Jan 27, 2025
Welcome to Season 5, Episode 4! Peter Tao and his real life partner Helen Lee are the force behind TAO + LEE Associates, Inc. an award winning St. Louis based design firm. They provide Architectural, Planning, Interiors, and Creative Design services for a diversity of project types, sizes & applications. Their projects have been built both domestically and internationally.
That alone would have interested us enough to have a conversation with Peter, but he’s also heavily involved in the St. Louis community, working to raise awareness of the history and stories of Chinese Americans and the greater Asian Pacific Americans who have lived in Missouri. Inspired to dig deeper to help honor his father’s centennial birthday back in 2017, Peter has gone on to write blogs, curate historical artifacts, and contribute to historical documents. One of his latest pieces is an essay entitled "Why Should We, the Chinese, Meet at the Fair?" in the book in the book The Wonder and Complexity of the 1904 World’s Fair.
His deep dive into family and Chinese American history resulted in him creating his site (and great nickname) The Accidental Historian. On the site, you can find pictures of his family’s history as well as posts about a variety of topics including The Life Balance Equation and There Were Chinese in the South? If that wasn’t enough, he’s still heavily involved in The Missouri Historical Society’s St. Louis Chinese American Collecting Initiative that collects pictures and stories of Chinese Americans in St. Louis. You can donate money or contribute artifacts to help!
In Part 1, we discuss architecture, how he got into history, things he’d like people to know about Chinese Americans in St. Louis, and more.
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