When I got the opportunity to do the new wing [the Schauhaus] for the German Historical Museum, for instance, I didn't see it as an opportunity for my own ego, to do something so exciting that every architectural publication would want to put it on the cover. I accepted it because I knew it was going to be a very difficult project, and I wasn't sure I could do something exciting there.
I. M. PeiAt the beginning, I thought the best Islamic work was in Spain - the mosque in Cordoba, the Alhambra in Granada. But as I learned more, my ideas shifted. I traveled to Egypt, and to the Middle East many times.I found the most wonderful examples of Islamic work in Cairo, it turns out. I'd visited mosques there before, but I didn't see them with the same eye as I did this time. They truly said something to me about Islamic architecture.
I. M. PeiLuxembourg was and still is today a crossroads, the place where Germany meets the rest of Europe. The country lost part of its territory to Belgium in the 1800s, and during World Wars I and II the German military overran it. Very few people have visited Luxembourg - when I went there and looked at it, I said, my God, it's built on a rock. And within the rock they had a castle, and within the city there's a network of tunnels so the residents could move around and defend themselves. That was of great interest to me.
I. M. PeiIt is not an individual act, architecture. You have to consider your client. Only out of that can you produce great architecture. You cannot work in the abstract
I. M. PeiI've been active all my life. In 1990 I retired from my firm, I.M. Pei & Partners, and for two years I didn't do much. Then I started to get kind of antsy, so I decided, I'm going to do some more work. And I chose to do work outside the U.S. because I've spent 45 years here and I wanted to learn more about what's happening in the rest of the world.
I. M. Pei