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Rafael Pelli’s company has designed some of the most epic buildings in the world, including the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the International Finance Center in Hong Kong, and the Salesforce Transit Center in San Francisco.
But there is an intimate story behind these massive projects. Mr. Pelli’s 100-strong company, now called Pelli Clarke & Partners, was founded in 1977 by his father, the legendary architect Cesar Pelli. He died in 2019 at the age of 92. Starting as a single office in New Haven, Connecticut, where the older Pelli also worked as dean of the Yale School of Architecture, Pelli Clarke & Partners now operates from New York and Shanghai.
As a partner of the company for two decades, Rafael Pelli has made sustainability a central point of his mission; the studio designed some of the first LEED-certified buildings in the US and Europe. His firm’s work also includes residential projects such as New York’s Museum Tower, One Beacon Court, and 20 River Terrace, and Residences by Armani Casa Tower in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. Current projects include Toro Asa in Tokyo, Chengdu’s Museum of Natural History, and Austin’s Block 185 – a “green” building that has been fully rented from Google.
Mr Pelli has spoken with Mansion Global for some time about the future of cities, how the pandemic is changing the demands on architects, the new meaning of sustainability and his own living spaces.
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MG: In November you changed the company name from Pelli Clarke Pelli to Pelli Clarke & Partners. What does that mean?
RP: It’s an evolutionary change. My father is no longer with us. The most important change was the realization that there is a core group of people who have worked in the company almost from the beginning. There is a tendency to view architects as unique heroes – like “The Fountainhead” – even if they run an office with 1,000 employees. It’s a dangerous mythology, especially with projects as big as we are. My dad was the first to say, “Hey, it’s not just about me.” There’s a group of people who do this stuff.
MG: Your office is known for its collaborative culture. How did you hold out during the pandemic? RP: It was transformed and it was harder to do. It took more effort to bring people together and maintain the level of engagement that comes naturally when you are physically together. There is a basic culture in the way we work where we get ideas beyond our own office and design team. We look forward to people from many other disciplines and of course to customers and even tenants in customer buildings. This approach goes back to my father’s work with Eero Saarinen in the 1950s. It was a very idea-oriented practice. Eero was at the forefront, but everyone contributed.
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MG: There has been so much discussion about the future of Midtown Manhattan and other city centers. What is your vision
RP: Urban cores will largely be what they were again. The factors that led to their existence and growth remain – it is the need to communicate together. Behind this is a core belief that a lot of really useful things happen outside of a formal meeting: the “oh, by the way” moment. Technology will not replace that. On the living side, there is an accelerated trend of wanting to be close to your work place. Apartment buildings must now include different types of experiences – work, social, and both – with different types of spaces. It’s a kind of convergence between the workplace and the multi-family housing market. They are part of a whole ecosystem of urban cores.
MG: Has the pandemic forced you to turn around on projects that are already running?
RP: Most of the projects went largely as planned. For some, we’ve been asked to take a break and look closely at new strategies during the pandemic. Possibly they were lounges in an office building that could be rented out so the population could spread out – looking at the entire package of spaces outside of the room itself. And of course there were hard glances at mechanical and air filtration systems. How can we make buildings as resilient as possible?
MG: How have the demands on sustainability changed since you started practicing?
RP: The first big push was definitely led by the LEED building program – defining a green building was an incredible breakthrough. Before that, anyone could call themselves green. It’s still vital, but what’s added is a lot more focused on the occupant experience and health. This means that the air quality receives a different level of detail and attention. Daylight issues are explored much more deeply. And how do you encourage healthy habits like standing up and exercise? How do you get people to walk and climb stairs more?
MG: How can these ideas be transferred to residential buildings?
RP: In New York at least, convenience used to mean having a laundry room in the basement of an apartment building. What you see in newer buildings is amazing, from really fancy, elaborate workout rooms to meeting rooms, coffee bars, places to make music, places to work, places to sit outside and work. This goes along with this general thinking about wellness and trying to support the human experience in ways that are beneficial to their health. Part of that is getting them off their desks and out of the apartment.
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MG: How does this affect customer requirements for your company?
RP: One of the greatest wishes right now is flexibility. How can you create spaces that can be converted into multifunctional spaces to host a large dinner with a catering kitchen, then close the doors and turn it into a yoga room? It is important now to think flexibly about the use of space and then think about flexibility over time, i.e. how spaces might evolve. The hot thing years ago becomes yesterday’s news. These things are on the mind of developers.
MG: What does your own living space look like?
RP: I hop back and forth between Connecticut and New York City. In New York we’re in a pre-war apartment on the 15th floor overlooking the Hudson [River], originally designed in the Art Deco style with an open floor plan. In Connecticut, we bought an old cottage in a town called Stony Creek. We did a lot of little things to it, but kept the look and feel. It has a terrace and a garden – my wife and I love gardening. My wife and I worked at home and our daughter was in high school so the Connecticut house was much cheaper during Covid, with lots of small rooms.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/rafael-pelli-on-the-merging-of-architecture-and-wellness-01638792328
