I.M. Pei, the architect who designed the Wildwood Plaza office park in East Cobb and who was known for many acclaimed buildings around the world, has died at the age of 102.
His most famous building is the Louvre Museum pyramid in Paris, and he’s also known for the John F. Kennedy library in Boston and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
He was world-famous by the time he drew up the plans for Wildwood Plaza, which was developed by Tom Cousins and opened off Powers Ferry Road and Windy Ridge Parkway in 1991.
The twin towers are two 15-story granite buildings with a pyramid atrium (inspired by the Louvre building, which opened two years before Wildwood) that form the centerpiece of the 289-acre Wildwood office complex.
The towers, done in Pei’s modernist urban style also were graced by pear trees he explicitly included across the traffic circle from the buildings.
Last year, during a zoning case before Cobb commissioners, some nearby residents asked if the developer of a townhouse complex slated for the area could try to preserve the aging trees (they were not).
Pei, who was born in China in 1917, came to the United States and studied architecture at MIT under Walter Gropius, one of the leaders of the modernist Bauhaus movement.
Pei designed many other commercial and residential buildings during his long career, including the now-razed Gulf Oil Building on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta that is his first major project.
His awards included the Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious honor in architecture, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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How fortunate we are to have this masterpiece right in our own neighborhood! Thanks for the article about I.M.Pei