The Quiet Master

IM Pei wasn’t just an architect—he was architecture embodied. When the Chinese-American icon died on May 16, 2019 at the extraordinary age of 102, he left behind one of the world’s most important and impressive collections of buildings. His career spanned the better part of a century, riding the wave of Modernism without plunging into the depths of iconoclasm or egotism, absorbing influences as disparate as Chinese gardens, Anasazi cliff dwellings, and Middle Eastern mosques to create structures that are as understated as they are impactful.

“The best of his creations look at once audacious and inevitable,” wrote architecture critic Justin Davidson. Whether they are found