The tower of Babel.

• Author: Dotson, David
• Position: Clark Tribble Harris & Li architectural firm breaks up - Company profile

At the height of their success, three partners stopped speaking the same language, and their firm collapsed.

Partners in the Charlotte architectural firm of Clark Tribble Harris & Li saw their relationship dissolve in much the same way some marriages break up: with one partner changing the locks on the doors and airing private grievances in public before lawyers.

But Joseph Harris, the man who called in the attorneys, remembers fondly his 15 years with the partnership: "When it was good, it was very, very good. When it was over, it was sad."

It seemed like a good match. Jerry Li was the brilliant conceptualist. Mike Tribble was the quiet thinker who could take Li's visions and turn them into blueprints. Joe Harris was the tough, practical businessman.

The talents and ambitions of the three partners meshed so smoothly that in the space of a decade they built their small Charlotte practice into a firm recognized statewide for good design that fit clients' needs.

By 1987, they were on their way to becoming an internationally recognized force with offices in Washington, New York City, London, Sarasota, Fla., and Charlotte. Over Clark Tribble's 18-year history, the firm designed more than 32 million square feet in 30 states with construction value of nearly $2 billion.

But success, distance and, some would say, mismanagement broke the tie that bound the partners together. By the time they reached their zenith, the long honeymoon was over. Harris and Li first began to drift apart and then to fight, before finally breaking up the partnership in late 1990.

Back in 1979, the magic was still in the relationship, and that magic apparently made the difference in landing the contract for Charlotte's Discovery Place, the project that let people know what the young, talented firm could do.

Discovery Place was one of the first science museums designed from scratch rather than as a renovation of an older building. Much of Charlotte's architectural community competed for the Tryon Street project. Getting picked over such established firms as Odell Associates and J.N. Pease Associates was a real coup for the 5-year-old, 20-member firm.

Although the firm hired Philadelphian Robert Venturi, a well-known name in architecture, Discovery Place was really a Clark Tribble Harris & Li building, says Freda Nicholson, the museum's executive director. "Jerry Li more or less took the lead on the rain-forest section, and Mike Tribble took the lead on the rest of the building." Harris handled the contract, bringing the project in on time and within budget.

"Every time you met with them, you met with all of them," Nicholson says. "It went great. They were a very small firm and gave a lot of personalized attention."

"They essentially created a low-budget container wherein the architecture is background and the exhibits are foreground," says Charles Hight, dean of UNCCharlotte's College of Architecture.

"It was a bold piece of architecture," says Edwin F. Harris, head architect for N.C. State University's campus.

Good architecture is what Frank Clark, Joe Harris and Jerry Li wanted to do when they left Charlotte's largest architectural firm, Odell Associates, in 1973 to start their own practice with former Odell architect George Godwin. Architects Tommy Byrum and Thomas McDuffie joined the firm soon after it opened.

Leaving Odell took some brass. A member of a prominent Concord textile family, A.G. Odell Jr., who died in 1988, was a strong proponent of modern architecture. His bold design of the domed Charlotte Coliseum attracted national attention in 1950. But even though Odell was known for his modern designs, he characterized architecture as 90% business and 10% art.

Godwin left the new firm after about a year and was replaced by Mike Tribble. In 1974, the outfit took the name of Clark Tribble Harris & Li and went to work as the new, design-oriented kids on the block.

Not only were they talented, Hight says, "they had a reputation for meeting clients' needs, responding to unique conditions of the clients and, in some cases, the site." What's more, he says, they did what a lot of other talented architects couldn't - they were "able to bring it in within a budget."

Even some of the mundane projects they took on, such as the parking deck at the Mecklenburg County courthouse addition or the physical plant at UNC-Charlotte, were well-designed and had a certain panache, he says.

In the late 1970s, Clark decided to return to his hometown, Anderson, S.C., leaving Harris, Tribble and Li as the principal partners. His departure, like Godwin's, was the natural consequence of having too many strong-willed individuals in one firm. "You have two strong personalities in joe and jerry," former Clark Tribble architect Bill Monroe says. "You really couldn't have a third strong personality."

The three remaining partners developed a chemistry that would take the partnership to the edge of national and international renown. "The three of them together, in one building, made a great team," says Michael Murray, another architect who worked with the firm.

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Jerry Li was from a family with powerful connections in prewar China. His father was an industrial engineer who worked in the United States for the Chinese government and the Chinese bank. After World War II, the family stayed. He studied architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., then joined a practice in New York City. In 1970, a headhunter hooked him up with Odell, where joe Harris hired him to lead the design shop.

It was Jerry Li's creative fire as...