The papers of I. M. Pei span the years 1920 to 2016, with the bulk of the material dating from 1960 to 2000. The collection documents the professional activities of Pei, best known for his architectural design, which is represented in buildings across the world. Also present in the collection are files related to Pei’s professional associations and activities as an urban planner. Its ten series include General Correspondence, Projects Completed/Inactive, Projects Aborted, Projects Proposed, Publicity File, Scrapbooks, Miscellany, Subject File, Digital Files, and Oversize.

The General Correspondence series documents the broad scope of Pei’s professional associations, activities, and friendships. The correspondence is arranged chronologically by year or year span and alphabetically therein by name of correspondent. The series begins with correspondence dating from Pei’s early career, including his association with William Zeckendorf’s real estate development firm Webb & Knapp, first as architectural director for Zeckendorf, 1948-1955, and then as head of his own firm I. M. Pei & Associates beginning in 1955. The bulk of the series, however, dates after 1960 when Pei’s practice became fully independent of Webb & Knapp. This later material includes some internal memoranda from Pei’s architectural firm, but most of it concerns his professional associations outside his architectural practice. These activities relate to professional organizations including the American Institute of Architects and Architectural League of New York; universities, most notably his alma maters Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University; galleries and museums; architectural magazines and publishers; the United States government including the Federal Housing Administration and Department of State; and honorary societies and organizations, among them the Académie d’architecture, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Society of the French Legion of Honor. Correspondents include architects, designers, artists, editors, gallery owners, museum directors, corporate executives, public officials, and university presidents, among others. Prominent correspondents include Marcel Breuer, Henry Dreyfuss, Jean Dubuffet, O’Neil Ford, Ulrich Franzen, Alexander Girard, Walter Gropius, Victor Gruen, Fran P. Hosken, R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Philip Johnson, Pierre Matisse, Henry Moore, Chester E. Nagel, Carl Nesjar, Richard Joseph Neutra, John Carl Warnecke, Yang Yingfeng, and Zao Wou-ki. Letters from other well-known correspondents can be found in the Scrapbooks series. A significant portion of the General Correspondence series documents Pei’s connections with his native China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the wider Chinese diaspora. Included are letters from family members, friends, architects, artists, students, and various Chinese and Chinese-American organizations. Much of this correspondence is in Mandarin or Cantonese.

The Projects Completed/Inactive series documents projects where Pei was the design principal. Files include projects undertaken by Pei Freed Cobb & Associates and by Pei after his retirement from the firm, yet often in collaboration with Pei Partnership Architects, a firm established in 1992 by Pei’s sons C. C. (Chien Chung) Pei and Li Chung Pei. Most of the projects include corporate headquarters, commercial structures, residential properties, schools, museums, concert halls, transportation terminals, and civic buildings designed by Pei, and in some cases, site plans for urban planning and community development projects. The series has been maintained as it was arranged by Pei’s staff by city, and therein by name of building or project. Most of Pei’s major works are well-documented in the files, most notably the John F. Kennedy Library, Bedford-Stuyvesant Superblock, Raffles City, Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, Musée du Louvre, Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxembourg, and the Miho Museum. The files track project history from the proposal stage to project completion, and sometimes track the subsequent development of the building once the contract has been fulfilled. Typical documents include administrative files including meeting minutes, proposals, contracts, financial documents, memoranda, clippings, studies, reports, blueprints, architectural renderings, plans, drawings, maps, and photographs with a focus on Pei’s personal correspondence with clients, project stakeholders, and contractors. Files maintained after projects have been completed document renovations, historic landmark status, research queries, legal issues, and the evolution of buildings over time. In most cases these are the personal files of Pei, maintained by his executive assistant Leicia Black, and later by her successor, Nancy Robinson. The records of a few projects are much more voluminous and include the files of project manager Perry Y. Chin along with extensive shop drawings and design schematics. These projects include the Museum of Islamic Art, Four Seasons Hotel, and Oare Pavilion. Little documentation exists of early projects from the 1950s when Pei was working exclusively with Webb & Knapp. Also absent from the series are many of Pei’s files relating to the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, which he transferred to the gallery in 1986 . There is also no documentation in this series of the air traffic control towers Pei designed for various U.S. airports throughout the 1960s.

The Projects Aborted series contains similar materials as the Projects Completed/Inactive series and likewise tracks the history of various projects. The major difference is that in almost all cases, while the projects were initiated, the buildings were never completed. Pei’s staff chose the designation of “aborted,” but this does not necessarily indicate that Pei intentionally abandoned the project. In most cases, these projects were stalled due to financial, political, or logistical issues. The only exception to this is the China Pavilion at Expo ’70, which was completed, but for which Pei was not the design principal, but rather the supervising architect. The major projects documented in this series include the Bilbao Emblematic Building in Bilbao, Spain; Bank Dagang Nasional Indonesia Center in Jakarta, Indonesia; Château de La Rochefoucauld in France; and the Athens Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece.

The Projects Proposed series consists of projects declined by Pei, often due to his firm’s heavy workload, or accepted by Pei but later cancelled for a variety reasons. Also included are projects for which Pei’s firm was not selected by the client. The projects represent the type of work for which Pei is best known and largely include institutional and corporate buildings and urban planning projects. Other projects include the 2000 Olympics in Beijing and the design of bottles for L’Oréal perfume and Taittinger champagne. The Projects Proposed series has been maintained as it was arranged by Pei’s staff by year and therein by name of city or country. A list of files (1952-1991) located at the beginning of the series records individual project names. Documentation for the projects, although not extensive in most cases, includes correspondence, memoranda, project proposals and reports, meeting minutes, plans, maps, photographs, financial records, and newspaper clippings. Two sets of report forms on prospective jobs are available for the 1960s and 1970s. These single-sheet summaries record project names, clients, locations, descriptions, and dispositions, and are occasionally supplemented by copies of correspondence and other documentation.

The Publicity File spans Pei’s career and is arranged in three file groupings: general, projects, and speaking engagements. The general file explores the broad scope of Pei’s work as an architect and urban planner from 1946 to 2012. Included are newspaper and magazine articles, book excerpts, and interviews, as well as correspondence with writers, interviewers, and publishers. A bibliography of articles about Pei from 1952 to 1983 follows the general file. The project file documents individual works by Pei and his firm, largely through newspaper and magazine articles. The file is arranged alphabetically by name of city or country and therein by name of project. The speaking engagement file, dated 1979-2012, consists largely of requests for Pei to speak and arrangements for the engagements he accepted. Only a few texts of his remarks are included. The Publicity File overlaps considerably with several other series. Correspondence with writers and publishers, speaking engagement requests, and transcripts of interviews can also be found in the General Correspondence series. The Miscellany series includes acceptance speeches for some of the more major awards received by Pei. The Scrapbooks series overlaps with the Publicity File series to the greatest extent.

Complementing the Publicity File series are more than one hundred volumes of scrapbooks compiled by Pei’s staff. The content of each scrapbook has been rehoused in folders to better preserve the material. Consisting largely of newspaper and magazine articles, the Scrapbooks series includes forty-five general volumes spanning the years 1944 to 2004, as well as separate volumes focusing on specific projects, including Dallas City Hall in Texas, East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Grand Louvre in Paris, John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, and Miho Museum in Japan. Four additional volumes contain published interviews with Pei between 1948 and 1989. Six volumes house memorabilia dating from 1960 to 2006. Included are programs and invitations from award ceremonies, building openings, and dinners honoring foreign dignitaries; certificates, awards, and honorary degrees; press releases and some acceptance speeches; a letter from Ronald Reagan congratulating Pei on receipt of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1983; and a note dated December 1981 arranging a meeting with François Mitterrand early in the planning process for the renovation and expansion of the Musée du Louvre. Seven scrapbooks contain special letters. Many of the letters are congratulatory notes to Pei on the winning of design competitions, opening of buildings, receipt of awards, and special birthdays. The eclectic range of letters also includes a copy of a 1946 letter from Pei concerning his master’s thesis on a Shanghai art museum, a 1948 letter of appointment from Webb & Knapp, a 1949 letter from Le Corbusier, mentioning Pei’s “maison cylindrique,” a sketch by Pei of the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center on the back of an October 1983 incoming letter, a February 1981 letter from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis about the John F. Kennedy Library, a cheerful postcard from Zubin Mehta and Itzhak Perlman on a trip to China in 1994, and a handwritten letter from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on the opening of the Suzhou Museum in 2006.

The Miscellany series documents many aspects of Pei’s professional life. The award and honorary degree files document the recognition Pei received for his many achievements from the 1960s to 2014. Most notably, the series documents Pei’s significant awards including the 1979 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, 1983 Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1986 Medal of Liberty, and his election to l’Académie des beaux-arts, Institut de France. Pei’s appointment calendars and logs date from 1955 to 2012 and provide documentation of his work schedule, including daily appointments, events, and meetings. Extensive files document Pei’s travel for a variety of purposes including meetings with clients, monitoring the status of projects, events, and vacations. Arranged according to month of travel, and later by departure date, the files consist of detailed itineraries, correspondence, and documentation of the projects for which he was traveling. Missing from the series are travel files from 1988. The bulk of photographs accessioned as part of the Pei Papers now reside in the Library’s Print & Photographs Division. The photographs in this series mostly include individual portraits of Pei and portraits of his family. Photographs of buildings designed by Pei can be found in the Publicity File, Projects Completed/Inactive, Projects Proposed, Projects Aborted, and Scrapbooks series. Education files mostly document his undergraduate career and 1940 bachelor’s thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Standardized Propaganda Units for War Time and Peace Time China." Notably missing is a copy of Pei’s master’s thesis at Harvard featuring a Shanghai art museum. The Miscellany series is also composed of biographical files, exhibit files, architectural registrations, recommendation letters for colleagues, and a portfolio prepared by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners that provides general information and images of many of their more notable buildings. Very little biographical information exists from Pei’s early life in China before he immigrated to the United States.

The Subject File series includes documentation of organizations and institutions to which Pei belonged including the Committee of 100, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Corporation, National Council on the Arts, National Council on the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Urban Design Council of the City of New York. These files document Pei’s membership and involvement within each organization, mostly through correspondence and mailings regarding their activities. Files related to the American Institute of Architect task forces on National Urban Policy and West front of the U.S. Capitol primarily contain research and design information. This series also contains files for various architecture juries on which Pei served from 1955 to 2012, including juries for the National Gallery of Canada, the Parliament House of Canberra, and various design contests.

The Digital Files series contains files from digital storage media removed from paper files in the course of processing. The bulk of these are most closely related to the Publicity File series and include photographs, documentaries, videos of interviews and conversations with Pei, and footage from television shows on which Pei appeared. In some cases, videos focus on the construction of specific buildings such as the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and Deutsches Historisches Museum. Digital files related to projects mostly include drawings, plans, and surveys, though there are very few of these.