ARCHITECTURE FOR LIFE
The Retrospective That Traces I M Pei’s Global Legacy

Some architects design buildings. I M Pei designed the twentieth century’s relationship with power, glass, and light. I M Pei: Life is Architecture, the retrospective at Gallery Al Riwwaq, Doha, traces the Chinese-American architect’s seven-decade career, from a young graduate cutting his teeth in real estate in 1940s New York to the man behind the Louvre Pyramid, the Bank of China Tower, and the Museum of Islamic Art itself.

Co-curated by Shirley Surya and Aric Chen, the exhibition unfolds across six sections and 400 objects: drawings, models, films, and photographs charting Pei’s cross-cultural foundations, his civic ambitions, and his enduring fascination with material and form. Fittingly staged on the very island Pei shaped through MIA’s own construction, the show is as much a meditation on architecture as it is a portrait of the man: pragmatic yet insistent, disciplined but never afraid to break the rules.

Read the full feature in ADA-Iconica, Issue 78