Architect of the Louvre pyramid is dead

I. M. Pei, American architect, Japanese-Chinese star, has died at the age of 102. He created, among other things, the glass pyramid before the Louvre in Paris and an extension to the German Historical Museum in Berlin. Both works were initially controversial. the

The American-died Chinese star architect I. M. Pei at the age of 102 years. The confirmed on Thursday his office in New York. He became famous with the design of the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris. He also designed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the United States.

dealing with simple geometric forms and the play of light, influenced his work. In Germany he created Pei, a and opened in 2003, growing for the German Historical Museum in Berlin with a spiral staircase made of glass and steel.

architecture

triangle, Square, octagon

The Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei is regarded as the master of geometric archetypes. In the world he has built. On Wednesday he will be 100 years old. By Gottfried Knapp

in 1983, Pei has been awarded the prestigious Pritzker architecture prize. He had rooms "of this century some of its most beautiful interior and exterior forms of the given", was the verdict of the Jury at the time. To his 100. Birthday it was said in the süddeutsche Zeitung, he was able to reconcile "in a unique way the wisdom of Buddhism with the decidedly modern forms of the International style, Yes creative are merging."

As Pei the contract for the redesign of the Louvre bekamn, was a big Surprise. Pei was the first foreign architect, who was allowed to create the building in Hand. With the glass pyramid, not all of them immediately become friends, and in part the speech was a "Disneyland-cultivation", an "act of despotism" and a "huge Gimmick" wanted to. Also the construction in Berlin a storm of indignation went ahead.

I. M. Pei, was 102 years old.

(photo: Reuters)

Ieoh Ming Pei was born in 1917 in South China, Canton Guangzhou, and in Hong Kong and Shanghai, grew up. At the age of 17, he moved to the United States. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Among his teachers, among other things, the Bauhaus were architects Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius.

prevented the Second world war, his return to China, were the Boston, New York and Los Angeles soon for his new jobs. Pei became an American citizen and created urban projects in Denver, Chicago and Montreal. After beginnings at the New York-based company, "Webb & Knapp" he opened his own company "I. M. Pei & Partners". Soon a prestigious order joined to the next, including a library for the assassinated President John F. Kennedy in consultation with his widow, Jacqueline. With the fame in the back Pei returned with his family for some projects to China. His wife Eileen Loo, he already knew from periods of study, together the Couple had three sons and a daughter,<./p>

Active Pei was (at least as a great clock, of its chief architects) to the end. A construction meant to him personally: the Miho Museum near Kyoto in Japan. The spectacular plant with Tunnel entrance, and high glass roofs he has set in the midst of the Japanese hills.