IM Pei, the Chinese-American architect who died in 2019 at the age of 102, seems a perfect choice for the inaugural architecture exhibition in Hong Kong’s vast M+ museum. His towering Bank of China tower is visible over the water; like Hong Kong itself, his career straddled east and west, finance and art, commerce and culture. From his striking addition to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (1978) to his serene Museum of Islamic Art in Doha (2008), not to mention the controversial glass pyramid at the Louvre, you could call him the world’s first starchitect.

Yet this huge show, one of the largest devoted to an architect anywhere in years, does not entirely endorse this narrative. Instead it suggests that Pei was a member of a team, not solely responsible for his buildings but a figure who guided from the background. This is, of course, how architecture is mostly made — even if it is not the narrative we are used to.

It is notable that there are no drawings in Pei’s hand here later than his student years; no napkin sketches, presentation drawings, conceptual diagrams — nothing. If it weren’t for occasional video footage of him playing on screens, he would be almost entirely absent. Yet it is arguably this quality that makes him such a fascinating, enigmatic figure.