Beijing's height limits were imposed following architect I.M. Pei's first visit to the Chinese capital in 1974, when he urged authorities to protect the 800-year-old Forbidden City from encroachment by modern high-rises. Originally off limits to all but the imperial family and its entourage, this 8-million-square-foot walled palace (now a museum) comprises the oldest, largest and finest group of dynastic buildings in China. Its very essence depends on an intimate relationship with the open sky, one on one, to the exclusion of everything else. Pei's position was distinctly at odds with the prevailing climate in Beijing at the time. After decades of isolation, widespread destruction of the historic past had been eagerly undertaken in the name of progress. Preservation of this most precious cultural relic was the greatest contribution a native son could make to his mother country.
Twenty years later, 77-year-old I.M Pei paid a price for his altruism, when he joined with his sons -- C.C. Pei, 48, and L.C. Pei, 45, of Pei Partnership Architects (PPA) -- in accepting the commission to design the new headquarters of the Bank of China, just two blocks from the Forbidden City and neighboring Tiananmen Square. As a result of the restrictions that were enacted, the design had to accommodate the client's enormous 1.7 million-square-foot program on a 3-acre site, yet stay within the 135-foot height limit that Pei himself had championed.