Famous architect Pei speaks at UCLA

Published: Thursday, April 30, 1998

Thursday, April 30, 1998

ARCHITECTURE: International student center hosts talk on restoration of Louvre

By Marisa Yamane and Christy Lin

Daily Bruin Contributors

If you're going to "Pei" for an architect, you might as well choose one of the world's most famous.

Prominent architect Chien Chung "Didi" Pei presented his recent work on one of the world's most famous museums, the Louvre, on Wednesday at the Tom Bradley International Center (TBIC).

Having worked in many countries, Pei opened his lecture by speaking of the importance of the new Dashew International Student Center (DISC), which sponsored his lecture.

Although the center's purpose is to allow foreigners to learn about American culture, "it's even more important to get Americans to learn about foreign countries," Pei said.

"For me, coming from New York and coming to work in Los Angeles; maybe that's considered another country," Pei joked.

Last year, the UCLA Medical Center announced its decision to have I.M. Pei and Pei Partnership Architects design a new million-square-foot hospital. Didi, which means "little brother" and his younger brother, Li Chung "Sandi" Pei, have taken over their father's firm.

The new hospital will replace the current hospital facility, which sustained considerable structural damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The details of the project will be released in the fall.

Graduating from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in physics and math, Didi Pei thinks back on his college days, saying, "I had a great time. I love being a student. I would say that those of you who are students should really take advantage of that freedom that you have."

In college, Pei played sports, played the clarinet in the orchestra, and loved photography. He liked bicycling and playing squash, a popular game on the East Coast similar to racketball.

Pei reminds students that "studies are not the only thing in life. There are so many things that you can do now very easily that you will have a hard time doing later on in life."

After college, Pei followed in the architectural footsteps of his father, joining his firm in 1971. Some of Didi Pei's projects include the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Bank of China's new headquarters in Beijing.

Pei worked on restructuring the Louvre, which houses the Mona Lisa and is one of France's cultural monuments.

Having an American firm work on an important part of French heritage caused eyebrow-raising within French society.

"It's an international project ... it's also a project where being American and working on such a prestigious project in a country like France posed a lot of interesting problems," Pei explained.

The renovation - which increased exhibition space by nearly 50 percent - included a new main entrance, a public plaza, an underground expansion, the Richelieu Wing conversion, infrastructure and the famed pyramids outside of the museum.

The expansion, ending in 1990, took 10 years and added 1.2 million square feet to the museum.

Didi Pei travels to Los Angeles weekly from his home in New York City to work on this hospital. He likes to spend his free time with his wife, Beatrice, and three children, ages 8, 5 and 5.

Dashew International Student Center

Chien Chung Pei speaks about his career in architecture.