Royal Gold Medal 2010 was awarded to Ieoh Ming Pei

London - American architect Ieoh Ming Pei, who became famous among other things for the glass pyramid at the Louvre Museum in Paris, has today received one of the most prestigious awards in his field, the Royal Institute of British Architects' Gold Medal. The institute announced today that it is awarding the medal to Pei for his lifetime achievement.
    The medal, which has been awarded annually since 1848, will be accepted by the ninety-two-year-old architect of Chinese descent on February 11. He will join a list of previous recipients that includes figures such as Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Norman Foster, and Óscar Niemeyer.
    Pei also received the Pritzker Prize in 1983, known as the "Nobel Prize of Architecture." In addition to the pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre, he has designed landmarks such as the National Gallery in Washington, the Museum of Modern Art in Luxembourg, and the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong.