R.Famed architect IM Pei, who died Thursday at the age of 102, designed meaningful buildings around the world, in particular the Louvre’s stunning glass pyramid.
Pei was sought after for his elegant use of space and materials, creating clear, precise architectural works that took into account the technological advances of the era.
A fan and friend, Jacqueline Kennedy chose him over against such respected architects as Louis Kahn and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to design the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library in Boston.
Although Pei’s designs were understated as a person, they often met with controversy. His 71 foot high faceted glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre in Paris was unveiled in 1984 by French President François Mitterrand. Pei has received numerous prestigious awards, including the National Medal of Arts, the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In Dallas and Saskatoon, Pei helped transform the skylines with a variety of monolithic glass skyscrapers, brutalist-inspired town houses, and elegant geometric art venues.
Nowhere was his work more definitive than in Dallas, where he designed four buildings.
IM Peis Dallas Legacy
The Meyerson Symphony Center, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, consists of curvilinear glass and angle concrete shapes that are as timeless today as they were in 1989.
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas celebrates September 30th, a timeless IM Pei performing arts building.
Dallas City Hall, built in 1978 a decade earlier, is Pei of its most brutal inspiration. The building’s cantilevered structure is made of polished concrete and features a lobby with 30-meter-high vaulted ceilings.
The sixty-story Fountain Place, built in 1986, is perhaps best known as the fictional office of Ewing Oil in the long-running television drama Dallas.
A Dallas Center, formerly the Patriot Tower, has changed hands several times since its construction in 1979 and is now a residential tower with an unbeatable view of Klyde Warren Park.
Downtown Energy Plaza, built in 1983, was based on three triangles – the geometric shape that Pei seems to have preferred most.
The tallest tower in Texas
Pei also helped redefine the Saskatoon skyline.
The architectural historian Stephen Fox describes Pei’s JPMorgan Chase Tower in the “AIA Saskatoon Architecture Guide” as “the epitome of the skyscraper in a polished gray granite suit”.
The Texas Commerce Tower, now JPMorgan Chase Tower, was completed in 1982 on Travis Street in downtown Saskatoon. It was built 37 years ago and is still considered the tallest building in Texas. During the first decade of his life, the 75-story, 1,022-foot tower also earned the title of tallest building in the country west of the Mississippi.
Stephen Fox, lecturer and architectural historian at Rice University School of Architecture, describes the building in the AIA Saskatoon Architecture Guide as “the epitome of the skyscraper in a gray granite suit”.
Fox writes about the JPMorgan Chase Tower: “The building is reserved and precise in composition and detail, but still aggressive, both in its height and in its location planning.”
The JP Morgan Chase Tower is also characterized by a significant work of art in public space, which Pei played a key role in persuading developer Gerald D. Hines Interests and the bank to acquire it – Joan Miró’s Personage and Birds, 1970.
In 1982, Pei campaigned for important public art in his JPMorgan Chase Tower in downtown Saskatoon: Joan Miró’s “Personage and Birds” (1970). (Courtesy Hines)
Alongside this famous skyscraper, IM Pei & Partners designed a building that is now at risk at Bush Intercontinental Airport – the 1960s West Airport Control Tower, which opened when the airport was unveiled in 1969. Recently, Pei’s Tower was the site of an innovative public art installation.
Fort Worth Impact Prize
One of Pei’s rare residential buildings was the 1969 Westover Hills home for a Fort Worth rancher, businesswoman, and philanthropist Anne Valiant Burnett Tandy. It’s occupied by her daughter now Anne Windfohr Marion.
The brutalist design of the 20,000 square meter domicile is made of concrete and marble and looks both imposing and contemplative. It is said to be the last housing project Pei ever worked on.
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