The Art of Placement

The Forbidden City is Beijing’s hottest tourist attraction besides the Great Wall. Situated in the heart of the city, this sprawling complex served as the imperial palace of two dynasties. In front of the complex is the Golden Water River, while behind lies Jingshan Hill (also known as Coal Hill). This placement is far from accidental. Few visitors realize that the river and hill are in fact artificial, created in accordance with traditional Chinese fengshui principles which require a “hill at the back and water in front.” Such a position is said to bring the inhabitants happiness and good luck. Although often dismissed as superstition in modern China, it has been shown that many fengshui principles do in fact have a basis in science, overlapping with numerous concepts found in modern environmental architecture.

The construction of ancient Chinese buildings, from grand palaces to small private residences, was deeply influenced by traditional architectural principles. Even today, Chinese people are very particular about architectural details when purchasing real estate. Apart from the house’s quality, they carefully check the abode’s exposure to sunlight, the amount of ventilation, and the floor on which it is located if it’s an apartment. Wan Yanhua, associate professor at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, states that architectural factors and the inhabitant’s comfort and health are indeed closely linked.

"Traditional architecture can be considered a set of ancient environmental concepts," says Sun Fengqi, director of the Institute of Landscape Gardening at Tsinghua University. "Take the long-established use of quadrangles in Beijing for example. Unlike those living in high-rise buildings, the residents of traditional abodes built around a central square look healthier and more vigorous. The structure of the quadrangle has a scientific environmental foundation, offering good ventilation and a place for outdoor activities." More broadly, Beijingers always favor houses to the north of the city. "It’s considered a superior location," says Wang Yi, a local real estate agent, as the natural environment in the northwest is better than that in the south, owing to the beautiful mountains and the advantageous wind direction.

Professor Wang Qiheng at the School of Architecture, Tianjin University, says that traditional beliefs about what is appropriate in light of local circumstances still make sense today. "These ideas simply take into consideration all aspects of our quality of life, which is the same approach as Western environmental architecture."

A Growing Trend in the West

Nowadays, more and more foreigners are taking a passionate interest in Chinese culture. Fengshui theories are no exception. Multi-language books on the topic have been published in the United States, Russia and Greece, and courses have long been offered in Britain and Germany.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Professor Yu Xixian from the College of Environmental Sciences, Peking University, was already giving architectural classes based on fengshui principles that were well received by students. He says the study of this subject is thriving in Hong Kong and Taiwan. An interest in the field has always been maintained in the ROK and Japan. Classes in the subject are taught at a large number of Japanese universities, and the world’s first PhD in the field was offered by an American university in the 1970s.

The website of the China Architectural Culture Center reports that Americans were not quite convinced about fengshui until magnate Donald J. Trump invited a master to assess his buildings. This strategy was first suggested to the magnate when he was attempting to build a skyscraper aimed at Asian clients. To his delight, the building was sold soon after he acted upon the master’s advice. Fully convinced, Trump decided to again seek the master’s counsel when constructing the Trump Building.

Since then, more and more Americans have begun to engage with the placement theories of fengshui, and consider how the arrangement of their environment affects their everyday lives. Along with Chinese medicine, acupuncture and kungfu, interest in such theories has steadily increased since the mid-1980s. Large numbers of fengshui associations have been established with extensive memberships. Masters from Hong Kong and Taiwan routinely give lessons in America. If any more evidence were needed of the field’s growing popularity, more than 120 titles on the subject can now be found in the Amazon online bookstore, most of them published in the last two years.