   ieoh ming pei (born april 26, 1917), commonly known as i.&nbsp;m. pei, is a chinese-born american architect often called the master of modern architecture. in 1948 mr. pei was recruited by new york real estate magnate william zeckendorf. there he spent seven years before establishing his own independent design firm i. m. pei & associates in 1955 which became i.m. pei & partners in 1966 and later in 1989 became pei cobb freed & partners. mr. pei retired from full-time practice in 1990. since then, he has taken on work as an architectural consultant primarily from his sons' architectural firm pei partnership architects. among the early projects on which pei took the lead were the l'enfant plaza hotel in washington, dc and the green building at mit. his first major recognition came with the national center for atmospheric research in colorado; his new stature led to his selection as chief architect for the john f. kennedy library in massachusetts. he went on to design dallas city hall and the east building of the national gallery of art. he returned to china for the first time in 1975 to design a hotel at fragrant hills, and designed bank of china tower, hong kong,a skyscraper in hong kong for the bank of china fifteen years later. in the early 1980s, pei was the focus of controversy when he designed a glass-and-steel pyramid for the musÃ©e du louvre in paris. he later returned to the world of the arts by designing the morton h. meyerson symphony center in dallas, the miho museum in japan, the suzhou museum in suzhou, and the [[museum of islamic
1917_births Alumni_of_St._Paul\'s_College,_Hong_Kong American_architects American_people_of_Chinese_descent Chinese_emigrants_to_the_United_States Harvard_University_alumni I._M._Pei_buildings Living_people Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology_alumni Members_of_Committee_of_100 Members_of_the_American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Letters Modernist_architects National_Design_Award_winners People_from_Katonah,_New_York People_from_Suzhou Presidential_Medal_of_Freedom_recipients Pritzker_Architecture_Prize_winners Recipients_of_the_Praemium_Imperiale Recipients_of_the_Royal_Gold_Medal Skyscraper_architects United_States_National_Medal_of_Arts_recipients