Great profile in the Guardian over the weekend about world-renowned architect I.M.Pei.

Pei is best known for the controversial pyramid he came up with for the Louvre, and in China for his skyline-defining Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong.

More recently though he was also responsible for the redesign of the Suzhou Musueum, which was completed in October 2006.

Suzhou was where Pei spent many of his childhood summers, after his family moved to nearby Shanghai from Hong Kong when he was 10. (Of Shanghai's Park Hotel he has said: "While I was playing billiards and going to the cinema this building was going up, getting taller and taller. It became twenty-four stories high. That had an influence on me and gave me a glimpse into the future.")

Suzhou's gardens were also to inform his work in later life. The Guardian article goes as far as saying he is "not ­interested in rivalling or ­bettering the place that has so ­inspired him," Suzhou's beautiful Lion Grove Garden.

So next time you're in Suzhou, be sure to take in not just the world-famous gardens, but the museum they gave rise to.