Although Ioh Ming Pei, aka IM Pei, lived for more than a century, building a distinguished global practice, a major retrospective of his work was long overdue. Curated by Eric Chen and Shirley Surya, the exhibition is more than seven years in the making, opening in 2024 at Hong Kong’s M+ Museum. Before his death in 2019, Pei had rejected the idea of a retrospective for years.
In October, the exhibition traveled to Doha where it extended across two venues until February. IM Pei: life in architecture While, displays his professional journey at Al Riwaq Gallery IM Pei and the Building of the Museum of Islamic Art: From the Square to the Octagon and from the Octagon to the Circle A more personal tribute is at the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA), which Pei designed at the end of his long career. It contains 400 objects, including never-before-seen drawings, models, photographs, films and archival material.
IM Pei: life in architecture His professional journey is displayed at Al Riwaq Gallery, Doha. , Photo Credit: Image Courtesy Qatar Museums
IM Pei: life in architecture Show at Al Riwaq Gallery, Doha. , Photo Credit: Image courtesy of Qatar Museums
Model for the Louvre Pyramid IM Pei: life in architecture show. , Photo Credit: Image courtesy of Qatar Museums
Organized into six sections, the exhibition is a demanding and focused overview of drawings, maquettes, videos and sculptural reproductions of some of his outstanding designs. In films and videos, Pei acknowledged the influence of Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, although he softened the harsh influence of Brutalist architecture. Presented like a giant, austere drawing board, the exhibition reveals the depth of his practice, from public housing to grand projects such as the Louvre Pyramid and the MIA.
but one task IM Pei: life in architecture Show at Al Riwaq Gallery. , Photo Credit: Image courtesy of Qatar Museums
IM Pei: life in architecture show. , Photo Credit: Image courtesy of Qatar Museums
mix of different styles
The geographical areas in which he worked were so far-ranging and culturally diverse that Pei’s practice can be best understood through the maquettes and photographs of his rich and often controversial career. Coming from an artistic family with roots dating back to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Pei was attracted to Shanghai’s classical Chinese gardens and Shikumen architecture, which blended Chinese and Western characteristics. At the age of 17, he went to the University of Pennsylvania, and his bamboo work displayed at Harvard shows how he was thinking about enhancing modernist architecture in China.
China closed its borders between 1949 and the 1970s, and Pei formed his own company to enter the building boom in America, then dominated by architectural giants including Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, and Louis Kahn. Pei received several museum commissions early on. Models displayed include the Emerson Museum (1961–68) with galleries in four cubes around a central atrium, the Johnson Museum at Cornell, the Des Moines Art Center, and the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington with its challenging triangular design—all airy, friendly civic spaces.
a cruel world
Despite his great success, the global fraternity of architects was not always kind to Pei and this may have contributed to the lack of research on his practice. Their dramatic effects with sharp angles, touches of sci-fi world building and designs that were considered overly cool or different were criticized when they were first released. Many of his most innovative projects have been ‘paper architecture’: from a museum in Athens based on a Greek Orthodox church to an unbuilt Polaroid Tower. That Pei was fearless is reflected in his design for America’s Dallas Civic Center, with its sharp angular wedges, inverted pyramid shape and sci-fi brutalist design, which is shown in the film. robocop (1987).
Portrait of IM Pei, from 1976. , Photo credit: Irving Penn, Vogue © Condé Nast
Born in Guangzhou, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect worked closely with artists and integrated the works of Henry Moore and Alexander Calder into his designs. Particularly interesting is the transition that Pei had to make from designing museums and public installations in America to working in China, notably his extremely sharp, edgy designs for the Bank of China. In a 1970 photo, a Chinese official in a Mao suit curiously examines his model of the Fragrant Hill Hotel, built on a former imperial hunting ground. Pei decided not to build a tower in the ancient Forbidden City, choosing a modernist building instead. He described it as his most difficult project. The building’s unconventional mix of styles is considered to have influenced generations of Chinese architects, and also led to Pei’s spectacularly successful Suzhou Museum (2006).
proximity to power
Famously patronized by Jackie Kennedy Onassis, who gave him the out-of-turn commission to design the Kennedy Memorial Library, Pei was extremely prolific and attracted the envy of his contemporaries. François Mitterrand chose him to renovate the entrance of the Louvre. When he first presented the pyramid-like design, le monde The newspaper mocked his design, calling it a “home for the dead.” Undaunted, Pei made fun of it in strings, and was photographed with a fist pump in French newspapers.
Im Pei (center) with former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and guests at the opening of the Fragrant Hill Hotel in 1982. Photo credit: © Liu Heung Shing
His proximity to power is evident from his selection for MIA by the Emir of Qatar. Still, Pei was not a winning architect. Fresh from his controversial and highly acclaimed design of the Louvre Pyramid (1989), Pei was selected for the Doha project ahead of front runners such as India’s architect and urban planner, Charles Correa.
meditation on mosque
Coming out of retirement to accept MIA’s commission (completed in 2008), Pei insisted on a water body around the structure. Admitting his ignorance about Islamic design, he traveled extensively to cultural sites such as Damascus, Spain, Tunisia and the Great Mosque at Fatehpur Sikri to understand the essence of Islamic architecture. It was Ibn Tulun’s ninth-century mosque in Cairo, built on a square, an octagon and a circle for its central dome, that was a symbol for his outstanding building. As we approach the gleaming white building with staircases lined with flowing water, the Mughal Gardens of Kashmir and the Alhambra Palace of Spain come to mind.
The Museum of Islamic Architecture of Doha, the first mega-museum in the Gulf, is an embodiment of local Arab identity in the neo-classical style. , Photo Credit: Getty Images
Biographical material on Pei is on display at the Museum of Islamic Art. , Photo Credit: Chrysovalantis Lamprianidis
It is a breathtaking experience to see Pei’s biographical material on the upper floor of the MIA and then the wonders of the Islamic world on the lower vault-like level. The entire space is dedicated to art treasures, including rare Persian paintings, the 19th-century Damascus Room, and Safavid, Iranian and Ottoman pieces in glass, ceramics and textiles. Indian viewers will be particularly attracted to the display of wedding jewelery from the former royals of Bharatpur, Patiala and Jaipur, which is dazzling and decadent. While the Government of India took steps to stop the export of the crown jewels of Hyderabad, these extraordinary pieces of superb craftsmanship have now found another resting place.
Portrait of Shirley Surya, curator, ‘Design and Architecture’, M+, Hong Kong, and co-curator of ‘IM Pei: Life is Architecture’, Qatar. , Photo credit: Winnie Yeung @ Visual Voice/Image courtesy M+, Hong Kong
Portrait of Eric Chen, Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, London and co-curator of ‘IM Pei: Life is Architecture’. , Photo Credit: Mark Cocksedge
The exhibitions will be on view at Al Riwaq Gallery and Museum of Islamic Art, Doha until February 14, 2026.
Art critic and curator based in New Delhi.
published – December 12, 2025 02:17 am IST