Word: pei
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...Pei has earned his reputation in urban design not for crafting architectural prima donnas, but for building what he has called "good neighbors," edifices which easily fit into the scheme of the city. Pei, in a 1971 Business Week interview, said he believes that "A city, far from being a cluster of buildings, is actually a sequence of spaces enclosed and defined by buildings." The architect has said that he refuses to compromise or ignore the residents in his designs. In a Time interview in 1964, shortly after receiving work of the Kennedy project, Pei proclaimed that "architecture must...
...while Pei has been busy being a good neighbor in many American cities, his buildings in Boston have been having trouble making friends. Diagnosed euphemistically, Pei's problem may be what Back Bay Association president Daniel J. Ahern has called "the inevitable problems that everyone runs into when they build on Boston's weak foundations," or it may be a native reaction against disturbing Boston's more sedate areas, or possible it is plain bad luck. Whatever the reason, the New York-based architect has not had an easy time in Boston. And his hard times in the Hub have...
...Pei's troubles began in 1964, shortly after completing the Green Center for the Earth Sciences at MIT. The $5-million project worked fine, until students tried to get inside. Air pressure from wind whipping around the bottom floor of the building sealed the doors shut, and they had to be replaced with revolving doors at a cost of $60,000. Ann Landreth, public relations representative for Pei and Partners, explains that the building design was a common one, but that this wind-tunnel phenomenon "had never happened before...
Then there are the Boston Harbor Towers, a Pei project completed in 1973. In an April Esquire Magazine article, Gerry Nadel wrote that the high-rent tenants in the towers "are moaning about thin walls and loose plumbing." But Landreth claims that Pei and Partners "did only schematic drawings for the apartments, and not the interior." Nevertheless, Pei, as the architectural supervisor for the project, can't be completely exonerated for the faults inside the apartment...
...Back Bay expert Ahern, a collaborator with Pei on the Harbor Towers Project, voices a different, aesthetic concern about the buildings: "The towers are ponderous, lifeless, and uninspiring. They are just big tons of concrete, and really...