An alternative tradition in architecture: Conceptions in feng shui and its continuous tradition

There has been a growing interest in traditional cultures and their changing implementation in architecture in recent years in response to the search for an alternative theory for the betterment of the built environment. This paper attempts to reconstruct the ancient discipline of feng shui as an alternative institution in architecture within the intellectual tradition of ancient China. Feng shui emerged over a long period of time with the establishment of ancient cosmology and the growth of natural science. Feng shui is continuously exercised in the contemporary overseas Chinese communities through the use of traditional almanacs, without their being necessarily aware of its involvement. This paper argues that feng shui is worth further scrutiny, for it is a significant trace of the development of human consciousness, and it becomes a challenge to unbridle it from the social prejudice of modernism. "One of the greatest needs of the world in our time is the growth and wide dissemination of a true historical perspective, for without it whole peoples can make the gravest misjudgments about each other," Joseph Needham (1971).