
I.M. Pei has died - SREinSF
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/obituaries/im-pei-dead.html
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kasey_junk
I live in a townhome that is attributed to Pei and Harry Weese (most assume
they are mostly a Weese design) and while I love it’s brutalist nature, the
aesthetic is very controversial, you love it or hate it.

But what amazes me is 2 things. First they are very livable. They would be
considered tiny now in the US (sub 900 sq ft originally, with finished
basement 1300), but it never feels cramped. The design and size lead to
extremely efficient resource utilization and minimal maintenance as well.

Second, this place was targeted at middle income families. It was designed to
compete with the suburbs being built at the time. Can you imagine a builder
now paying for innovative design?

In any case I wish more people could live the lifestyle this home allows.

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devy
Do you have pictures of this townhome or care to share the address? I am
curious what they look like.

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kasey_junk
[https://images.app.goo.gl/ou4Twc3XJeNtxZPz6](https://images.app.goo.gl/ou4Twc3XJeNtxZPz6)

Construction photo. There were approximately 9 designs in one of the first
major urban renewal efforts in the country. I live in the smallest.

[https://images.app.goo.gl/SGMBVKMXUYHgUZteA](https://images.app.goo.gl/SGMBVKMXUYHgUZteA)

Model of the biggest.

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josh2600
I.M. Pei's architecture is beautiful, geodesic structure in the best possible
sense. 102 is also a ripe old age (although far be it from me to say what is a
fair time on this earth).

Architecture is wonderful as you get to live on through these incredibly
beautiful buildings. I look at the stuff Zaha Hadid built and I feel like I
can almost see her in the buildings she made. Great architects resonate
through their structures.

RIP.

~~~
mattzito
I mean - SOME of it is beautiful. I have to stare at this building every day:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kips_Bay_Towers](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kips_Bay_Towers)

It’s plain hideous. Sigh.

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spectramax
I rather found it beautiful. Brutalist architecture has its own beauty - to be
honest about materials, unapologetic forms and it’s unwavering stability.
Also, I’ve been to the Dallas City hall and it is such an insane building,
imposing and looming over you as you enter through its facade.

~~~
abvdasker
In particular the interiors of brutalist structures don't get enough
appreciation. Boston City Hall — not done by Pei — stands out in that the
exterior is quite ugly but the interior is utilitarian and soothingly
cavernous.

Unrelatedly, my grandfather lived in one of the Kips Bay Towers during the 70s
when he was working in New York as a graphic designer. I have a soft spot for
them.

~~~
fatnoah
>In particular the interiors of brutalist structures don't get enough
appreciation. Boston City Hall — not done by Pei — stands out in that the
exterior is quite ugly but the interior is utilitarian and soothingly
cavernous.

As a resident of Boston who's had to travel to city hall many times on
Business, I wouldn't call the interior "soothingly cavernous". Perhaps it was
initially and has been modified since, but I find it dark sized to make both
the visitor and the worker insignificant. Most open space is unusable and
appears to have no purpose, but the spaces that are in-use, are somehow
cramped and lifeless.

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khawkins
The Louvre pyramid itself is a beautiful structure and it is certainly a sight
to see.

That being said, its placement in a courtyard surrounded by strikingly
beautiful and unique French Renaissance architecture is a testament to modern
arrogance. It does not complement the theme or contribute to the panorama, but
instead steals the view and obscures the art already there. It was highly
controversial and divided Parisians against each other. Clearly the man had
talent, but it's a little disgusting how proud of where it was placed.

~~~
ForrestN
These matters of taste are subjective, and the more someone believes in the
righteousness of a given aesthetic opinion, the less you should listen to them
regarding matters of culture.

Controversy is difficult to quantify. But millions of people cheerfully
photograph themselves together with the pyramid each year, which leads me to
believe that those who smile seeing this building far outnumber those who
scoff and yearn for the "striking beauty" of the brutal, decadent monarchy
that built the original Louvre palaces in order to project dominance.

We live after the end of aesthetic teleology. There is no more objectively
defensible aesthetic criteria. There is only a morass of yawning subjectivity,
and hopefully a critical perspective regarding the ways and reasons that power
utilizes the sort of rhetoric you perform here.

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tlb
> There is no more objectively defensible aesthetic criteria

Oh, come now. There are lots of designs everyone would agree are objectively
ugly. But they rarely get built these days. So if it seems like everything is
subjective, it's because everything we see has passed the not-objectively-ugly
filter.

~~~
ForrestN
There are entire schools of designers devoted to producing work that
contradicts popular taste, and cultural consensus around design changes super
fast. There is also a huge gap between the taste of elite practitioners and
the general public.

Comme des Garçons is one of the most ubiquitously respected fashion houses,
and the legendary designer who heads it had a show at The Met recently. Here
is a look from their couture runway this year:

[https://images.app.goo.gl/iWJXmpQDg5tQZSUz8](https://images.app.goo.gl/iWJXmpQDg5tQZSUz8)

You could poll 20 HN readers and ask “is this objectively ugly?” And you might
find total consensus. But almost everyone who devotes their life to the field
of fashion design would at least grant that this look is typical of the style
that made Comme so important, and would certainly deny any kind of “objective”
characterization of it as ugly. Many, many brilliant, highly educated people
would say it is beautiful.

There is no fact of the matter. People liking IM Pei’s pyramid doesn’t prove
it’s beautiful any more than people hating certain critically respected
brutalist buildings proves they’re ugly. There are no intrinsically ugly
buildings.

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oceliker
I know him through the buildings he designed at MIT: Buildings 54, 66, and
E15. My favorite fun fact to tell visitors is that building 66 (chemical
engineering) is a perfect 30-60-90 triangle.

~~~
joebergeron
Woah, I had no idea he designed the Green Building. It was always my favorite
architecture on campus (light years better than the Stata Center), much to the
disagreement of my peers.

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intuitionist
The Green Building is quite nice in most ways, but there's also the famous
story about how it was built "on stilts" parallel to the Charles, so because
of the wind coming off the river nobody could open the doors...

The legend about how the nearby Alexander Calder sculpture was placed to block
the wind is apparently untrue, but the revolving doors on the ground level are
very real.

~~~
ghaff
I'm not a fan of Brutalism in general. But there are some pretty good examples
on the MIT campus including the group in east campus. I also rather like the
Stratton Student Center on west campus by Eduardo Catalano. Other examples
like McCormick are not great.

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DoubleCribble
If you want to see the most impressive candidate for an IRL Bond villain HQ, I
nominate Mr. Pei's Miho Museum [0]. The art is pretty good for a private
collection, but the real gem is the building/compound itself. It's incredible.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miho_Museum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miho_Museum)

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yla92
RIP legend. You literally put your mark on this world! One of the building he
designed in Singapore is "The Gateway"[0]. Every time I am around the area, I
can't help but be in awe.

0:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateway_(Singapore)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateway_\(Singapore\))

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callumprentice
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Bank-
of-...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Bank-of-
china_clean-img-sma.jpg)

After moving to Hong Kong, I lived near the Bank of China Tower and I would
see it every day. I never failed to be awed by the striking design until the
day I left. It always felt like it, and the HSBC building close by were
competing for wow factor.

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ei8htyfi5e
Sad. I went to the MIT Media Lab and he designed the building I was in. One of
the absolute most breathtaking buildings I've ever had the pleasure to be part
of. Will miss his work. Hope some new whippersnapper takes the torch.

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based2
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._M._Pei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._M._Pei)

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dluan
For Chinese Americans, I.M. Pei was like Bruce Lee. Someone who almost all
Chinese Americans knew of and admired.

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devy
I got your point, but the analogy is reversed, I.M. Pei became well known way
before Bruce Lee :)

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yingw787
I've gone to the Suzhou Museum in China designed by I.M. Pei, and it's really
nice, recommend a visit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou_Museum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou_Museum)

Seemed like a great guy.

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pcurve
Thanks for the Cornell Johnson museum. Not exactly a good museum design but I
love it.

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spata
Weird when you discover someone you really admire, only because you read their
obit.

