To tell the story of the Museum of Islamic Art’s creation is to tell the story of an uncompromising architect. When the project began, the first task was coaxing 90-year-old architectural icon I.M. Pei out of retirement. Pei — famous for adding beautiful expansions to museums like the National Gallery of Art and the Louvre — then spent six months touring the Islamic world for inspiration. Finally, when Pei was inspired and convinced to work, he suggested the building might look better if it was 60m offshore on a man-made island. And so it was. The resulting building is as distinctly Pei as it is Islamic, made of monumental chunks of stone stacked atop each other; the building seems to have been around for thousands of years, and lends to the thought that it will be around for many more.
