MIT Museum acquires I. M. Pei archive, including Louvre drawings

The archive of I. M. Pei, a Pritzker Prize-winning architect and MIT alumnus from the class of 1940, has been acquired by the MIT Museum. Donated by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, this extensive collection features over 1,500 rolls of architectural drawings, 50 models, and 1,000 linear feet of manuscripts that chronicle Pei's impressive 64-year career. Notable works within the archive include designs for the modernization of the Louvre in Paris, four buildings at MIT, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with a 1984 rendering of the Louvre by Paul Stevenson Oles. MIT Museum director Michael John Gorman described it as a homecoming for Pei, while Hashim Sarkis, dean of the MIT School of Architecture & Planning, highlighted Pei's journey from China to MIT, where he completed his first significant nonresidential project, the Cecil and Ida Green Building for Earth Sciences (1962). The archive will enhance the MIT Museum's Architecture Collection, which has documented architectural education since the 1860s, with processing and cataloguing set to finish by fall 2028.