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Modernism's elder statesman looks back over 50 years--and forward to finishing new museums on three continents
I.M. Pei's agility with the Modern form has garnered him prestigious commissions for museums and cultural institutions throughout his career, from the East Building of the National Gallery of Art (winner of this year's AIA 25 Year Award, page 172) to an addition and renovation of the centuries-old Louvre to a new wing for temporary exhibitions at the German Historical Museum in Berlin (pictured at left). Although he's been "officially" retired for more than a decade, Pei still has projects on his plate and a twice-a-week-at-the-office habit. Shortly after the AIA Accent on Architecture dinner on March 3 in Washington, D.C., editor in chief Robert Ivy visited Pei at his office in Lower Manhattan, where they discussed the evolution of Pei's design thinking, the importance of working abroad, and his current slate of projects.
AR: You say you have retired, but you continue to be involved in projects. What are you working on right now?
IMP: I haven't taken any new projects in the past three years--I told myself, if I cannot live long enough to finish it, I don't want it. So I have three projects now. The first one is the Musee d'Arte Moderne in Luxembourg, which is under construction right now. The museum will be located on top of an old, old fortress, Fort Tungen, which the Austrians built in the 1800s. The client is the State of Luxembourg. I accepted the commission for the project in 1990 or 1991, after I retired, but it began only six months ago--it was stopped altogether five or six years for various reasons. The second project is a museum in my hometown of Suzhou, China. And I am also designing the Museum of Islamic Art in the Middle East, in Qatar.
AR: So do these projects involve design work, or development work and decisions about construction?
IMP: It's a little bit of each. I just completed the design for the museum in Qatar, which I accepted about two and a half years ago. It's now under construction, but that's an exceptional one, because usually it takes longer than that. I'm doing most of the work on the Suzhou...