Architect. Born Ieoh Ming Pei, he was an award-winning architect who designed such well-known structures as the Kennedy Library in Dorchester, MA., the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1935 he began studying architecture in the United States and eventually earned his B.A. from MIT and his M.A. from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, where he had the opportunity to study with German architect and founder of the Bauhaus design movement Walter Gropius. During World War II, Pei took a break from his education to work for the National Defense Research Committee. In 1944, he returned to Harvard and earned his master's degree in architecture two years later. Around this time, Pei also worked an assistant professor at the university. In 1948, he joined New York-based architectural firm Webb & Knapp, Inc., as its director of architecture. In 1955 he left to start his own firm, I. M. Pei & Associates. One of his first major projects was the Mile High Center in Denver, Colorado. Pei also devised several urban renewal plans for areas of Washington, D.C., Boston and Philadelphia around this time. In the years following the death of President John F. Kennedy, Pei met with his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, on the designs for his presidential library. Completed in 1979, the library is a nine-story modern structure that features glass and concrete. Pei created many buildings around the world, including the west wing of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Fragrant Hill Hotel in China. In 1983, he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize for his contributions to his field, and used his prize money to create a scholarship for Chinese students to study architecture in the United States. During this time, Pei also began work on revitalizing Paris's Louvre museum. The entrance he created for the world-famous structure, which has since become one of the most iconic representations of his work, has visitors descend into the museum through a large glass pyramid, which takes them to a new level below the existing courtyard. During the 1990s, he designed the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. He created one of his most famous masterpieces - the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar - in his 80s, and in 2006, he created the Musée d'Art Moderne in Kirchberg, Luxembourg. Pei, who designed over 50 projects in the U.S. and internationally, won a host of awards for his work, including the Royal Gold Medal, the AIA Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Praemium Imperiale.