If I'd paid him to design the MIA, I'd be a little disappointed by his 'originality'.
Sorry for not buying in to the whole 'the museum was inspired by an ablutions fountain in Egypt' BS... .it just doesn't wash for me. The design is what it is because it's what he was already working on at the time. if he'd designed a museum of Buddhist or Jewish or Teuton art, it probably would looked the same.
I don't believe for a minute that IM Pei was trying to do anything Islamic in his designs, he just dusted off older ones.
The main pyramid of the MIA looks a little too much like the pyramid on top of the Four Seasons in New York another of his designs.
He even used the same stone work for the cladding.
You could almost be forgiven for thinking that the IM Pei museum in Suzhou was an early sketch for the MIA.
http://www.ptank.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/suzhou_museum_...
I almost forgot his Grand Duke Jean Museum of Modern Art...
http://www.huma3.com/repository/venues/Mudam.jpg
If I'd paid him to design the MIA, I'd be a little disappointed by his 'originality'.
Sorry for not buying in to the whole 'the museum was inspired by an ablutions fountain in Egypt' BS... .it just doesn't wash for me. The design is what it is because it's what he was already working on at the time. if he'd designed a museum of Buddhist or Jewish or Teuton art, it probably would looked the same.