In a large private garden in Manhattan, behind a grand New York City brownstone, a man in his 90s took the hand of a young girl who is not yet 12. The bridge between them, the man's son, the girl's father, stood at a distance, looking on.
'That was pure love,' says Sandi Pei, the 60-year-old son of I.M. Pei, the architect who designed Hong Kong's Bank of China tower and the Pyramid at the Louvre, in Paris, France. 'I wasn't quite sure whether Anna was leading my father or if he was leading her.'
Pei says the moment between Anna and I.M. was precious to him because his father, a titanic figure in architecture known for his strong opinions, has rarely allowed anybody to lead him anywhere. Most architects who build in Hong Kong feel they have to be guided by fung shui, for example, but I.M. Pei did not, even though his decision sparked controversy.
'What he thought was right had nothing to do with geomancy,' says Sandi. 'It was a question of how the building responded to its context. Once he knows he has the right solution he sticks to it and that's what I like.'
As with most father-son relationships, the one between Sandi and I.M. Pei, who recently celebrated his 92nd birthday, has had its moments of joy and pain. Together, they embody the truth that love between a father and a son is a rough diamond that has to be cut with a sharp tool.
'I've had my share of arguments with my father over everything from design ideas and details to preferences in art and music,' says Sandi. 'Some things, I've discovered, need to be left on the table unresolved.
'At an earlier time in my life I felt restless and frustrated by the extent to which he was managing my career and inhibiting my emergence rather than assisting it,' he says. 'In those days, I often felt suffocated and without my own identity. Today that sense has largely dissipated but, with a strong father in the same field who casts a very long shadow, it has not entirely gone away.'