The story of I.M.Pei as an architect was a story of a man who known to public as an elegant, charming, thoroughly diplomatic individual, and has a gift with the powerful. As his fate to be a tribute a lot of important person in history, his story can be associated with a classic fairy tale story about Merlin, King Arthur’s witch as an important advisor. In 1970s, when I.M Pei and number of associates had a working trip to Iran, they were persuaded to seek out a local fortune teller. The fortune teller rapidly impressed them for his correct assessment of Pei : “He is very interested in meeting kings and queens”. People who worked with I.M Pei often mention that he was easily to know within a minutes who the influential person is and which are the key occasions in the room. Other colleagues said he was a sales man architects, he has a gift to negotiate to the clients and know about priorities at the beginning of conversation.
Ieoh Ming Pei which known as I.M.Pei was a son of a prominent banker, he raised in Shanghai and China. Then, at the aged of 17, he went to United states to study architecture in MIT. In 1942, he continued his study under Walter Gropius influence in Harvard Graduate School of Design, and completed his M.Arch in 1946. He became an assistant professor between1945 to 1948. I.M.Pei became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1954. Before established his own firm, he worked to William Zeckendorf whom gave Pei a taste of commercial realities and large scale urban practice. Although I.M.Pei learned at Bauhaus influence with anti-historical, he did not totally embrace the philosophy. And when, the post-modernist counter movement began to stall, he found his aesthetic comfortably. He remains devoted to simple, rigorous, sculptural geometry forms in modernist tradition. Beyond that, he also studies the site with care and seeks how the building to fit into a larger urban or landscape composition. (Wiseman,C 1990)
In the legend of King Arthur in Britain, the king had the help and advice of a powerful wizard named Merlin. Merlin predicted that a young Arthur will become a great king and united all Britain. The wizard fashioned the magical sword excalibur which proved that Arthur was the rightful king. According to the story, he also created the round table around which Arthur’s knight sat. He is the trusted adviser and helper of Arthur’s kingdom, although he could not prevent the fall of Arthur. The architect’s biography has a similar story with Merlin. As if Merlin give a magical sword of excalibur to Arthur, I.M Pei had done his magic in louvre museum project in France for Francois Mitterrand, president of France. The Louvre project was the most important project of I.M Pei. It was commissioned by Emile Biasini, a Mitterrand's right hand on the louvre after he made a strong impression in Pei's East Building on his museums touring in the United States. Before Pei accepted the offering, he asked for four month to study the possibility and problems to alter the louvre. He subsequently made three trips to Paris, staying for a weeks at the hotel Crillon, a short walk from the museum. The architect investigated the history of Louvre, France and given a laissez-passer to go anywhere he wanted in the Louvre. Back in New York, he set a team of architects for this project. The team was Pei's son Didi, Yann Weymouth, Leonard Jacobson. Most of them had worked with him in East Building.
Pei saw the challenges to design this project. Firstly, its position as historical site at the central of Paris which links the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe. Its alteration would have an impact on the heart of the city. Secondly, the Louvre required a lot of additional space to accommodate their collection. Lastly, the issue how to enter the museum as it had u-shaped three wings and Cour Napoleon, the open area between the wings. The solution of this issues was by excavating the Cour Napoleon to get more additional space beneath it and by locating the entrance in the central of the court. Although it could bring visitors close to all three wings, Pei could not dig very deep as the river was so close. The idea of a glass pyramid at the center of the court came after he studied of seventeenth-century classical French’s landscape design. It also accomodate the need of a high transparent roof to avoid subway station effect. The neutral and basic geometric shape of pyramid would not compete and intrude only minimally on the view of the existing buildings. He also added three smaller glasses pyramid above the passageways on each building to orient visitors and bring in light. The main pyramid were 116 feet on side and 71 feet high and the three smaller pyramids were 26 feet on side and 16 feet high. Then, he added reflecting pools and fountains surrounding the main pyramid which reclaimed the courtyard as an active urban space.
Finally, Pei invited Biasini to New York to see their final design. After Biasini studied the model, he liked the idea of the design and asked him to present it to the commission Superieure des Monuments Historiques, an advisory group dedicated in matters of Paris landmarks. On January 23, 1984, with confidence that the design would be well received by the French public, Pei and his teams departed to Paris for the presentation. The result was far from their expectation, the committee condemning the project and denounced it as something that was “outside our mental space, gigantic, and ruinous gadget”. Two days after the meeting, many critics responded to the Louvre project, such as a member of French academy wrote that the pyramid would be “an atrocity” and accused Mitterrand of “despotism”, Le Monde headline the story of ‘the house of the dead’ and compared to Pei’s design to ” an annex to Disneyland”, and Le Figaro magazine condemned it as simply “inadmissible”. (Jodidio, P. 2008)
Pei estimated that 90 percent of Parisians opposed his design. He received many angry glances in the streets of Paris and some carried nationalistic overtone that dislike the architect was not French, but a Chinese-American. Although, Pei and his team had a support from Mitterrand, Mitterrand’s socialists had feared would losing power to Chirac, a conservative coalition leader. Soon, they got supported from several key cultural icons, including the conductor Pierre Boulez and Claude Pompidou, widow of Georges Pompidou, former French president. As Chirac asked, Pei built a full-sized cable model of the pyramid in the courtyard to exhibit for French people. Many people were surprised that it was not as large as they feared. The most dramatic part during construction was in the construction and the material of glass pyramids. Finding the suitable clear glass was not that easy as it needs a small amount of iron-oxide. Pei using a clear glass made of pure white sand from a quarry in Fountainebleau, after extensive consultations with French manufactures. In pyramid’s construction, he used a steel spider-web made up of 128 crisscrossing girders secured by 16 thin cables that support the 675 diamond-shaped and 118 triangular panes to minimize any obstructions to the view through the pyramid. Because the exterior was so pristine and the interior surface so difficult to reach, he hired a team of trained mountaineers.
The new Louvre was opened on October 14, 1988 and the pool showed that 56 percent in favor of the pyramid, with only 23 percent against after the opening. The French’s magazines which previously against it become soften and adore the pyramid. Some observer was compared the flip-flop in official opinion with the Eiffel tower and the Britain’s Prince Charles pronounced Pei’s work “marvelous, very exciting”. Once again Mitterrand prevailed at the polls and conferred on Pei the Legion d’Honneur.
Pei as an architect investigates every challenge to his design, and with brave heart, he takes the challenges and try to solve its problems. He takes responsibility to his design and always involved himself in many major as well as minor decisions of the buildings. For the Louvre, he was even more attentive than usual to give his client, Mitterrand a magic of the pyramid, likewise Merlin give Arthur the Excalibur sword and help him to be a trusted and great king of Britain.
Reference List
Jodidio, P. 2008, I.M.Pei : complete works, Publishers Group UK ,New York.
Pei Cobb Freed & Partnerts Architects llp, viewed 20 August 2012.
<http://www.pcf-p.com/>
Wiseman,C 2001, the architecture of I.M.Pei, Thames & Hudson, London.
Wiseman,C 1990, I.M.Pei : a profile in American architecture, H.N. Abrams, New York.
0 comments:
Post a Comment