The 30-Minute Interview : The 30-Minute Interview: Li Chung Pei

Before starting the firm in 1992, Mr. Pei, who goes by the name Sandi, had worked at his father’s firm, I. M. Pei & Partners.

Interview conducted and condensed by

VIVIAN MARINO

Q. You go by the name Sandi. How did you get that nickname?

A. Sandi means third brother in Chinese.

Q. Your brother Chien Chung, known as C. C., is also a partner. What are your roles in the firm?

A. We share in all of the responsibilities of the firm, both administrative and design. He designs his projects, and I design my projects, but we collaborate as well. In other words, we look over each other’s work.

Q. How many projects are you working on now?

A. I have four projects; my brother also has about four projects. So we have about eight ongoing projects either in advance design or construction.

I’m doing a bank headquarters in China — this will actually be our third bank headquarters — and we’re doing some villas in China. I just finished a very large project for BMW, and we’re also doing hotels. We have one in Toronto, one in Indonesia, an office building in São Paulo.

Q. So business is good?

A. We’re very busy. We have more than we could actually handle in some respects. It’s not a very large firm — we have 35 architects in this office — so we don’t need an enormous amount of projects to keep ourselves going. We have the advantage of being able to select our projects for the kind of opportunities they present. But when you have the name in your practice people always come to you.

Q. Has it been hard living up to that name?

A. I think as you get older you realize that what at one time seemed to be a handicap is really such a tremendous advantage. I am so grateful for what I’ve been able to do for the fact that people have entrusted to me so much because of the respect they have for my father. To me that’s just an enormous advantage, or benefit. I can’t think of any disadvantages looking back now. It’s just been terrific for us.

Q. Was your father your mentor?

A. Oh, I would say so. For sure, for sure. He didn’t take a very active role in persuading me or encouraging me to do this, but I think once I decided he was very pleased. I remember his office was down on 47th street and Madison Avenue and I would go over there quite often.

Q. What have you learned from him?

A. Well, he continues to be a great example. I think mostly it was just by his example, by the work he’s done. But he was also a terrific father — very, very supportive and nurturing — and I think he taught me a lot of values and valuable lessons that had nothing to do with architecture.

Q. Is your father involved in the business any more?

A. My father’s almost 96. Not so active, but he’s well.

He’s retired — he’s earned that. It took a long time for him to retire. It’s hard when you’re an architect to put down the pencil. Even when he declared his retirement he continued to practice. He did some of the most notable and recognizable buildings after that, most recently the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the Centurion and also the Suzhou Museum in China.

Q. He collaborated with you on the Centurion. What was his role there?

A. Initially, it was developing the overall concept of the building and the basic form that the building was going to take. But the project was a full collaboration with me, my firm.

Q. That was your first ground-up building in New York.

A. That’s right.

Q. Do you have any other projects in the works there?

A. Not presently. There’s a possibility of one, which I can’t speak about. But there’s a large project that we’re doing in Toronto, so not too far. We hope to be doing more, and we have been reaching out and have been approached.

The firm has primarily been working in Asia, the Persian Gulf and South America, and we have projects in the Pacific Rim, in Chicago and Toronto, so we are moving away from the center being in China to other areas.

Q. Do you have a favorite building in New York?

A. Oh I would say still today my favorite building is the Rockefeller Center — the entire urban design. This is what I aspire to. It’s not just the buildings, which are very handsome, but also the spaces that they define.

Q. Where do you live?

A. We live on the Upper East Side. I designed my apartment.

It has a prewar feeling, but a very contemporary design. I did a lot of editing, to clean it up. It’s not a large apartment, but I had to make use of every square foot. So I got rid of a lot of extraneous things, and I made it simple, clean and functioning.

Q. Do you own any other real estate?

A. Actually, it’s a house my father designed in 1949 — the year when I was born. He built a house in Westchester County, in Katonah, which now his children own together. It’s a very simple pavilion type of house. It was designed as a summer house when we were all children, so the rooms are small. But it has a porch that runs all the way around the perimeter of the house that has been enclosed with screens. Which means you could really be outdoors but protected from the bugs.