Sean: 節

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Posted by Sean:
節
http://whiteperil.com/posts/1200577373.shtml


   Previous times in Taipei, I haven't really talked to anyone about
   [1]Taipei 101 much. It's an impressive building--distinctive without
   being aggressively ugly, which is a balance many super-skyscrapers
   don't manage. I don't think it looks much like a [2]stalk of bamboo,
   but it has its own personality.
   Unfortunately, that apparently isn't its only distinguishing
   characteristic. The building's nowhere near capacity with tenants.
   "Bad timing on the rental market?" I asked. "No, [3]bad feng shui," I
   was told.

     Wang Chung-ping, vice chairman of C.Y. Lee and Partners, which
     designed Taipei 101, is often asked to accommodate feng shui
     concerns, but sees little science in it. "To me, it's very much a
     psychological thing," he says. "We don't encourage building owners
     to hire feng shui masters, but most seem to."
     In many cases, it is the richer building owners who pay more
     attention to feng shui, and as a result, architects have picked up
     some feng shui knowledge to avoid problems later in the design
     process. "We have some very basic knowledge of feng shui: back to a
     hill; face to an open area; no street running in your face. It's
     common knowledge in our culture. Usually what we do is OK," Wang
     says.
     Even so, architects trained in western design methods frequently
     ignore the finer points of feng shui. In design, for example,
     straight lines are seen as attractive, capable of producing an
     eye-catching sense of symmetry. Feng shui, however, views straight
     lines with suspicion, as they transmit chi too quickly. China's
     first railway, constructed by Europeans, so disturbed those living
     near it that it was ripped up and thrown into the sea.
     Wang ran into the problem of straight lines while designing Taipei
     101. An alley ran straight into the side of the building, so he was
     advised to place a fountain containing a marble ball at that
     entrance to slow the chi entering the building.
     For some feng shui masters, Taipei 101 has many other problems.
     Zhang Hsu-chu, one of the feng shui masters who worked on the
     project, acknowledges the site is not that good. He says the
     building's foundations destroyed one of the dragon lines flowing
     through Taipei, and the site used to be a place of execution,
     meaning there are a lot of ghosts in the area. These ghosts, he
     says, were responsible for the deaths of three men working on the
     building during an earthquake in 2003. He told the owner that
     praying to the ghosts would placate them, and there were no further
     problems. "The chi for this area has been drained," he says, "but
     it'll return."

   Apparently, one of Taiwan's most successful pop stars had an apartment
   with a view of Taipei 101, and she didn't release an album for years
   after it went up. Maybe we could convince Mariah to move in?

References

   1. http://www.taipei-101.com.tw/index_en.htm
   2. http://www.taipei-101.com.tw/en/tower/technology/conception.asp
   3. http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=1091&CtNode=128