immigrantscanada.com

Independent topical source of current affairs, opinion and issues, featuring stories making news in Canada from immigrants, newcomers, minorities & ethnic communities' point of view and interests.

Beijing Pei: Hill Hotel and Chinese Architecture

beijing pei: Born in southern China, he migrated to the United States and was one of the first overseas architects to visit China during its initial period of opening up, said Tan Xin, a garden designer who worked with him in the early 1980s on the Fragrant Hill Hotel, which still stands on the outskirts of Beijing, according to CTV. Pei was highly influential in helping Chinese architects and landscapers imagine how Chinese architecture could be modernized while retaining its traditional elements. Pei, who died earlier this week at the age of 102, added elegance to landscapes worldwide with powerful geometric shapes and grand spaces, from a trapezoidal addition to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to the giant glass pyramid at the Louvre. He was so modest and unassuming, Tan said in an interview Friday at her Beijing office. In our architectural and cultural worlds at the time, he was a pioneer. Even though he was Chinese American, he loved China and traditional Chinese culture. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.