IM Pei: Building the Future of China

After completing the Louvre and Bank of China projects, Pei retired from the firm he had created 35 years before. He later joined his two sons, Didi and Sandi, who had set up their own architectural firm, Pei Partnership Architects, and continued to work on projects that interested him, setting his sights globally. “[The Louvre] taught me that to know a country you have to work there on a project of consequence,” he told The New York Times. “So after that project I told myself, ‘Let’s learn about the world.’ ” With the international arena as his playground, Pei had his choice of projects.

It wasn’t until a decade later, after completing monumental works like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Miho Museum, that Pei returned to China for work. Pulled out of retirement again to work with his sons on a museum in his ancestral home of Suzhou, Pei felt this was his last chance to leave his mark on the country.

“Pei wanted in the Suzhou Museum to try to do something about the direction of architecture in China – even to the degree of attempting to define a new direction for Chinese architecture, one which does a better job of moving into the future without denigrating the past,” said Eugene Shirley, producer of the documentary I.M. Pei: Building China Modern.

The city, known for its gardens and classical structures from the Ming and Qing dynasties, set the stage for a design that celebrated the garden architecture of Pei’s youth. During the planning stages, Pei struggled with the question of how to make history come alive while still pointing to the future before eventually deciding to use a modern form that incorporated traditional building materials, like water-softened rocks and Suzhou’s traditional grey and white colour palette. Inspired by the summers he spent in the garden of his grandfather’s home in Suzhou, Pei has called the building “a biography for myself”.

The Suzhou Museum opened to great fanfare in 2006 when the architect had reached the age of 89, and many, including his wife, expected it would be his final project. Instead, he has continued designing, notably serving as the lead architect for the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar. In typical fashion, Pei toured the Middle East for six months to better understand the culture before starting the project.

As the nonagenarian’s career winds down, he has proven more than equal to his title of “most important living modern architect”, but Pei still wishes he had a more significant impact on his home country.

"I could have done a lot more in China," he recently told CNN. "I left something there but not enough." Where Pei harbours regrets, his sons, Sandi and Didi, have picked up the mantle, designing buildings and working on projects in Beijing, Hong Kong, Macau, Nanjing, Qingdao, Wuxi and Zhengzhou, as well as in North America, the Middle East and other parts of Asia with Pei Partnership Architects.

Wiseman says that Pei is pleased with his sons’ decision to join his profession and brushes off any mention of nepotism. “He explains that, in China, recommending your sons to work on a project is the highest form of security,” Wiseman says.

And while their father’s name has certainly benefited their careers, Sandi and Didi have themselves designed impressive buildings, proving that they have the design chops to stand on their own feet.

“The family legacy is a great advantage to us because it opens doors both in China and elsewhere in the world,” says Sandi. “But after that it is a great challenge and responsibility because we cannot afford to do only a good job. Excellence is the legacy we carry and it is our minimum standard.”

Sandi’s intricate work on Macau’s City of Dreams complex, the largest water theatre in the world, has been acclaimed, and Didi led the design of the new chancery building of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington D.C. Consulting for both the Chinese and US governments, Didi told the Washington Times that the negotiation was an "incredible international tap dance”, but one he managed with aplomb.

More personally, the brothers also collaborated on Bank of China Head Office Building in Beijing, a project that held deeper meaning for the Pei family legacy. Pei’s father was one of the bank’s founders and Pei himself had already designed the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong. “The Bank was very proud that commissioning Pei Partnership Architects meant that now three generations of the Pei family have been directly part of its history,” Didi says.

Although they have children of their own now, Sandi and Didi aren’t sure if a fourth generation of the Pei family will leave its mark on China. Didi insists that his progeny should do what makes them happy. “I think that just as my father did not try to affect my choice of career, I should not try to impose anything on my children,” he says. “Their choice should come from their own passions.”