IM Pei, the Chinese-American architect who died in 2019 at the age of 102, seems a perfect choice for the inaugural architecture exhibition in Hong Kong’s vast M+ museum. His towering Bank of China tower is visible over the water; like Hong Kong itself, his career straddled east and west, finance and art, commerce and culture. From his striking addition to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (1978) to his serene Museum of Islamic Art in Doha (2008), not to mention the controversial glass pyramid at the Louvre, you could call him the world’s first starchitect.
美籍華裔建築師貝聿銘(IM Pei)於2019年去世，享年102歲，他似乎是香港龐大的M+ 博物館舉辦首屆建築展的最佳人選。從水面上可以看到他設計的中國銀行大廈；就像香港本身一樣，他的職業生涯橫跨東西方、金融與藝術、商業與文化。從他爲華盛頓特區國家美術館(National Gallery of Art)設計的引人注目的擴建(1978年)到他在杜哈設計的寧靜的伊斯蘭藝術博物館(2008年)，更不用說羅浮宮備受爭議的玻璃金字塔，你可以稱他爲世界上第一位建築界的明星。