This is the first in a weekly series of AD PRO profiles aimed at calling attention to the important contributions of immigrants to the fields of architecture and design.
Hamilton’s take on immigrants—"we get the job done"—seems to ring particularly true in architecture. From Irish-born Henry Howard, who in the mid-19th century designed the neoclassical buildings that define much of New Orleans, to Walter Gropius, who fled Europe for the U.S. in the mid-20th century, bringing his modernist ideas with him, immigrants have long contributed to American architecture. It’s no less true today. I.M. Pei, who recently turned 100, may be the oldest living immigrant architect; the youngest arrive here every day with portfolios on their thumb drives.
Ieoh Ming Pei was born on April 26, 1917, in Canton (now Guangzhou), China, the second of five children. His father, Tsuyee Pei, a banker, moved the family to Hong Kong when Ieoh Ming was an infant. In Shanghai, the boy was fascinated by the construction of a 25-story hotel. “I couldn’t resist looking into the hole,” Pei once told me during an interivew. “That’s when I decided I wanted to build.”
In 1935, he enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, but he soon transferred to MIT. He intended to return to China after graduating, but with the world at war, his father urged him to stay in the United States. "It was the best advice he ever gave me,” Pei recalled. In 1942, he enrolled at Harvard to study with Walter Gropius, the German-born modernist. But Pei interrupted his studies to volunteer for the National Defense Research Committee in Princeton, New Jersey, where he became a fusing expert. “They figured if you knew how to build buildings, you knew how to destroy them,” he said. “I’d get photos from Germany, and they’d say, ‘This is what your recommendations accomplished.’”
Some thought he was destroying the Louvre when, in 1984, he proposed creating a new entrance to the museum through a 70-foot-high glass pyramid. But Pei prevailed, and the Pyramide du Louvre was completed in 1989 (part of a vast reorganization of the legendary museum). It quickly became a symbol of Paris.
In 1983, Pei won the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honor. He used the $100,000 award to establish a scholarship fund that would help Chinese students attend architecture school in the U.S. before returning to China. The only problem with that plan? As Pei realized belatedly, “They come here and they want to stay."
A longtime observer of the built environment, Fred Bernstein was struck by the number of American architects and designers who were born in other countries. To suggest immigrant architects or designers for future profiles, email fredabernstein@gmail.com.
