Famed architect I.M. Pei dies at 102

I.M. Pei, the world-renowned architect who designed the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris and the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, has died, his family announced Thursday. He was 102.

Born in China, Pei came to the United States in 1935, and after graduating from Harvard, started designing high-rise buildings with William Zeckendorf's New York City firm, Webb & Knapp. He launched his own firm, I.M. Pei & Associates, in 1955, and went on to have a storied international career, designing the John F. Kennedy Library, the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, the Miho Museum in Japan, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

Pei received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered by many to be the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for architecture, in 1983, in addition to several other awards and honors during his career.

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