I.M. Pei, who began his long career designing buildings for a New York real estate developer and ended it as one of the most revered architects in the world, died early Thursday at his home in Manhattan. He was 102.
周四凌晨，貝聿銘在曼哈頓家中去世，享年102歲。他從為紐約一家房地產開發商設計建筑起步，經過一段漫長的職業生涯，最終成為世界最受崇敬的建筑師之一。

Best known for designing the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the glass pyramid at the entrance to the Louvre in Paris, Pei was one of the few architects who were equally attractive to real estate developers, corporate chieftains and art museum boards (the third group, of course, often made up of members of the first two). And all his work — from his commercial skyscrapers to his art museums — represented a careful balance of the cutting edge and the conservative.
貝聿銘以華盛頓國家美術館東館和巴黎盧浮宮入口處的玻璃金字塔聞名，很少有建筑師可以像貝聿銘這樣，在房地產開發商、企業領袖和美術館董事中間具有同樣的吸引力（當然，第三種人往往由前兩種人組成）。他的所有作品——從商業摩天樓到藝術博物館——都代表著前衛與保守之間的一種謹慎的平衡。

Pei remained a committed modernist, and while none of his buildings could ever be called old-fashioned or traditional, his particular brand of modernism — clean, reserved, sharp-edged and unapologetic in its use of simple geometries and its aspirations to monumentality — sometimes seemed to be a throwback, at least when compared with the latest architectural trends. This hardly bothered him. What he valued most in architecture, he said, was that it "stand the test of time."
貝聿銘始終是忠誠的現代主義者，然而，他設計的建筑雖然都算不上舊式或傳統，他特有的現代主義——干凈、矜持、棱角分明、大量使用幾何圖形、并且懷著成為紀念建筑的抱負——有時似乎顯得像是一種復古，至少在與最新的建筑趨勢相比時是這樣。他對此絲毫不以為意。他說，他覺得建筑最重要的品質是“經得起時間的考驗”。

Pei, who was born in China and moved to the United States in the 1930s, was hired by William Zeckendorf in 1948, shortly after he received his graduate degree in architecture from Harvard, to oversee the design of buildings produced by Zeckendorf's firm, Webb & Knapp.
貝聿銘出生于中國，1930年代移居美國。1948年，在哈佛大學獲得建筑學碩士學位后不久，他受聘于威廉·澤肯多夫(William Zeckendorf)，在澤肯多夫的公司齊氏威奈(Webb & Knapp)主持建筑設計工作。

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum project would not be Pei's last unlikely museum commission: His museum oeuvre would culminate in the call to design the Museum of Islamic Art, in Doha, Qatar, in 2008, a challenge Pei accepted with relish. As with the rock museum, Pei saw the Qatar commission as an opportunity to learn about a culture he did not claim to understand. He began his research by reading a biography of the Prophet Muhammad, and then commenced a tour of great Islamic architecture around the world.
克利夫蘭搖滾名人堂和博物館項目看上去不太像是貝聿銘會做的博物館，但這樣的案例后面還有：2008年，卡塔爾多哈的伊斯蘭藝術博物館標志著他的博物館設計達到了巔峰，貝聿銘興致勃勃地接受了這個挑戰。和搖滾博物館一樣，貝聿銘認為卡塔爾的項目是一個機會，讓他可以去學習自己并不了解的文化。他的研究始于閱讀先知穆罕默德的傳記，然后動身參觀世界各地的偉大伊斯蘭建筑。

Besides his many art museums, he designed concert halls, academic structures, hospitals, office towers and civic buildings like the Dallas City Hall, completed in 1977; the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, finished in 1979.
In 1979, the year after the National Gallery was completed, Pei received the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects, its highest honor.
除了眾多藝術博物館，他還設計過音樂廳、學術建筑、醫院、辦公樓和市政建筑，比如1977年竣工的達拉斯市政廳；1979年竣工的波士頓約翰·F·肯尼迪圖書館。1979年，也就是國家美術館落成后的第二年，貝聿銘獲得了美國建筑師協會(American Institute of Architects)金獎，這是該協會的最高榮譽。

Pei never played down his connections to China. His children were all given Chinese names, and when he won the Pritzker Prize in 1983, widely viewed as the highest honor a living architect can receive, he used the $100,000 award to establish a scholarship fund for Chinese architecture students.
貝聿銘從不淡化他與中國的關系。他的孩子們都取了中文名字。1983年他贏得普利茲克獎(Pritzker Prize)時，用10萬美元獎金為中國的建筑學生設立了一個獎學金。普利茲克獎被普遍視為在世建筑師能獲得的最高榮譽。