Page "I. M. Pei" Paragraph 63

Pei took to the project with vigor, and set to work with two young architects he had recently recruited to the firm, William Pedersen and Yann Weymouth.

Their first obstacle was the unusual shape of the building site, a trapezoid of land at the intersection of Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues.

Inspiration struck Pei in 1968, when he scrawled a rough diagram of two triangles on a scrap of paper.

The larger building would be the public gallery ; the smaller would house offices and archives.

This triangular shape became a singular vision for the architect.

As the date for groundbreaking approached, Pedersen suggested to his boss that a slightly different approach would make construction easier.

Pei simply smiled and said: " No compromises.