INTRODUCTION TO ARCHITECTURE
IEOH MING PEI
Ankita Diwan (12AR10006) Abhishek Chauhan (12AR10001)
INDEX
Acknowledgement Certificate Introduction Education and early years Influences and Design Philosophy Major works:
The Louvre Pyramid Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of fame Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center The National Gallery of Art’s East Building The Bank of China Tower
Bibliography
Acknowledgement We would like to acknowledge and extend our heartfelt gratitude to the following persons who have made the completion of this project possible: Our professor, Dr. Jaydip Barman for his encouragement and support, all department faculty members and staff members. Also heartfelt thanks to our friends And to God who is always there for us‌
Certificate
This is to certify that this is a bonafied work done by Abhishek Chauhan, Roll no.-12AR10001 Ankita Diwan, Roll no.-12AR10006 Under my supervision and guidance in the Introduction to Architecture class.
Dr. Jaydip Barman Professor Dept. Of Architecture and Regional Planning Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
INTRODUCTION
Ieoh Ming Pei, commonly known as I. M. Pei, is a Chinese American architect. He is one of the most important living modern architects, defining the landscapes of some of the world’s greatest cities. A monumental figure in his field and a laureate of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, Pei is the senior statesman of modernism and last surviving link to such great early architects as Le Corbusier, Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe. Born in Canton, China and raised in Hong Kong and Shanghai, Pei drew inspiration at an early age from the gardens at Suzhou.
Pei spent ten years working with New York real estate magnate William Zeckendorf before establishing his own independent design firm that eventually became Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. 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 Centre 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. Pei has won a wide variety of prizes and awards in the field of architecture, including the AIA Gold Medal in 1979, the first Praemium Imperiale for Architecture in 1989, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in 2003. In 1983, he won the Pritzker Prize, sometimes called the Nobel Prize of architecture.
Education and early years Ieoh Ming Pei was born on April 26, 1917 to Tsuyee Pei and Lien Kwun. At the age of ten, Pei moved with his family to Shanghai after his father was promoted. Pei attended Saint Johns Middle School, run by Protestant missionaries. Academic discipline was rigorous; students were allowed only one half-day each month for leisure. Pei decided to study at an overseas university. He was accepted to a number of schools, but decided to enroll at the University of Pennsylvania. Pei was inspired by the innovative designs of the new International style, characterized by simplified form and the use of glass and steel materials. He decided to abandon architecture and transferred to the engineering program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Once he arrived, however, the dean of the architecture school commented on his eye for design and convinced Pei to return to his original major.
Pei received his Bachelors of Architecture degree in 1940. He worked for two years at the Boston engineering firm of Stone & Webster. He joined the Harvard's Graduate School of Design (GSD in December 1942. Less than a month later, Pei suspended his work at Harvard to join the National Defense Research Committee, which coordinated scientific research into US weapons technology during World War II. Pei returned to Harvard in the autumn of 1945, and received a position as assistant professor of design. One of Pei's design projects at the GSD was a plan for an art museum in Shanghai. The design was based on straight modernist structures, organized around a central courtyard garden, with other similar natural settings arranged nearby. Pei received his master's degree in 1946, and taught at Harvard for another two years.
Influences and Design Philosophy In college, Pei found himself uninspired by the work of MIT's architecture faculty were focused on the Beaux-Arts school. In the library he found three books by the Swiss-French architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known as Le Corbusier. Pei was inspired by the innovative designs of the new International style, characterized by simplified form and the use of glass and steel materials. Le Corbusier visited MIT in November 1935, an occasion which powerfully affected Pei: "The two days with Le Corbusier, or 'Corbu' as we used to call him, were probably the most important days in my architectural education." Pei was also influenced by the work of US architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1938 he drove to Spring Green, Wisconsin, to visit Wright's famous Taliesin building. After waiting for two hours, however, he left without meeting Wright. Pei's style is described as thoroughly modernist, with significant cubist themes. He is known for combining traditional architectural elements with progressive designs based on simple geometric patterns. As one critic writes: "Pei has been aptly described as combining a classical sense of form with a contemporary mastery of method." In 2000, biographer Carter Wiseman called Pei "the most distinguished member of his LateModernist generation still in practice". At the same time, Pei himself rejects simple dichotomies of architectural trends. He once said: "The talk about modernism versus post-modernism is unimportant. It's a side issue. An individual building, the style in which it is going to be designed and built, is not that important. The important thing, really, is the community. How does it affect life?"
MAJOR WORKS The Louvre Pyramid
Location: Paris France Date :1989 Building Type: art museum entrance Construction System: glass and steel rods and cable Style: Modern This important form is symbolic. I.M. Pei integrates the Ancient Egyptian peak, apex, or pyramid into many of his designs, the most famous of which is the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. The Grand Entrance to the Louvre Museum was constructed from 1983-1989. On the site of the historic palace of the French
monarchy, the Louvre collection includes arguably the greatest art collection in the world. I. M. Pei utilized the original palace architecture as a strong backdrop to his post- modern addition featuring a grand glass pyramid. The need for additional storage space, gift shops and a more identifiable entrance to the century old museum was the reason for the addition to the building. The glass pyramid for the Louvre was suggested in order to combine contemporary architecture with art history. The use of the pyramid allows visitors to reflect back upon the mysteries of fine art as evident in the Pyramids at Giza in Ancient Egypt. This selection further emphasizes one of the most controversial forms of the 20th century. For the architect, the form seemed a strong choice for the entrance to the Louvre. As a reference to the angularity of Picasso's cubist compositions, the innovations in art education from the Bauhaus, and the revolutionary progress made in the 20th century in art and architecture made the choice of the pyramid an obvious one. In this design, I. M. Pei acknowledged the importance of the basic forms all the way
back to the ancient times. M. Pei believed that every century should have an prominent symbol within the Louvre as every century is represented in the museum's encyclopaedic art collection. The glass pyramid suggests both history and modernism simultaneously for I. M. Pei.
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame
From the Louvre project, I. M. Pei was encouraged by his children and others to design one of the most popular museums in the United States. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio was constructed from 1993-1995. This museum, like many of I. M. Pei's buildings in the International Style similar to the architecture of Philip Johnson, was designed using a great deal of glass and many of modern architecture's most ingenious materials and forms. This structure takes into account many important aspects of post-modern architecture including a regionalist sensibility, the use of modern materials, and shows a
consideration for the context and collections held within the building. I. M. Pei employed the forms of popular shopping mall architecture into this museum. As the shopping mall impacted architectural design and cultural socializing in the late 20th century, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame borrows many of the mall's most prominent features such as the large walkways and escalators. He designed a prominent first floor, entry-level museum store for the consumer society. The museum's strategically located ticket and information desk allows crowds to move from the front doors to the all important escalators upon which visitors travel from exhibition gallery to gallery effortlessly. The interior collections of memorabilia is immediately referenced from the building's exterior. For instance, the physical form of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame building refers to the symbols of the recording industry. A grand patio and pavilion area accommodates live outdoor, stadium style concerts. At one entrance to the museum, a major exhibition area in the form of a record turntable and spindle serves as a gallery space. Finally, the major framework of the museum is a large pyramidal form in glass. This allows visitors to view other floors as well as the outside of the building while riding escalators between gallery levels. This building is a stunning structure, a marvel of museum architecture, and a major accomplishment for both the architect and the history of architecture.
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center is a concert hall located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas (USA). Ranked one of the world's greatest orchestra halls,[1] it was designed by architect I.M. Pei and acoustician Russell Johnson's Artec Consultants, Inc. and opened in September 1989. The exterior of the large pavilion and lobby is circular and constructed of glass and metal supports to contrast with the solid geometric lines of the actual hall. Architect I. M. Pei has described the structure of the hall's interior as "very conservative". "It is conservative for reasons I no longer accept," he said in 2000. "I feel that the hall doesn't fully represent what I would have liked to do. It was my first one." [2] Because the music performed in the hall was likely to be from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Pei was unwilling to impose modern styles of architecture on the interior. The trustees and acoustic team had decided on the shoebox style before Pei was hired, and he sought to sculpt the exteriors with more innovative designs. "I felt the need to be free," he said. "Therefore, to wrap another form around the shoebox, I started to use curvilinear
forms.... It does have some spatial excitement in that space for that reason."
The Meyerson Symphony Center also is home to the 4,535 pipe C.B. Fisk Opus 100 organ, known as the Lay Family Concert Organ. While it had been Charles Fisk's dream to build a monumental concert organ (the firm unsuccessfully bid on the contract for San Francisco's Davies Hall), and despite years of planning and design, he never lived to see it built, dying in 1983. The resulting instrument, nearly unanimously hailed as a musical triumph, while building on some of his ideas, was quite different from his original designs.
The National Gallery of Art’s East Building
The National Gallery of Art's East Building, opened to the public on June 1, 1978.On July 9, 1968, the trustees of the National Gallery selected Pei to design a building to provide additional space for the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions, as well as a new center for research in the history of art. The building was to be constructed on the plot of land directly east of the West Building that Congress had reserved for the museum at its establishment in 1937. The architect faced several challenges. The new building had to fit an irregularly shaped, trapezoidal site; conform to the monumental scale of the Mall; and harmonize with John Russell Pope's classicizing West Building, completed in 1941. During the laborious design process, Pei and a small team of young architects explored many creative possibilities for the building's plan, exterior profile, and roofing of the great atrium.
Concept In a moment of insight, I. M. Pei solved the problem of the site's irregular shape by dividing it into an isosceles triangle and a smaller right triangle. He later recalled, "I sketched a trapezoid on the back of an envelope. I drew a diagonal line across the trapezoid and produced two triangles. That was the beginning."
The early sketch, at left, shows the division of the site into two triangles. The West Building is represented by the lines to the left of the drawing, with the arrow suggesting its strong east-west axis. In the quick study of the urban context for the building, below, Pei showed the profile and proportions of the East Building in relationship to the West Building and the U. S. Capitol. Exploration During the fall of 1968 and winter of 1969, Pei and his design team explored the underlying geometry governing the structure of the new building. Many of their ideas are recorded in quick working studies, some relating closely to Pei's initial plan based on two triangles and others testing alternative possibilities. Each study may reflect only brief discussion, but taken together they provide insight into the design process.
This drawing shows the theoretical point at which the lines formed by the Pennsylvania Avenue and Mall sides of the site would converge, and the relationship of the building's footprint to this larger shape. The small surrounding drawings explore other geometrical plans and a possible raised skylight structure for the building. In this sketch the architects are studying the interior geometry of the isosceles triangle and considering how to accommodate circulation between floors. An alternative design for the building's Fourth Street facade and various roof treatments appear in the surrounding drawings. This design explores the possibility of occupying the entire site by adding, at the east end, an additional module to Pei's initial conception. The result emphasizes parallel lines instead of triangles.
Imaginative Studies Even before Pei and his team had determined the final ground plan for the new structure, they were exploring other aspects of the design. In quick sketches, they studied a variety of ideas for the building's facades and examined ways to bring light into the museum to enliven its interior and illuminate works of art.
The design of lively and interesting facades for the Mall and Third Street was an important concern of the architects. The three studies above explore variations on a possible treatment of these facades. The East Building is the only structure on the Mall without a public entrance facing in that direction. The drawing at lower left is for a design that would allow light to penetrate the interior of the building through skylights at several levels. The drawing at lower right shows a plan close to the final design of the Fourth Street facade, but with a horizontal band of windows above the entrance. The architects' discussions are reflected in notes on the drawings.
Final Form Pei's rare drawings are typically little more than quick scribbles to communicate his ideas in meetings or conversations. He observed that he would "put ideas in the head and eliminate them in the head....Drawing is not fast enough, for me anyway."
I. M. Pei. Working sketch for building plan, National Gallery of Art East Building, winter 1969. Pen and graphite on tracing paper Early in 1969, Pei's design was refined and elaborated to near-final form. The two triangles of the architect's original conception were pulled apart to create a slot that would emphasize the separateness of the two spaces: one for the museum's public functions and the other for its study center. Three towers were beginning to emerge at the corners of the isosceles triangle, balancing the east-west axis of the West Building. The Scale Model This model was made to show how the museum would appear after the East Building was completed. In its first version, shown in the photograph at lower left, the building's Third Street and Mall facades had deeply recessed windows that created a grillelike pattern. Later, these facades were completely revised. In the final version, shown in the model and in the photograph at lower right, the Third Street facade became a sleek plane articulated by bold horizontal bands of marble. The Mall facade was transformed into a window wall, partially angled back to reflect the building's geometry and broken by a tall window to illuminate the library within.
Pei's original plan for the plaza between the East and West Buildings included a circular pool, an echo of the grand rotunda of the original building. Eventually this plan was replaced by scattered skylights ("crystals") and a waterfall to add light and motion to the concourse linking the two buildings underground. The Atrium Concrete Coffers In November 1970, with ground breaking only months away, Pei and his team turned their attention to the vexing question of the roof for the central atrium. To help the designers envision the appearance of the interior space, Pei called on artist/architect Paul Stevenson Oles to make perspective drawings that also depicted the textures of the building materials and the effects of light in the space. The first idea for the atrium called for a coffered concrete ceiling (the underside of a high upper floor) over the enormous expanse. In drawings Oles made to test this concept, the ceiling seems to overpower the interior, creating what the architects feared would be a "barnlike" atmosphere. This discovery led to a major rethinking of the atrium design. In the study at left, a high upper floor covers much of the atrium. Paul Stevenson Oles.Perspective study for space frame,National Gallery of Art East Building.
Skylights By January of 1971, Pei had agreed that instead of a concrete ceiling a skylight system should be designed, which would open the atrium to natural light. The tops of the towers at the three corners of the triangular atrium would be visible through the glass to help orient visitors. Here the effect of the high skylight system in the atrium can be seen, dwarfing trees, visitors, and potentially works of art.
This drawing was prepared within a week of the one above. It introduces a concrete bridge, seen in the upper foreground, to help bring human scale to the enormous space. The architects still were dissatisfied with the result.
The concept of an open interior court was an important breakthrough, yet Oles' drawings again revealed problems in the design. The drawings showed that the high skylights with their small panes of glass would be out of proportion to the grand atrium space. The architects also feared that the many small metal pieces of the skylight frame would read as a heavy cobweb, distracting attention from the essential geometry of the space. Space Frame In the end, the architects turned to the building's triangular geometry for their solution: a sculptural structure composed of steel-framed
modules. The base of each module forms an isosceles triangle, the sides of which have the same 2:3 ratio found in the building. This was the first workable plan for the space-frame system, the steel and glass structure spanning the atrium. The space frame is composed of larger threedimensional modules resting at a lower level than the skylights. In the final design for the space frame, tubular aluminum bars were placed against the glass panels to reduce glare in the atrium without diminishing the play of light in the space. The atrium as built appears remarkably similar to this rendering, completed in June 1971.
Technology The study to the left shows a design for one of the nodes that supports the space frame and locks the beams into place. As built, each of the space-frame tetrahedrons measures 30 feet by 45 feet. The proportions of the entire span of the atrium are in the same 2:3 ratio: 225 feet on two sides by 150 feet on the other.
When the architects conceived the atrium space frame spanning 16,000 square feet, no similar structure had been successfully built on such a scale. The framework consists of enormous five-ton nodes of cast steel welded in place to beams of rolled steel at very high temperature. Craftsmen contributed enormously to the project's success, ultimately earning twenty-three awards for their work.
East Building of the National Gallery of Art shortly after it opened in June 1978. The space-frame structure is visible above the main entrance.
The Bank of China Tower The Bank of China Tower (abbreviated BOC Tower) is one of the most recognisable skyscrapers in Admiralty, Hong Kong. It houses the headquarters for the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited. The building is located at 1 Garden Road, in Central and Western District on Hong Kong Island. Designed by Pritzker Prizewinning architect I. M. Pei, the building is 315.0 m (1,033.5 ft) high with two masts reaching 367.4 m (1,205.4 ft) high. The 72-storey building is located near Central MTR station. This was the tallest building in Hong Kong and Asia from 1990 to 1992, the first building outside the United States to break the 305 m (1,000 ft) mark, and the first composite space frame high-rise building. That also means it was the tallest outside the United States from its completion year, 1990. It is now the fourth tallest skyscraper in Hong Kong, after International Commerce Centre, Two International Finance Centre and Central Plaza. The building consists of four triangular towers of glass and aluminum, all of varying heights, emerging from a triumphal podium of beautiful granite. Geometric changes that occur as the building rises into the sky are the most intriguing aspect of the tower. The sharp angles and points of interest make an appearance - a contrast with flat architecture that dominates the city - silver reflective glass used in the tower creates items that reflect the light on sunny days and at night, when Hong Kong is radiant with all kinds of artificial light.
Situation The Tower is located at No. 1 Garden Road, in the Western district of Hong Kong, PRC. Concept Graceful, concise and structurally expressive.Its triangular structure of glass and aluminum evokes shoots of bamboo leaves, which represent prosperity in China and the sustenance of life.
Techniques of Feng Shui In many parts of Asia, the layout of cities and building design follows the concepts of Feng Shui. In this sense, Hong Kong is known as the city with the most Feng Shui, not in vain, the vast majority of the masters of this technique migrated here from Communist China. Proof of this is that at present, to apply for a building permit in this city, it is necessary to submit a draft signed by a Feng Shui Master. The Bank of China Tower is considered the "most aggressive [building] in the world" in terms of Feng Shui, as the edges of the triangles at the front point to its competitors. This is what the Chinese call, in language Feng Shui, "direct attack". While its distinctive look makes it one of Hong Kong's most identifiable landmarks today, it was the source of some controversy at
one time, as the bank is the only major building in Hong Kong to have bypassed the convention of consulting with feng shui masters on matters of design prior to construction. The building has been criticised by some practitioners of feng shui for its sharp edges and its negative symbolism by the numerous 'X' shapes in its original design, though Pei modified the design to some degree before construction following this feedback. The building's profile from some angles resembles that of a meat cleaver. In Feng Shui, this is described as a cleaver building and it is not difficult to observe that it is facing theHSBC Hong Kong headquarters building in this guise. Spaces A small observation deck on the 43rd floor is open to the public continuously, but to gain access to the observation deck found on the floor 70, it is necessary to have made a reservation. The sloping terraces allow a more natural lighting and therefore require less energy for artificial lighting. The interior has provisions for flexible spaces and offices of the Bank.
Structure The Tower is composed of four towers of triangular shape that evoke the bamboo leaves, Chinese symbol of prosperity and livelihood. The whole structure is supported by five steel columns, four in the corners of the building and one in the center, which together bear the weight and forces.
The towers are lifted to different heights and the loads of the central column are directed to those found in the corners, forming a triangular frame. This allows the architect to design a lighter structure, because the diagonal elements required are less important, while the threedimensional internal structure provides a clear floor that allows for future changes in the disposition of their use, thus saving energy and resources. Materials The main structural elements are the vertical and horizontal steel members. Reinforced concrete also plays a role. The entire building is covered with silver-blue reflective glass framed in aluminum. Such a skin not only reflects the changing images of the sky and the city, but it also absorbs sunlight so that energy consumption for lighting and heating costs are reduced. The base of the four towers is granite.
Bibliography
www.wikipedia.com www.architect.architecture.sk www.greatbuildings.com www.nga.gov