Music In The Sky
by Molly-Ann Leikin

Thank God for the A & E channel. On week nights when Patrick Rafter is practicing his serve, I always watch "Biography". A few nights ago, the show was about architect I.M. Pei.

The designer of such diverse buildings as the Bank of Hong Kong Tower, The Pyramid at the new Louvre in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in Washington, D.C., and the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Mr. Pei is the equivalent of number one with a bullet in his field and has been for three decades. It amazed me as I watched, how much his work is like ours as songwriters. Judge for yourself from Mr. Pei's story.

"If you are true to yourself, your work will have a signature. And that signature will come out."

He likes being asked for his autograph - fame is enjoyable. But he likes his work to endure, too.

As an architect, he has to learn to eliminate - to reduce what he is designing to the simplest form - and then make it work. Isn't that just like rewriting a song until it's just right?

"The simpler the solution, the more powerful it is." Isn't that like having a simple melodic hook you can recognize in just a few notes, and a great title going with it?

"One has to persist - and not give up principal".

"There is no instant gratification creating a work of art. A work of art needs time to make a judgement about itself as to whether it's art or not. The time factor is very important". This is exactly why I urge my clients to put their songs away for a week after they write them, so they can be objective about what they've written.

"Art and structure are not separate disciplines. They are one."

As a student at Harvard, Pei was disenchanted to find the new buildings in one country were the same as in most others. "Art is not isolated. It is part of the painting, the sculpture, the ballet of it's time".

Away from Harvard, and out in the real business world, he had to learn about serving the needs of his clients. He wasn't the buyer - he couldn't do just what he wanted - he had to give his clients what they wanted. Isn't that similar to giving the radio and A & R people something they can run with?

Mr. Pei's first assignment was to design low-cost housing in Washington, D.C. He couldn't believe that in the '50's, people in urban areas still did not have indoor plumbing. He also couldn't believe that Zechendorf, the big time land developer, would ask him, such an artist's artist, to work on this project. Pei was sure he had been mistaken for someone else. But it was the right commission for the right designer. Pei noticed that in other low-cost housing projects, particularly in New York, all the buildings were identical, and all made of brick. "How do you know where to go home? Pei wanted to individualize each building, and conceived what he called "the art of the possible".

Due to budgetary constraints, given the choice of forty trees or a piece of sculpture for the open area between buildings, Pei chose the trees. "I have lots of good friends who are sculptors but the building wasn't for them. It was for the people living in these buildings. So I chose the trees."

Designing the Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado was a challenge. "All of my work up to then was in cities. I'd seen the sky scrapers of New York - but they were nothing compared to the Rocky Mountains!"

No matter what he is working on, Pei always tests his ideas on his wife. And she is not just a groupie who yesses him to death. She is honest and direct. "And she's always right", Pei admits.

In a sixty year career, Pei has never copied himself. He always creates something new bearing his signature. "There is never an abrupt break in art. Everything is continuous. I believe in continuity and innovation. It has to come from a source - and the source has to be deep".

The Kennedy Library should have been his greatest triumph. It turned out to be the most disappointing. "With art, you can never predict. You do your good work and hope for the best. This project was a failure. It just couldn't be," he sighed. "But it made me famous".

Doesn't that sound like an album that should have gone triple platinum but never got out of the shipping cartons at WEA? Then the lawsuit and the picketing around the studio lot made it a household word, so the next project had a running start.

Down the road, Mr. Pei was commissioned to design an addition to the Museum of Art in Washington, D.C. He was concerned that everyone - especially the children, were flocking to the Space Museum down the street. How was he going to get them to come to his building? He takes great joy in standing anonymously in a corner of his building, watching children in busloads gasp with awe over his beautiful creation.

When he was designing this building, the stonemasons wanted him to blunt a sharp edge, because they were afraid it might break off. He told them he knew they were right, but he was willing to take that chance. "In art, you have to do that - when you agree with your critics and naysayers, they have no way to come back at you." Turns out Pei was right about his sharp angle. People approach the building, and go right up and touch the controversial point.

"How can I design a building in Japan that's reminiscent of something I did in Dallas, Texas? How can it be? It's wrong. The opportunity for originality is there. If you don't learn and grow as an artist, you only repeat. Then you don't make any contribution at all. Each work is like adding another grain of sand to time."

When I look at the work of I.M. Pei, I can hear his music in the sky above and around it. Don't you?

© 2000 Molly-Ann Leikin

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