Editing Modern architecture (section)

===I. M. Pei===
<gallery mode="packed" heights="200px">
File:Green Building, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.JPG|[[Green Building (MIT)|Green Building]] at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] by [[I. M. Pei]] (1962–64)
File:National Center for Atmospheric Research - Boulder, Colorado.jpg|The [[National Center for Atmospheric Research]] in [[Boulder, Colorado]] by I. M. Pei (1963–67)
File:Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell Univ Ithaca NY USA.jpg|[[Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art]] at [[Cornell University]] in [[Ithaca, New York]] by I. M. Pei (1973)
File:National Gallery East Wing by Matthew Bisanz.JPG|East Wing of the [[National Gallery of Art]] in Washington, D.C., by I M. Pei (1978)
File:Louvre Museum Wikimedia Commons.jpg|Pyramid of the [[Louvre Museum]] in Paris by I. M. Pei (1983–89)
</gallery>

[[I. M. Pei]] (1917–2019) was a major figure in late modernism and the debut of [[Post-modern architecture]]. He was born in China and educated in the United States, studying architecture at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]. While the architecture school there still trained in the [[Beaux-Arts architecture]] style, Pei discovered the writings of [[Le Corbusier]], and a two-day visit by Le Corbusier to the campus in 1935 had a major impact on Pei's ideas of architecture. In the late 1930s, he moved to the [[Harvard Graduate School of Design]], where he studied with [[Walter Gropius]] and [[Marcel Breuer]] and became deeply involved in Modernism.{{Sfn|Boehm|2000|page=36}} After the war he worked on large projects for the New York real estate developer [[William Zeckendorf]], before breaking away and starting his own firm. One of the first buildings his own firm designed was the [[Green Building (MIT)|Green Building]] at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While the clean modernist façade was admired, the building developed an unexpected problem; it created a wind tunnel effect, and in strong winds the doors could not be opened. Pei was forced to construct a tunnel so visitors could enter the building during high winds.

Between 1963 and 1967 Pei designed the [[Mesa Laboratory]] for the [[National Center for Atmospheric Research]] outside [[Boulder, Colorado]], in an open area at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The project differed from Pei's earlier urban work; it would rest in an open area in the foothills of the [[Rocky Mountains]]. His design was a striking departure from traditional modernism; it looked as if it were carved out of the side of the mountain.{{Sfn|Boehm|2000|page=59}}

In the late modernist area, art museums bypassed skyscrapers as the most prestigious architectural projects; they offered greater possibilities for innovation in form and more visibility. Pei established himself with his design for the [[Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art]] at [[Cornell University]] in [[Ithaca, New York]] (1973), which was praised for its imaginative use of a small space, and its respect for the landscape and other buildings around it. This led to the commission for one of the most important museum projects of the period, the new East Wing of the [[National Gallery of Art]] in Washington, completed in 1978, and to another of Pei's most famous projects, the pyramid at the entrance of [[Louvre Museum]] in Paris (1983–89). Pei chose the pyramid as the form that best harmonized with the Renaissance and neoclassical forms of the historic Louvre, as well as for its associations with Napoleon and the [[Battle of the Pyramids]]. Each face of the pyramid is supported by 128 beams of stainless steel, supporting 675 panels of glass, each {{convert|2.9|by|1.9|m|sp=us}}.{{Sfn|Bony|2012|page=210}}