most revered architects in the world, died early Thursday at his home in Manhattan. He was 102. His death was confirmed by his son Li Chung Pei, who is also an architect and known as Sandi. He said his father had recently celebrated his birthday with a family dinner.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
I took dome tour of Boston back in the 90s and the guide mentioned the JH building debacle.
Pei’s legacy lives on through a notable body of work located around the world, which includes towering skyscrapers, mesmerizing spiral staircases, and peaceful reflective pools. The award-winning architect saw buildings not only as functional pieces of landscape, but also as a conduit for art to evoke human emotions.
“At one level my goal is simply to give people pleasure in being in a space and walking around it,” he once said. “But I also think architecture can reach a level where it influences people to want to do something more with their lives. That is the challenge that I find most interesting.”
Ieoh Ming Pei was raised in Shanghai but immigrated to the US in 1935 and studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he refined his keen eye for design, citing the modern designs of Frank Lloyd Wright and Swiss-French architectural pioneer Le Corbusier.
Pei was later recruited by New York City real estate magnate William Zeckendorf, best known for developing much of the New York City skyline, before eventually establishing his own independent design firm, I. M. Pei & Associates, where he used his cultivated architectural knowledge to design breathtaking structures around the world.
There were also window problems with the high-rise geology building on the campus at MIT (Pei’s alma mater) - the student’s there used to joke that Pei must have flunked windows.
But they did establish a tradition of dropping a pumpkin from the top of the building to the plaza below each Halloween - presumably it makes a really neat noise hitting the concrete after a fall of 14 or 16 stories or so.
Didn’t know he was still alive
Like many conservatives I felt Pei’s works were a little overrated
but always admired his pluck,
especially having five brothers also named Pei vying for attention,
and his subsequent adoption of the decisive moniker “I.M.”
Rest in Peace.
Perpetrator of many of the worst architectural monstrosities in modern history. The emperor had no clothes.
That’s actually shocking to hear even though he was over 100.
His name has just always been around.
He’s the schmuck who designed the glass pyramid beside the French Renaissance Louvre.
I call it the Pimple in the Parking Lot.
Umbrella “artist” genre.
Christo’s “art” actually killed.
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/28/us/christo-umbrella-crushes-woman.html
Keeping it real. The tiny bit of Architecture I studied, I learned something about how important function is. This building makes a dramatic statement. It doesn't provide proper spaces to explore and be immersed in the various eras of Rock History in context.
JMHO
He was a Godsend to crossword puzzle designers...
I can always tell when an architect designed a house. It’s completely misshapen, strange, unbalanced, and bizarre.
As a result Hancock problem high rise curtain wall several dramatic changes occurred in the design and manufacture of such.
Wind tunnel testing, presented in court, proved the old building code wind load design charts were in adequate in assessing actual wind speeds at the increasing heights of office towers. Wind behavior and speeds were discovered to be highly influenced by the local building topology by some recent at the time university studies. As result scale model testing included models of the adjacent area, not just the designed tower to establish more accurate wind loads.
The Hancock also had the first retro-fitted tuned mass dampers at the top floors to reduce building sway.
Another industry wide change with regard to large scale curtain wall towers was the inclusion in the specifications of full sized mock up testing requirements by the curtain wall fabricator which had to include all connections at design loads and to ultimate failure to exclude wind driven rain. A test laboratory in Florida used a huge radial aircraft engine to provide the high velocity. wind speed while the mock-up was sprayed with water. Fascinating to observe.
I worked at Pei’s office as the court case defense was researched and presented, utilizing lessons learned in my role as technical designer and detailer on several monumental skylight projects among which were the JFK Memorial Library, Boston Museum of Fine Arts Addition.
Architects (for better or worse) don’t generally have much to do with that. They create a visual, but not structural, design, and an engineer has the unenviable task to of turning that into something that won’t fall down in the real world. Of course an architect can design something that can’t be built, but the engineer(s) should in turn inform the architect that the building can’t be built as designed.
“I.M. Pei and Partners” (From another post)
Of course, if the architect runs the company, and employs the engineers, he is indeed responsible for the faults in his buildings... unless I suppose, it is demonstrated in court that a supplier shipped materials with a proven fault.
Another flake claiming to be an artist. Think Andy Warhol with even less talent.
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