City of Suzhou: plaque at entrance New Suzhou Museum; built 2006; design by Ieoh Ming Pei (1917 - 2019); Famous Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei was inspired by the garden villas at Suzhou I. M. Pei moved to United States in 1935 and studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). He was in friendship with Bauhaus architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. The new Suzhou museum exhibits 4 permanent collections related to the artistically flourishing era of Suzhou; and exhibits contemporary art. Suzhou is a big city in Jiangsu Province; East China; 100 km northwest of Shanghai; Suzhou is on the Lake Tai Plain south of the Yangtze River. Founded in 514 BC; Suzhou has many sites of historical interest.