How feng shui shapes a city
The skyline of Hong Kong is dotted with tall, mighty skyscrapers; concrete trees in an urban jungle. At nightime, the city lights merge into the dark sky, like man-made stars. The city is an urban planner’s dream, ingenious and unique. The skyline becomes even more interesting once you investigate the influences behind its design - primarily that of feng shui.
Feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice where you align objects - and in Hong Kong’s case, buildings - in a way which wards off misfortune and instead brings good luck. It is a concept focused on the way an environment can affect people’s wellbeing, exploring the different energies which exist around us. Experts in feng shui are regularly consulted in order to help bring prosperity to the city, and the people who live and visit there. Companies design new buildings, and often bring in a feng shui master to learn specific design techniques which enable them to better create harmonious environments. The idea is to “maximise the benefit of prosperous energy and reduce the negative energy,” said a feng shui expert, Raymond Lo. Hong Kong already has naturally positive feng shui with the balancing presence of mountains and water; ‘feng’ meaning ‘wind’ and ‘shui’ meaning ‘water.’
Specific architectural designs and decisions can be influenced by feng shui concepts, such as the placement of different areas in the building, decorating, or where the manager’s office is situated. Decisions based on feng shui are meant to create a force of good energy which boosts the business and helps it to flourish. Often the bigger the development of a building, the more likely a feng shui expert will be contacted for help. The goal is to attract as much good luck and prosperity as possible.
Several skyscrapers within Hong Kong are quintessential examples of feng shui use. The HSBC Building is one of these, considered to have exceptional feng shui. It was designed by Norman + Partners, a British architecture firm, who consulted a considerable amount with feng shui masters. The lower building lacks a ground floor and instead has a hollow and high-roofed atrium; this invites wind and positive qi energy into the building. The escalators are placed at a specific angle in order to stop evil spirits from entering the building. Two large lions made of bronze stand at its entrance, symbols of prosperity and wealth. There’s also a garden outside to collect the good energy. When the Bank of China Tower was built next to the HSBC Building, two large canon-like structures were placed on the latter buildings roof in order to ward off bad feng shui from the opposing bank.
The Bank of China Tower itself is easy to spot within Hong Kong’s skyline with a triangular prism structure. It stands as an example of bad feng shui practice with its sharp angles creating ‘sha qui (killing energy),’ and the unlucky events which occurred during its construction have only enforced belief in the importance of feng shui to create positive energy. The building has now been surrounded by plants and trees with a small waterfall to cultivate positive energy and create a harmonious and stable environment.
A square-shaped, unassuming building, with reflective glass as its shell to help positive qi energy flow around it, is the Cheung Kong Centre. The Hopewell Centre is a slim, cylindrical shaped building, 64-stories in height. Feng shui experts noted it looked too much like a candle, with connotations of fire and death, and so a swimming pool was added to its roof, “putting out” the negative energy. Jardine House has circular windows which reflect the sky outside, representing coins and the sun, as symbols of wealth and heaven. Dragons, as symbols of strength and good luck, are meant to fly from the mountains to the water of Hong Kong, and The Repulse Bay is said to have created “dragon gates;” holes in its structure which allow the dragons to fly through on their journey.
The practice, although not officially adhered too, has a wide influence outside of the main city too. For example, villagers in the New Territories region in Hong Kong, received $10 million HKD of public funds to spend on feng shui practices when building their new homes. Hong Kong’s City University offers a course on feng shui as part of its building and engineering master’s degree, showing the influence of this traditional practice.
The feng shui practice can also be incorporated into your own home. Have you set your home up in a way which encourages harmony and good energy to flow through?