In his mid-80s, Chinese American architect I.M. Pei agreed to design a museum for his home town of Suzhou, where Pei's ancestors lived for 600 years. "I.M. Pei: Building China Modern," which premieres Wednesday night March 31on PBS, follows that project from Pei's first site visit to the opening ceremony five years later.
The art museum opened in 2006 was only Pei's second building in China, and the first one he designed in the post-Tiananmen years of the booming Chinese economy.
The hour-long documentary, which chronicles Pei's return to his homeland, is part of PBS's "American Masters" series.
Now 92, Pei is also lovely, an old man but sharp as a tack, and given to pronouncements that are both revelatory and poetic.
In another scene, Pei describes "stone farming," whereby rocks are slowly eroded in water until they take on smooth and suggestive forms. "The father sows, and the son reaps," he says to his grandson Stephen, who sits silently next to him. A garden of stones becomes central to his design concept for the museum. (Source: Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, Mar 31, 2010).