BY ARCHITECT STEFANO PARANCOLA
Feng shui focuses on the soul of the home, the effects of environment, colors and furnishings on the human psyche, and suggests various practical solutions to increase the harmony of those residing in the home. In this way, Feng shui amplifies bio-architecture, and when integrated, greater wholeness in building and living is achieved.
Feng shui, is not an esoteric phenomenon that has only come to prominence today, but it is also an underground current that is the subject of studies that has come to light in the writings on some famous architects (Patrick Abercrombie, Norman Foster, Ieoh Ming Pei and Gino Valle) and further back in time even in the design determinants of some of their works (Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Bank of China and Udine Resistance Monument).
Many architects have created their own formal architectural language from the analysis of natural and organic forms, Frank Lloyd Wright himself respected environmental contextuality and emphasized “that the house is born from the ground and not on the ground,” while architect Gino Valle uses the pillar as an outgrowth of the ground making it the most expressive building element and defined it as a mound of earth.
Archaic motivations are not absent in this search for roots on Valle’s part, and the naturalistic metaphor will prove particularly fruitful by generating an entire family of buildings (1950s and 1960s) whose construction theme also tends toward the archetype of the primitive hut: whether a residence or a bank, the inhabited volume rises in the shelter of a large roof supported by massive pillars.
As Renzo Piano argues: Architecture is a second nature superimposed on the real one. The architect is a kind of little godfather who recreates the environment.”
Feng shui goes further, however, and is based on Eastern concepts, rooted for about three thousand years, less felt in our culture (Yin-Yang, Five Elements, I Ching…), although intuitively followed and applied by our fathers of architecture.
It is interesting to apply these Eastern “contaminations” to interior environments such as the bathroom. Feng shui, in addition to Wind and Water, implies a deeper meaning. it indicates the oneness of the whole cosmos in the sense that the macro and the micro determine each other, just as the constituent elements of an environment influence each other and determine the environment itself; conversely, the latter with its furniture, objects, furnishings…influences its inhabitants. The environment is not something we find already made but is something that can be created by ourselves.
Therefore, by associating symbolism understood as a close link and reference to the forms transmitted by nature and symbolism as a set of propitious forms used for millennia in the divinatory arts, one can arrive at producing bathroom furnishing objects with strong formal value that positively and harmoniously characterize an environment such as the bathroom that is too often considered a result space. The bathroom according to the Compass School should be oriented toward the north, east and southeast directions related to the Elements Water and Wood in order to respect the Creative Cycle of the Five Elements by favoring sinuous shapes and colors related to these elements (light blue of various shades, blue, sea water green, in any case pastel colors).
In case of bathrooms oriented with other directions, one can intervene by balancing shapes, colors and materials following the dictates of the Five Elements.
Feng shui really means understanding nature, protecting natural ecosystems, placing buildings and facilities correctly, harnessing Wind and Water as we modify the land in order to make it welcoming and pleasant for today’s man and future generations.
