Chu-yuan Lee

Biography

Chu-yuan Lee finished his best-known project, Taipei 101, in 2004, and until 2010 no building in the world was taller. But he did not start out with skyscrapers.

He was born on 30 December 1938 in Guangdong, in Jieyang County according to some accounts. He studied in Taiwan: at a high school attached to National Taiwan Normal University, then at National Cheng Kung University, from which he graduated in 1961. After that he went to the United States and in 1966 received a Master of Architecture degree from Princeton University.

In America he worked at several firms: the office of Ieoh Ming Pei (Pei Yuming) and other practices in Philadelphia, Boston and Los Angeles. In 1970 he helped Pei design the Republic of China pavilion for the world's fair in Osaka. He also taught, as an associate professor in the architecture department of Tunghai University. In 1978, together with Chung-Ping Wang, he founded the firm C. Y. Lee & Partners Architects/Planners, and in 1980 he returned to Taiwan. One of his first Taiwanese buildings was a building on Chung Hsiao West Road in Taipei (1980).

After that the list grows quickly. In Taipei there are the Hung Kuo Building (1989), Asia Plaza (1990) and Far Eastern Plaza (1994). In Kaohsiung, the Grand 50 Tower (1992) was briefly, until 1993, the tallest building in Taiwan, and the 85 Sky Tower (1997) held that title until 2004, when Taipei 101 took it from it. In Nantou, the Chung Tai Chan Monastery, a Buddhist monastery, was completed in 2001. In Taichung came a hotel and the amusement park Lihpao Land; in Taipei, a bus station (2009) and the Farglory Financial Center (2012).

He also worked on the mainland: the Post & Telecommunications Center in Tianjin (1998), the Yuda International Trade Center in Zhengzhou (1999), the Fangyuan Mansion and Jinsha Plaza in Shenyang (2001), the Ten-faced Puxian Stupa on Jinding, Mount Emei (2006), and the Pangu 7 Star Hotel in Beijing (2008). According to some accounts, there are also projects in Southeast Asia: in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

He explains his approach this way: Eastern culture rests on the unity of heaven, earth and man, Western culture on opposition, and modern architecture, in his view, should grow from the deep layer of a culture and not from imitating outward forms. Hence his theory of “round qi” (yuanqi) and his turn to traditional Chinese imagery.

Opinions of his buildings differ sharply. The philosopher Mou Zongsan wrote that Lee seeks to “dissolve culture into architecture”. At the same time, several of his buildings repeatedly received in Taiwan the “Hou Li Dou” prize, an ironic award for the ugliest buildings (in 2004, 2007 and 2008), and a Chinese web portal listed the Pangu hotel and Fangyuan Mansion in 2010 among the ugliest buildings in the country. It seems to me that the argument is about where the line lies between quoting a tradition and reproducing it literally; I will not try to settle it for the reader.

In 2008 Lee received the 12th National Award for Arts in Taiwan. In 2009 his firm donated the Shengping Theater in Jiufen to the government of New Taipei.