Frank Lloyd Wright and Feng Shui? NO!

Frank Lloyd Wright and Feng Shui? NO!
[人因工程 ]
(2003/03/21)

Frank Lloyd Wright and Feng Shui? NO!

The master went beyond the ancient Eastern philosophies, say some critics.

Did Frank Lloyd Wright practice "good feng shui"? Do his homes suggest harmony with nature and a positive flow of energy (chi)?

Cate Bramble, a certified traditional feng shui consultant, says NO. Here's why.

According to Cate Bramble...

I accept that Frank Lloyd Wright was an artist, interior and industrial designer, an academic, an architect, and an innovator. What I do not accept is any attempt by poorly-educated revisionists to reverse-engineer Wright's "organic architecture" into some kind of Feng Shui mold.

Wright pioneered living rooms (over parlors), carports (in an age moving from buggies to cars), and open floor plans (the ubiquitous design of post-1980 tract homes). But none of those innovations automatically generate good Feng Shui, and are not inherently imbued with Feng Shui principles. Nor has Wright's organic architecture gracefully weathered the brutal seasons in southern California (wildfire, earthquake, El Nino, financial crisis).

In 1937 Wright coined architecture as "that great living creative spirit which from generation to generation, from age to age, proceeds, persists, creates, according to the nature of man, and his circumstances." His creative genius enabled him to go way beyond the traditional in ways contrary to the ideals and principles of Feng Shui.

Editor's Comments:

One is tempted to simply ignore the above comments, for the reason that the author does a superb job of discrediting herself. If you have the patience, reread her remarks. She hasn't bothered to sort out in her own mind what facts support what claims. As a result she unwittingly ends up undermining her own claims. I would be remiss however if I allowed her unfair ad hominem attack on the Feng Shui consultant in the previous article to pass without comment:

"What I do not accept," she writes, "is any attempt by poorly-educated revisionists to reverse-engineer Wright's "organic architecture" into some kind of Feng Shui mold."

We live in an era in which anyone can post anything, and anyone can claim to be anybody on the Internet -- and does. According to what criterion did this presumably highly-educated "certified traditional feng shui consultant," base her conclusion that the gentleman in the previous article was "poorly-educated?" Can you find anything in his remarks to justify her apoplexy? I can't. Was he disrepectful toward Frank Lloyd Wright? Hardly -- he bubbled over with praise for the Great Master. So just exactly what provoked her out of the blue personal attack? If it wasn't something he said, perhaps it was merely who he was?

As I noted in my previous column, it is hard to avoid the disquieting suspicion that a certain "cultural chauvinism," shall we call it, lies at the heart of this persistent unwillingness to give creative credit where credit is due. I'm sure even "poorly-educated revisionists" know what I'm talking about.

-- Bevin Chu

Explanation: Frank Lloyd Wright and Feng Shui? NO!
Illustration(s): Frank Lloyd Wright's Jacobs House II, Traditional Hakka Minority Circular Dwellings in Fujian
Author: Jackie Craven
Affiliation: About.com
Source: http://architecture.about.com/library/weekly/aa110899.htm
Publication Date: None
Original Language: English
Editor: Bevin Chu, Registered Architect