I.M. Pei, who lived to an elegant 102, certainly deserves to be regarded as a legend, and his widely celebrated works validate this claim [1,2]. Scholars and critics have observed that I.M. was a committed modernist and that his consistent application of elemental geometries, reductive aesthetics, and purism created the impression of a monumentality that did not trouble itself with the notion of a humanising architectural environment. These observations and impressions are understandable, but I believe, somewhat simplistic. I.M.'s version of modernism was not that of the original movement, which had become a didactic methodology of language and form and, by the mid-1950s, a globally familiar style. Instead, and never intending to challenge the old guard, I.M. added to the modernist story a new, complementary chapter that infused it with his own worldly interpretation. His work bears an unmistakable cross-cultural pluralism rooted in the Eastern and Western cultural aspects of I.M.'s rich and long life. In this sense, his modernism is deeply mindful of the human condition. Beyond awakening our individual sense of engagement with physical space, he dedicated his work to serving humankind's most ennobling aspirations: enhancing and enlightening oursense of culture, and, most broadly, oursense of humanity and civilisation.
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