The Synthesis Concept of Chinese Architectural Traditions and Western Modernism in Ieoh Ming Pei Art Programme

Abstract

The subject of this article is the Chinese-born American architect Yo Ming Pei's the creative programme. It is believed that in the unique objects of Pei, which were built in China in the 1980–2010s, a full-fledged synthesis of architectural forming authentic Chinese and Western modernist principles was carried out for the first time. The aim of this article is to reveal the problems of this synthesis in the Maestro work.

Pei's creative programme as an interplay of professional and attitudinal factors is reconstructed using examples of Chinese objects through cultural-historical, artistic-stylistic, semiotic and formal-stylistic analysis, as well as through the systematisation of professional criticism and scholarly research.

In the process of achieving the aim, the following conclusions were drawn. Firstly, the conclusion about the formation of a consolidated viewpoint on the compatibility of orientations and values of Western modernism and the Chinese architecture unshakable traditions, which, in turn, are elevated to the paradigms of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism. Secondly, the conclusion of the four main factors the interrelationship in Pei's creative programme. Thirdly, the conclusion about the stylistic synthesis of national and international traditions of formation as a neo-romantic adaptation of modernism in China in the XXI century.

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