Walking Tour: My Chinese-American Architect

Peter Poon is a prolific Chinese-American architect who has built many buildings in NYC and Chinatown. (If you’ve stayed in a 2 or 3 star hotel in Manhattan, there’s a high likelihood that Peter built it.) He is also Philip’s dad.

Join Philip for a tour of some of the most iconic (and complicated) buildings that Peter has built in Chinatown over the past 30 years. Themes and questions addressed during the tour include: the complicated relationship between architecture, gentrification, and local politics, architecture as an expression of cultural identity, and the unpredictable ways that building use changes over time.

Who is architecture for? Does architecture serve the community, or accelerate its demise? By whom from whom? Who pays for architecture, and why?

The tour will begin at Peter Poon’s architecture office and include stops at the Museum of Chinese in America, Canal Street triangle, Hotel 50 Bowery, the mall at 75 East Broadway, and an office building that was used by secret Chinese government spies (really).

Tour Guide:
Philip Poon, Peter F. Poon Architect, PC, and Class of 2021 AIANY Civic Leadership Program