Case Study: Frangrance Hill Hotel

The Fragrant Hill Hotel, designed by the Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei, stands in a public park within the former Imperial Hunting Grounds outside Beijing, not far from the Summer Palace and other key historic sites. The design shows a harmonious combination of modern technology, Chinese vernacular elements and Pei’s personal signature style.

One major feature of the hotel is the use of succinct geometric forms. Square, triangle and rhomboid are Pei’s signature design elements. We have seen the use of it in his many other project for modern office building, such as the Bank of China building in Hongkong, and the Louvre Glass Pyramid in Paris. In the Fragrant Hill Hotel, this minimal modernist element was used again, but was rendered in a way that was naturally transformed into an abstraction of Chinese vernacular architecture form. Pei largely used the geometry forms in the windows, which was echoing the traditional shaped-window in Suzhou gardens.


(the repetition and variaion of simple geometric forms)

(the geometric windows in traditional Suzhou gardens)

The plan of the hotel also shows the wisdom of traditional Chinese garden design principle. When you look at the front entrance, the high rising walls hide everything inside and give one a mysterious feeling. However, as you enter into the central atrium, the space suddenly burst out as a well-lit environment. The tall trees and waters built in the atrium make one even hard to tell if it is inside or outside. The backyard garden of the hotel is an even opener space, with lakes, zigzag bridges, man-made rocks and high risen trees.

(comparison: high-rise parimeter walls at the entrance concealed the bigger world inside. left: entrance of Frangrant Hill Hotel; right: a traditional high-rise wall entrance in Huizhou)

(the central atrium of the hotel)



(the back garden of the hotel)

Underlying the design is a strategy to provide a "Third Way" wherein advanced Western technology is grafted onto the essence of Chinese vernacular architecture without literal imitation. The skylight was the only major imported component; everything else was constructed by local craftsmen using age-old techniques and materials. Fragrant Hill thus draws from the living roots of tradition to sow the seed of a new, distinctly Chinese form of modern architecture that can be adapted, not merely adopted, for diverse building types.

(the well-lit central atrium; the shades of the skylight roof was made of local material, bamboo)


Each guest room opens onto a courtyard through a shaped "window picture" that frames the landscape and brings the outdoors inside. Building and gardens merge inseparably in an intimate reciprocal relationship. This “framing landscape” technique is actually a common gardening technique used by the designer of Suzhou gardens.

("framing landscape" in Frangrant Hill Hotel)

("framing landscape" technique used in a traditional Suzhou garden, Zhuozheng Yuan)


the same beautifully cast shadow from the shaped-window in Frangrant Hill Hotel(left) and Zhuozheng Yuan, Suzhou(right)


Architect: I.M. Pei, C.C. Pei
Location: Beijing, China
Completion: 1982
Mechenical/Electrical: J. Roger Preston, Hong Kong
Interior: Dale Keller & Associates, Hong Kong
Awards: 1984 American Institute of Architects: National Honor Award