Pei, who died May 16 at age 102, was endlessly charming, with a wide smile and impeccable manners. Competitors were sometimes thrown off by the unflappable geniality, since he was a shrewd competitor, adept at luring clients and pleasing them. “He was very generous to me when I was a 28-year-old kid.”He first encountered Pei while working on the staff of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, a redevelopment agency in Washington. Pei wanted to know the precise angle of the avenue in relationship to the National Mall. That relationship would become the basis of his design of interlocking triangles for the famed East Building of the National Gallery of Art.

Source: New York Times May 18, 2019 14:46 UTC