Ieoh Ming Pei as a brilliant Chinese-American, back in Shanghai, saw many new buildings under construction. Pei was awed by the first high rise building he ever saw. It was 23 storey high ! Wherever he went, he began to be acutely aware of the buildings and the structures that surrounded him.

Pei has designed over 50 projects in America and abroad, many of which have been award winners.

Pei’s buildings were emerging from the old to modern. People still could not assimilate this new trend. Pei cites an example of how a house designed by him for a friend in Cambridge was refused a mortgage because it looked modern. "In this sense I belong to that generation of American architects who built upon the pioneering perceptions of the modern movement, with an unwavering conviction in its significant achievements in the field of art, technology and design," he said.

Pei wanted his architectural work to be accepted as an art. The design should be conceived out of necessity. One should have freedom of expression, but he should not be carried away. Freedom should be movement within a measured range, he felt. He recalls Leonardo da Vinci’s counsel that "strength is born of constraint and dies in freedom."

In general, Pei’s designs represent an extension of and elaboration on the rectangular forms and irregular silhouettes of the prevailing international style. He is notable however, for his bold and skillful arrangements and groups of geometric shapes and for his dramatic use of richly contrasted materials, spaces and surfaces.

He has refused to limit himself to a narrow range of architectural problems. His work over the past 40 years includes not only palaces of industry, government and culture, but also moderate and low-income housing. His versatility and skill in the use of materials approach the level of poetry. Pei’s most controversial work was his expansion of the most famous museum in the world, the Louvre in Paris. When he presented his glass pyramid expansion as the new entrance to the museum, he received much criticism because his designs were too radical and because he was not French, but a Chinese American. Eventually Pei’s design won approval from the French Commission, intellectuals and media persons. Pei’s glass pyramid was erected and completed with great acclaim and enjoyment by the public.

Pei’s conviction always earned him his projects. His earlier projects spoke volumes for him. Amidst stiff competition and public opinion Pei was awarded the project. It was to be the crown jewel of his grand projects.

Pei carried out his architectural projects with meticulous precision. He evaluated every project before settling down to it. Pei says "that if he thought about design in his native Chinese the vociferous guardians of French culture… would have derived little comfort from the image of an American plotting the Louvre’s future in Chinese". Pei’s prodigious credentials as an institutional image-maker, his appointment provoked disapproval, particularly from French architects, who viewed him as an interloper.