I.M. Pei Wins UIA Gold Medal 2014

The 97-year-old Chinese American can add the 2014 UIA Gold Medal to a list of architecture's highest honors: the AIA Gold Medal (1979), the Pritzker Architecture Prize (1983), the Praemium Imperiale (1989, its inaugural year), the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Lifetime Achievement Award (2003), and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal (2010). While not as well known as the other awards, the UIA considers its Gold Medal "the most prestigious distinction attributed to an architect by architects, selected from among nominations submitted by professional organizations from around the world." The UIA is "a global federation of national associations of architects," founded in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1948.

The UIA "honors [Pei's] unique style, his timeless rigor, and his spiritual connection to history, time and space,” in projects like the JFK Library in Boston, the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, the extension of the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Miho Museum near Kyoto, Japan (pictured), and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar.

Pei will received the UIA Gold Medal on August 6, 2014, at the awards ceremony organized in conjunction with the UIA World Congress of Architecture in Durban, South Africa.