Comments on paper by Manuela Madeddu and Xiaoqing Zhang

摘要

As an anthropologist and long time researcher on Chinese Feng Shui, I am pleased to see the topic moved forward by competent scholars in other disciplines, including those of architecture and urban planning. The present article by Manuela Madeddu and Xiaoqing Zhang stands out by exploring how core values, dispositions and beliefs become embedded in our production of urban spaces, and in extension of that, how Feng Shui as a distinct belief system has influenced the built environment. It raises the important question as to what extent regulators may formalize that influence through planning and design governance. As the article points out, the intricate relationship between social space and physical space has manifested itself everywhere. It is seen in the centrality allocated to public or democratic institutions in ancient Greece, to houses of God in the European Middle Ages, to domiciles of capital in the modern era, and to the symbolism of power and depictions of rulers in authoritarian states even today. Evidently, both past human experiences and future visions are impregnated in buildings and their internal hierarchies.