The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity is housed in an 11-story structure originally built for The Christian Science Publishing Society constructed between 1932 and 1934, and the present plaza was constructed in the late 1960s and early 1970s to include a 28 story administration building, a colonnade, and a reflecting pool with fountain, designed by Araldo Cossutta of I. M. Pei and Partners ( now Pei Cobb Freed ).

In the early 1980s, Pei was the focus of controversy when he designed a glass-and-steel pyramid for the Louvre museum in Paris.

Ieoh Ming Pei was born on April 26, 1917 to Tsuyee Pei and Lien Kwun, and the family moved to Hong Kong one year later.

As a boy, Pei was very close to his mother, a devout Buddhist who was recognized for her skills as a flautist.

Pei's ancestors ' success meant that the family lived in the upper echelons of society, but Pei said his father was " not cultivated in the ways of the arts ".

At the age of ten, Pei moved with his family to Shanghai after his father was promoted.

As a pain reliever, she was prescribed opium, and assigned the task of preparing her pipe to Pei.

Pei was fascinated by the representations of college life in the films of Bing Crosby, which differed tremendously from the academic atmosphere in China.

Pei was more intrigued by modern architecture, and also felt intimidated by the high level of drafting proficiency shown by other students.

MIT's architecture faculty was also focused on the Beaux-Arts school, and Pei found himself uninspired by the work.

Pei was inspired by the innovative designs of the new International style, characterized by simplified form and the use of glass and steel materials.

" Pei was also influenced by the work of US architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

She enrolled in the landscape architecture program at Harvard University, and Pei was thus introduced to members of the faculty at Harvard's Graduate School of Design ( GSD ).

The US realized that its bombs used against the stone buildings of Europe would be ineffective against Japanese cities, mostly constructed from wood and paper ; Pei was assigned to work on incendiary bombs.

In the spring of 1948 Pei was recruited by New York real estate magnate William Zeckendorf to join a staff of architects for his firm of Webb and Knapp to design buildings around the country.

Pei found Zeckendorf's personality the opposite of his own ; his new boss was known for his loud speech and gruff demeanor.

Zeckendorf was well connected politically, and Pei enjoyed learning about the social world of New York's city planners.

Soon Pei was so inundated with projects that he asked Zeckendorf for assistants, which he chose from his associates at the GSD, including Henry N. Cobb and Ulrich Franzen.

Pei was commissioned to design the Luce Memorial Chapel in Taiwan by the same organization that ran the middle school he had attended in Shanghai.

The pedestrian walkway at the ground floor, however, was prone to sudden gusts of wind, which embarrassed Pei.

Pei was able to return to hands-on design when he was approached in 1961 by Walter Orr Roberts to design the new Mesa Laboratory for the National Center for Atmospheric Research outside Boulder, Colorado.

The New York Times called it " a fine building ", but Pei was among those who felt disappointed with the results.

Designed by I. M. Pei, the building is high with two masts reaching high.

Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect I. M. Pei, the building is high with two masts reaching high.

Pei spent ten years working with New York real estate magnate William Zeckendorf before establishing his own independent design firm that eventually became Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.

Le Corbusier visited MIT in, an occasion which powerfully affected Pei: " The two days with Le Corbusier, or ' Corbu ' as we used to call him, were probably the most important days in my architectural education.

Pei spent two and a half years with the NDRC, but has revealed few details.

Their iconoclastic focus on modern architecture appealed to Pei, and he worked closely with both men.

They took on the Kips Bay residential area on the east side of Manhattan, where Pei set up Kips Bay Towers, two large long towers of apartments with recessed windows ( to provide shade and privacy ) in a neat grid, adorned with rows of trees.

Pei also drew inspiration from the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings of the Ancient Pueblo Peoples ; he wanted the buildings to exist in harmony with their natural surroundings.

As with NCAR, Pei combined elements of cubism and natural harmony when designing the dormitories at New College of Florida in the mid-1960s.

Pei refers to the NCAR complex as his " breakout building ", and he remained friends with Roberts until the scientist died in.

" Ultimately, however, Kennedy made her choice based on her personal connection with Pei.

Working with his associate Theodore Musho, Pei developed a design centered on a building with a top much wider than the bottom ; the facade leans at an angle of 34 degrees.

Although it was a difficult time for everyone involved, Pei later reflected with patience on the experience.

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.

After surveying a number of different locations, Pei fell in love with a valley once used as an imperial garden and hunting preserve, known as Fragrant Hills.

The problems continued for months, until Pei had an uncharacteristically emotional moment during a meeting with Chinese officials.

A member of Pei's staff returned for a visit several years later and confirmed that it had become dilapidated, which he and Pei attributed to the country's general unfamiliarity with deluxe buildings.

However, Liu Bang's family, including Lü Zhi and her children, remained in Pei County, which was a territory of Xiang Yu's kingdom of Western Chu.

Pei involved himself in the construction process at Kips Bay, even inspecting the bags of concrete to check for consistency of color.

From 1958 to 1963 Pei and Ray Affleck developed a key downton block of Montreal in a phased process that involved one of Pei's most admired structures in the commonwealth, the cruciform tower known as the Royal Bank Plaza ( Place Ville Marie ).