Architect. Pei came to the United States to study architecture in 1935. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940 and then continued his studies under Gropius and Breuer at Harvard. He received his graduate degree in 1946. Pei worked for the developer Webb and Knapp before establishing his own firm, I. M. Pei and Partners (now Pei Cobb Freed and Partners) in 1955. Among his most well-known commissions include the extensions of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. and the Louvre in Paris.