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This is a book about ideal landscapes and Feng-Shui. Using evolutionary and anthropological approaches, Peking University professor Kongjian Yu—who holds a doctorate degree in Design from Harvard—explores the origin, structure, and meanings of Feng-Shui in juxtaposition to the ideal landscape models in Chinese culture. Using illustrative site observations and literature, Yu argues that Feng-Shui landscapes share similar structures with other Chinese ideal landscapes—the implications of which are deconstructed into terms of geography, anthropology, ecology, and philosophy. As a landscape architect and urbanist, Professor Yu respects the role of Feng-Shui in the making of places, yet still is in opposition to its superstitious nature. Well illustrated and poetically written, this book is a must-read for those who are interested in Feng-Shui, as well as for those who care about their daily living environment in general—especially those who practice architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism.
"Fear and mystery once kept Kongjian Yu, FASLA, outside pine forests surrounding his childhood home in the Zhejiang Province of China, and wary of his village's devotion to feng shui theory. Years later, the professor, landscape architect, and urbanist demystifies the 'spatial form of the environment' in an illustrative volume that spans geography, anthropology, ecology, and philosophy. Yu respects feng shui's cultural influence, divorced from the practice's superstitious implications." —Landscape Architecture Magazine
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