Biography
1917 |
Born April 26, Canton, China | |
1935 | Leaves for the United States to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after having lived in Hong Kong and Shanghai | |
1940 | Receives a Batchelor of Arts degree from MIT | |
1942 |
Enrolls in the Harvard Graduate School of Design and studies under Walter Gropius. Married Eileen Loo. Thier family eventually included three sons and one daughter | |
1946 | Completed Master of Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design. Simultaneously teaching on the faculty as assistant professor (until 1948) | |
1948 | Formed the partnership of I M Pei & Associates which became I M Pei and Partners in 1966 | |
1951 | Awarded the Wheelwright Travelling Fellowship by Harvard. Traveled extensively in England, Fance, Italy and Greece | |
1954 | Became a naturalized citizen of the United States | |
1961 | Started design for National Center of Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado (completed 1967) | |
1965 | Started design for the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston (completed in 1979) | |
1968 | Started design for the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington (completed 1978) | |
1979 | Received the AIA Gold Medal, the highest architectural honor in the United States | |
1983 | Pei is chosen as the Laureate of the Prizker Architecture Prize, uses the $100,000 award to establish a scholarship fund for Chinese students to study architecture in the United states (with the strict proviso that they return to China to practice their profession) | |
1989 |
Awarded the Praemium Imperiale Prize for Architecture, Japan Art Association, Tokyo |