PARIS, March 28 —  On the 30th anniversary of the inauguration of I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid in Paris’s Louvre museum, here are key dates in the architect’s life:

— April 26, 1917: Born Ieoh Ming Pei in Guangzhou, southern China, the son of a banker.

— 1935: In his late teens he leaves for the United States to study architecture, receiving an undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940 and a masters degree at Harvard in 1946.

— 1955: He creates the agency I.M. Pei and Associates, having been naturalised a US citizen a year earlier.

— 1959: The construction of Mile High Centre in Denver, Colorado, becomes the first in a series of major orders in the United States and around the world.

— 1978: His East Building of the National Gallery of Art opens in Washington.

— 1979: Pei completes The John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

— 1982: His Fragrant Hill Hotel in Beijing opens.

— 1983: Pei is awarded the Pritzker Prize, considered the Nobel prize of architecture.

— 1989: The Louvre Pyramid is opened to the public. The same year, Pei completes the Bank of China office tower in Hong Kong.

— 1992: He is awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian honour.

— 1995: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opens a lakefront museum designed by Pei in Cleveland, Ohio.

— 2008: His Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, opens. — AFP