Rethinking Pei: A Centenary Symposium

Date: 

Thursday, October 12, 2017, 4:00pm to Friday, October 13, 2017, 4:00pm

Location: 

Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge

The two-day symposium will include panel discussions and scholarly presentations that showcase new research on Pei’s manifold contributions to the built environment. Notable alumni from Pei’s office, including William Pedersen, will discuss the emergence of a new kind of architectural practice in the postwar era. Among the topics to be addressed in the paper sessions are technological innovations with concrete, the glass curtain wall, and structural designs; Pei’s longstanding affinities for China’s landscape and vernacular traditions; his legacy on major urban spaces in Boston and other cities around the world; and the increasingly global and transnational conditions of architectural production that Pei successfully navigated.

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