Tony Chi

From the Grand Hyatt in Osaka to The Harbour Kitchen dining experience in Sydney, Tony Chi is the creative tour de force behind some of the world’s most stunning structures and interiors. In Egypt, he’s created Cairo’s Thai paradise The Birdcage as well as the cutting edge interiors of Rhitmo, a hot spot for Egypt’s socialites. In Dubai, Chi has created the interiors for the stunning restaurant Teatro at the Towers Rotana Hotel Dubai. Chi also has a host of private clients in the Middle East, for whom is designing fabulous and unique homes. Shareen Nasr-El-Din spoke to the innovative genius whose reputation and ideas span the globe.

“Everything I do is transparent…I have nothing to hide.” With that, Tony Chi defines his work, his life and himself. His talent and genius have left his clients breathless and begging for more. After all, Tony Chi is an architect, interior designer and a raging success.

The man behind the design of Cairo’s super sleek, trendy nightspot Rhitmo at the Semiramis hotel, as well as the hotel’s exclusive Thai restaurant The Birdcage, is regularly drawn away from his life in the Big Apple to put his own creative stamp on the Land of the Pyramids. His next Egyptian project is set to be a complete overhaul and re-crafting of the Semiramis Intercontinental’s main lobby. The finished project may surprise Carienes accustomed to the bland international settings that newer hotels aim for. Chi is seemingly eager to integrate the sensibilities of Egyptian culture and design into his forthcoming work.

While the Birdcage and Rhitmo may have ensured Chi a title as one of the most creative and talented designers in the country, his sparkling international reputation and extraordinary history precedes him. Born in Taipai, China in the 1950’s, the Chi family moved to the US when threatened with the governmental Communist coup. Chi grew up on the lower East side of New York in the Latin corner, also known as Alphabet City, where he studied at the High School of Art and Design. Although he attended the University of California, Berkeley for the first two years of his undergraduate career, he came to intensely disliking it. “I hated it, and I was miserable, California didn’t work for me.” He soon transferred to the University of New York where he studied design and architecture. Afterwards, he majored in interior design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Determined and unrelenting, Chi went from working as a waiter, to forming Tony Chi and Associates in June 1984. His company was created to “design and craft clients’ state of mind”. The internal conceptual basis for the company was simply, “Let’s just do our own thing.” As Chi explains, “None of us really cared about getting paid”. So it’s hardly surprising that financial success didn’t come right away. “For years I didn’t support my family, [my wife] did.” It took a while for the company to reach the global fame and success that it has achieved today; however, all the associates that started working for the company at its embryonic stages are still with Chi, creating newer and more unique masterpieces. “It’s all about crafting a lifestyle on a public place,” explains Chi somewhat enigmatically. “Whatever we craft can evolve on people’s lives and not just around it.”

For Tony Chi, life is filled with moments that are meant to be remembered forever. He constantly asks himself, “How can I add a memorable moment in people’s life?” These little segments of time are priceless to him; Chi gives a whole new definition to adding quality and not quantity to life. “I don’t celebrate my birthday and I won’t celebrate my funeral…I celebrate everyday.” However despite the ethereal ideas, Chi is far from being a pretentious designer, he even says of himself: “Do not think of me as a designer for wealthy people. I don’t just go for the wow factor; that’s very shallow. For me, it’s all about expression.”

Yet how does this all relate to the practicalities of his work? As Chi explains, once a client announces the desire to remodel or create a project, Chi analyses his options and decides whether the idea can be materialised. “I turn down nine out of ten jobs,” he says. The next step is a “voyage” to the city that is about to get a fresh new make-over. “If I do not like a city, or a country, or a project, I just don’t do it.” Chi also explains how imperative it is to “share the chemistry” with the place he is about to work in and the people he will be working with. “With every job, I’ve done the best I can. I bring out the best and worst in people...it really depends on my mood.” Ever the instinctual modernist, Chi believes in letting “the land tell you what to do. You really need to absorb the city, let it talk to you”. After he gets his inspiration from the natural surroundings, the artist in him lurches out and creates genius.

The portfolio of his work includes designing the Grand Hyatt in Osaka, Japan, and a house in Shanghai, China that was “saved” by Chi. The house was about to be torn down, but fortunately, Chi had a vision for the location and turned it into one of the most popular restaurants in the area. In 1995, Chi conquered Sydney Harbour to create the enormously popular restaurant The Harbour Kitchen. Then there’s Manhattan, Hong Kong, London and of course Cairo. The list of structures and interiors that carry the Toni Chi name is endless.

His masterpiece; however, is set to be “a totally unconventional hotel” in Shanghai, China, which will open its doors on his birthday in 2008. It is a hotel that Chi promises will defy all the expected rules of formal hotel design.

This momentous project is certainly not the end for the adventurous Chi, “I want to start a new life,” he says hinting at the unexpected to come. He explains that as a child, he didn’t have much freedom of choice to do whatever he wanted. “I want the chance to live again…I want to be born at the age of 50.” He is keen to go back to school, major in a new field, and incredibly “start all over again”. Chi also plans to spend some of his time writing a novel filled with stories about all the countries he has visited, and the different cultures he experienced, tasted, and touched. Thanks to Chi, Carienes have also had the chance to experience those worlds through his spectacular designs.