I.M. PEI, THE RENOWNED Chinese architect yesterday visited the new headquarters of the Bank of China, designed by his two sons and his family's elegant legacy to the Beijing skyline.
The building, with 1.7 million square feet of space, overlooks Chang An Avenue, the main east-west thoroughfare of the capital, at the southern end of Xidan Street, one of the city's major commercial streets. It marks part of the rapid transformation of the skyline over central Beijing that has aroused mixed feelings among local people.
The building opened for business in early May and the bank is hosting a reception tomorrow evening to mark the completion of the seven-billion-yuan (about HK$6.5 billion) project.
Mr Pei, who designed the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong and the glass 'pyramid' in the central courtyard of the Louvre in Paris, has arrived in Beijing to attend the reception, along with his two sons, Chien Chung and Li Chung. All three work for Pei Partnership Architects of New York.
The new headquarters for the bank - which is China's most profitable state bank and ranks as a Fortune 500 company - consists of two L-shaped wings enclosing a central garden court of 32,500 sq ft, with two clumps of bamboo trees and a rock pool filled with goldfish, traditional symbols of good fortune.
The garden contains seven groups of rock brought with special government approval 2,800 kilometres away from the Stone Forest, a protected national park in Yunnan province. It also contains 15-metre-high bamboo brought by truck on a three-day journey from Hangzhou in eastern China's Zhejiang province.