I.M. Pei has died

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/obituaries/im-pei-dead.html

by SREinSF • 7 years ago

275 47 7 years ago

josh2600• 7 years ago

I.M. Pei's architecture is beautiful, geodesic structure in the best possible sense. 102 is also a ripe old age (although far be it from me to say what is a fair time on this earth).

Architecture is wonderful as you get to live on through these incredibly beautiful buildings. I look at the stuff Zaha Hadid built and I feel like I can almost see her in the buildings she made. Great architects resonate through their structures.

RIP.

mattzito• 7 years ago

I mean - SOME of it is beautiful. I have to stare at this building every day:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kips_Bay_Towers

It’s plain hideous. Sigh.

spectramax• 7 years ago

I rather found it beautiful. Brutalist architecture has its own beauty - to be honest about materials, unapologetic forms and it’s unwavering stability. Also, I’ve been to the Dallas City hall and it is such an insane building, imposing and looming over you as you enter through its facade.

adamson• 7 years ago

Wow, I've walked by that block so many times and never would have guessed it was the work of IM Pei

Hoasi• 7 years ago

I have to stare at this building every day:

I like Manuel Gagneux's commentary on the Kips Bay Plaza: https://youtu.be/08GChbQcWxI?t=164.

That's an interesting and somehow comforting way to look at it.

based2• 7 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._M._Pei

oceliker3• 7 years ago

I know him through the buildings he designed at MIT: Buildings 54, 66, and E15. My favorite fun fact to tell visitors is that building 66 (chemical engineering) is a perfect 30-60-90 triangle.

akulkarni• 7 years ago

And has a mini 30/60/90 triangle on its basement floor!

oceliker3• 7 years ago

I had no idea! Will go check it out tomorrow.

joebergeron• 7 years ago

Woah, I had no idea he designed the Green Building. It was always my favorite architecture on campus (light years better than the Stata Center), much to the disagreement of my peers.

frob• 7 years ago

The Green Building definitely had the better view. Plus it was understandable. I often got lost in Stata above the first floor.

intuitionist• 7 years ago

The Green Building is quite nice in most ways, but there's also the famous story about how it was built "on stilts" parallel to the Charles, so because of the wind coming off the river nobody could open the doors...

The legend about how the nearby Alexander Calder sculpture was placed to block the wind is apparently untrue, but the revolving doors on the ground level are very real.

oceliker3• 7 years ago

I don't know if Green Bldg is my favorite, but I definitely agree that Stata [0] is not a great building. It might look interesting to visitors, but it's super difficult to navigate, and it doesn't have that stature that says "important science is being conducted in this building", unlike its neighbors 46 (neuroscience) [1] or 76 (Koch) [2].

[0] https://s3.amazonaws.com/thetech-production/images/web_photo...

[1] https://capitalprojects.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/p...

[2] https://capitalprojects.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/p...

jpmattia• 7 years ago

Woah, I had no idea he designed the Green Building.

He famously had problems with wind: The Great Sail was placed in order to break up wind off the Charles, which (by Bernoulli effect) would lock the doors at the bottom of the Green Building.

The funny part was: The Hancock Tower on the other side of the Charles had pretty much the same problem, but was too tall for remediation-by-artwork. They had a devil of a time redoing the windows in that building.

Anyway: 66 was always my favorite. Living in EC, it was always fun to show visitors the sharp point of that building.

RIP

jmgrosen• 7 years ago

Don't forget building 18! 54 on its side :)

pcurve• 7 years ago

Thanks for the Cornell Johnson museum. Not exactly a good museum design but I love it.

DoubleCribble• 7 years ago

If you want to see the most impressive candidate for an IRL Bond villain HQ, I nominate Mr. Pei's Miho Museum [0]. The art is pretty good for a private collection, but the real gem is the building/compound itself. It's incredible.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miho_Museum

yingw787• 7 years ago

I've gone to the Suzhou Museum in China designed by I.M. Pei, and it's really nice, recommend a visit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou_Museum

Seemed like a great guy.

kasey_junk2• 7 years ago

I live in a townhome that is attributed to Pei and Harry Weese (most assume they are mostly a Weese design) and while I love it’s brutalist nature, the aesthetic is very controversial, you love it or hate it.

But what amazes me is 2 things. First they are very livable. They would be considered tiny now in the US (sub 900 sq ft originally, with finished basement 1300), but it never feels cramped. The design and size lead to extremely efficient resource utilization and minimal maintenance as well.

Second, this place was targeted at middle income families. It was designed to compete with the suburbs being built at the time. Can you imagine a builder now paying for innovative design?

In any case I wish more people could live the lifestyle this home allows.

devy3• 7 years ago

Do you have pictures of this townhome or care to share the address? I am curious what they look like.

kasey_junk2• 7 years ago

https://images.app.goo.gl/ou4Twc3XJeNtxZPz6

Construction photo. There were approximately 9 designs in one of the first major urban renewal efforts in the country. I live in the smallest.

https://images.app.goo.gl/SGMBVKMXUYHgUZteA

Model of the biggest.

cfallin• 7 years ago

Second, this place was targeted at middle income families

There's a random apartment building near downtown Pittsburgh that was designed by I.M. Pei [0] -- a little nicer than others in the area, but by no means a luxury building. It's indeed refreshing to see "normal" buildings for "normal" people designed by famous architects, even if the building itself isn't flashy by any means.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_View_(Pittsburgh)

ei8htyfi5e• 7 years ago

Sad. I went to the MIT Media Lab and he designed the building I was in. One of the absolute most breathtaking buildings I've ever had the pleasure to be part of. Will miss his work. Hope some new whippersnapper takes the torch.

dluan• 7 years ago

For Chinese Americans, I.M. Pei was like Bruce Lee. Someone who almost all Chinese Americans knew of and admired.

devy3• 7 years ago

I got your point, but the analogy is reversed, I.M. Pei became well known way before Bruce Lee :)

spata• 7 years ago

Weird when you discover someone you really admire, only because you read their obit.

khawkins• 7 years ago

The Louvre pyramid itself is a beautiful structure and it is certainly a sight to see.

That being said, its placement in a courtyard surrounded by strikingly beautiful and unique French Renaissance architecture is a testament to modern arrogance. It does not complement the theme or contribute to the panorama, but instead steals the view and obscures the art already there. It was highly controversial and divided Parisians against each other. Clearly the man had talent, but it's a little disgusting how proud of where it was placed.

dfee• 7 years ago

That’s what I thought. I snickered at the label on the header image:

“If there’s one thing I know I didn’t do wrong, it’s the Louvre,”.

devy3• 7 years ago

I tend to agree with the obituary described about what I.M. Pei's explanation:

  He argued that his glass pyramid was merely an updated 
  version of a traditional form, and that his redesigned 
  courtyard had been influenced by the geometric work of the 
  French landscape architect Le Notre. It was rigorously 
  rational, in other words, and in that sense classically 
  French.

> but it's a little disgusting how proud of where it was placed.

Also, I.M. Pei himself considered JFK Library the most important commission of his life[1], not the Louvre Pyramid. What he merely said was he didn't think he made a wrong choice in designing the glass pyramid. And there were quite a bit of background info and context in his choice in the wikipedia article.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._M._Pei#/media/File:JFK_libr...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._M._Pei#Le_Grand_Louvre,_Par...

chengiz• 7 years ago

The explanation is fine by itself, however Le Notre did the Versailles gardens and they look good and are in harmony with their surroundings. The Louvre pyramid is ugly and is in disharmony, which defeats the purpose of architecture. The explanation makes it feel like an even bigger failure somehow.

Supermighty• 7 years ago

The scar on the face of Paris.

heyoni• 7 years ago

That’s a laughable statement not shared by many Parisians.

ForrestN2• 7 years ago

These matters of taste are subjective, and the more someone believes in the righteousness of a given aesthetic opinion, the less you should listen to them regarding matters of culture.

Controversy is difficult to quantify. But millions of people cheerfully photograph themselves together with the pyramid each year, which leads me to believe that those who smile seeing this building far outnumber those who scoff and yearn for the "striking beauty" of the brutal, decadent monarchy that built the original Louvre palaces in order to project dominance.

We live after the end of aesthetic teleology. There is no more objectively defensible aesthetic criteria. There is only a morass of yawning subjectivity, and hopefully a critical perspective regarding the ways and reasons that power utilizes the sort of rhetoric you perform here.

tlb• 7 years ago

There is no more objectively defensible aesthetic criteria

Oh, come now. There are lots of designs everyone would agree are objectively ugly. But they rarely get built these days. So if it seems like everything is subjective, it's because everything we see has passed the not-objectively-ugly filter.

mc32• 7 years ago

With just about anything, with time you get used to it: be it eyesore, noise pollution, bad relationship. You let it be, after a while. With regards to photos, it’s neither here nor there. People will take photos of anything. If it were a big pile of cow dung in the middle there, people would still photograph it.

I’m indifferent to it, personally. De mortis nil nisi bonum.

gumby• 7 years ago

The louvre was not built in one go, but continually augmented and remodeled over the last 900 years or so. To me the pyramid is just another step in the process.

bubblewrap• 7 years ago

It's very recognizable. Whenever I see a picture of it, I know it is the Louvre in Paris. I doubt I would recognize the other buildings.

Looking at Google image search for "Paris", my suspicion is confirmed that the pyramid is almost the second most recognizable building in Paris now.

Merely imitating the old style of the surrounding buildings would have been phony, in my opinion.

callumprentice• 7 years ago

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Bank-of-...

After moving to Hong Kong, I lived near the Bank of China Tower and I would see it every day. I never failed to be awed by the striking design until the day I left. It always felt like it, and the HSBC building close by were competing for wow factor.

yla92• 7 years ago

RIP legend. You literally put your mark on this world! One of the building he designed in Singapore is "The Gateway"[0]. Every time I am around the area, I can't help but be in awe.

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateway_(Singapore)

I.M. Pei has died

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