American Master: I.M. Pei
documentary on I.M. Pei’s return to his hometown and the art museum that he constructed there.
he talks a little about his iconic works like the louvre pyramid and the bank of china tower. what struck me was partly how little this museum pushed the boundaries considering his previous works. i wonder if he cared more about local opinion on this b/c it was his hometown.
i also learned where chinese find the beautiful and strange rocks that are displayed in gardens around important old buildings and the ancestral homes of rich families. there’s an actual profession of stone farming where the farmer finds promising rocks, sculpts the rocks by cutting holes in some areas, and submerges them in a river. his son will remove the rocks after the river sculpts them 20 years later and sells them. that’s so beautiful… and so chinese.