Pei’s graduate thesis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (1946) presented a carefully scaled museum for Chinese art, balancing interior and exterior, Western modernism and Eastern tradition. Hoping to demonstrate the limits of the International Style, Pei’s design revealed essential themes of his future work: respect for history, culture, and architecture’s intimate relationship with nature. Bauhaus titan Walter Gropius praised the thesis as the best submitted during his 14-year tenure at HGSD.
