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，贝聿铭在曼哈顿家中去世，享年102岁。他从为纽约一家房地产开发商设计建筑起步，经过一段漫长的职业生涯，最终成为世界最受崇敬的建筑师之一。

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.
贝聿铭以华盛顿国家美术馆东馆和巴黎卢浮宫入口处的玻璃金字塔闻名，很少有建筑师可以像贝聿铭这样，在房地产开发商、企业领袖和美术馆董事中间具有同样的吸引力（当然，第三种人往往由前两种人组成）。他的所有作品——从商业摩天楼到艺术博物馆——都代表着前卫与保守之间的一种谨慎的平衡。

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."
贝聿铭始终是忠诚的现代主义者，然而，他设计的建筑虽然都算不上旧式或传统，他特有的现代主义——干净、矜持、棱角分明、大量使用几何图形、并且怀着成为纪念建筑的抱负——有时似乎显得像是一种复古，至少在与最新的建筑趋势相比时是这样。他对此丝毫不以为意。他说，他觉得建筑最重要的品质是“经得起时间的考验”。

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.
贝聿铭出生于中国，1930年代移居美国。1948年，在哈佛大学获得建筑学硕士学位后不久，他受聘于威廉·泽肯多夫(William Zeckendorf)，在泽肯多夫的公司齐氏威奈(Webb & Knapp)主持建筑设计工作。

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.
克利夫兰摇滚名人堂和博物馆项目看上去不太像是贝聿铭会做的博物馆，但这样的案例后面还有：2008年，卡塔尔多哈的伊斯兰艺术博物馆标志着他的博物馆设计达到了巅峰，贝聿铭兴致勃勃地接受了这个挑战。和摇滚博物馆一样，贝聿铭认为卡塔尔的项目是一个机会，让他可以去学习自己并不了解的文化。他的研究始于阅读先知穆罕默德的传记，然后动身参观世界各地的伟大伊斯兰建筑。

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.
除了众多艺术博物馆，他还设计过音乐厅、学术建筑、医院、办公楼和市政建筑，比如1977年竣工的达拉斯市政厅；1979年竣工的波士顿约翰·F·肯尼迪图书馆。1979年，也就是国家美术馆落成后的第二年，贝聿铭获得了美国建筑师协会(American Institute of Architects)金奖，这是该协会的最高荣誉。

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.
贝聿铭从不淡化他与中国的关系。他的孩子们都取了中文名字。1983年他赢得普利兹克奖(Pritzker Prize)时，用10万美元奖金为中国的建筑学生设立了一个奖学金。普利兹克奖被普遍视为在世建筑师能获得的最高荣誉。