When Invisible Forces Shape Concrete: A Deep Dive into Feng Shui, Hong Kong, and Its Buildings

To many, the iconic Hong Kong skyline is a modern fable. Sweeping rolling mountains, a busy harbor, and endless skyscrapers that seem to protrude endlessly out of the ground. What is less obvious to the eye is the influence of Feng Shui (風水). Some may dub it as a superstition; others rely on it in every aspect of their life, from their names to business decisions to house renovations.

Feng Shui has profoundly shaped Hong Kong’s architecture, yet through Hong Kong’s long history, it has survived political upheaval and eventually become ingrained in local design theory through canonical buildings: their designers, their design philosophies, the controversies they provoked, and the real interventions used to “cure” or counter perceived bad Feng Shui.

1) Feng Shui: A Concise Historical and Conceptual Primer 

Feng Shui is a set of traditional Chinese practices aimed to harmonize the environment and people through orientation, shape and the 5 elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water). Two major approaches dominate modern practice:

  • Form (Shape) School (形勢派) — Focused on topography and the “form” of landscapes. This school views “Where a mountain sits, where a waterbody flows”, channeling qi.

  • Compass / Flying Stars (理氣派) — uses compass directions and time (star cycles) to analyze fortunes of a building or room and prescribes directional remedies.

When people think of Feng Shui, particularly in Hong Kong, they may associate it with  a decorative or interior habit. However, it has long influenced local traditions from ‘Villain hitting’, village planning, and tomb locations. It has also been used as reasoning for objections to government works, and the government has historically had to make institutional responses to “fung shui” complaints tied to government projects.

Today in architecture, they can be seen through design: orientation/rotation of entrances and blocks; creation of water features to invite or neutralize qi; cuts, voids or “dragon gates” through tall blocks; curated rooftop elements; and strategic landscaping and set-backs. Many of these interventions are practical design moves as well as symbolic “cures.”

“Dragon Gates” are often seen in many Hong Kong Buildings, allowing good “Qi” to pass through

2) Why Hong Kong? Political history and cultural durability

Hong Kong has long been a center of cultural durability. During the cultural revolution, Mao suppressed many traditional practices such as fortune telling and Feng Shui. Under British control at the time, Hong Kong was able to preserve these practices, and in fact grew even more mainstream. The western control, ironically, led Hong Kong to become more traditional, allowing for the rise of Feng Shui in architecture. 

Hong Kong, having the perfect geography of a harbour and rolling hills( and being extremely land constrained), is the epitome of Feng Shui at macro scale, channeling “qi” everywhere. On the micro scale, developers and shop owners often hire Feng Shui consultants for furniture arrangement, layout and shop names. For example arranging your bed in a ‘commanding’ placement (i.e being able to see the door without being directly in line with it). 

Government, market and law sometimes interface with feng shui claims: public complaints can lead to compensatory measures (widening a bridge, replacing a village hall, re-routing works) — showing Feng Shui ingrained in everyday culture and life.

3) Famous “Feng Shui” landmarks


1.  HSBC Headquarters (1985, Foster + Partners)

Contex: By the early 1980s, Hong Kong was already a global financial powerhouse. HSBC needed a new headquarters that represented a new chapter in both the city and the Bank’s history, while respecting its urban setting on Queens road. However, later on there were fears over potential conflict between the Chinese and the British during the handover, significantly influencing it’s design philosophy. 

Architect / philosophy: Norman Foster’s Foster + Partners produced a high-tech, modular building whose structural technology (visible service elements, atria, prefabricated floors) emphasized flexibility and lightness. Foster’s philosophy favored honesty in structure and publicly accessible ground plane. The HSBC building’s elevated plaza and open ground level align with both civic ambitions and feng-shui ideas of unobstructed view toward water. 

In preparation for potential conflict, the building was designed with modular parts, being able to be taken apart and shipped to Singapore in the event of war, however that never happened. 

Feng Shui Battles: When I.M Pei’s Bank of China Tower was erected nearby with a sharp blade like facade, Feng Shui practitioners said the Qi was “cutting/harming” HSBC’s businesses. Popular narratives attribute subsequent misfortunes in the city and specific misfortunes (banking troubles nearby, political incidents) to the Bank of China Tower’s negative influence — and HSBC famously installed roof elements (maintenance cranes stylized as “cannons”) that were positioned to counteract that effect. 


Whether these designs are actually effective is a matter of belief – but it's still fascinating to see how traditional Chinese practices are engrained in modern architectural form, with Hong Kong’s skyline truly representative of its unique culture and history.

2. Bank of China Tower (1990, I. M. Pei)

Context: Just like HSBC, Bank of China sought a global headquarters that represented changing times. The building as we see now is famous for its crystal blade-like facade. 

Architect / philosophy: Renowned chinese architect I.M Pei used crystalline geometry and structural expression: a faceted tower that reads as a set of intersecting triangular forms, modernist to the superficial eye, perhaps even an evolution of his famous idioms of geometry and light grounding his designs. Yet diving deeper, Feng Shui becomes more and more apparent in his designs. 

Feng-shui controversy / claims: By having such a sharp facade, it is believed that the tower cut into the sightline and the “luck” of other buildings, producing "poison arrows”. The design originally planned to have X like shapes, however Pei revised it as a result of local criticism. The tower earned the Cantonese nickname 一把刀 (“one knife”) for its knife/blade-like profile, and popular stories tie nearby business misfortunes and even political officials’ troubles to its harmful geometry in its facade, leading to other buildings nearby taking countermeasures (like HSBC). 

Architectural intent, local cosmology and public myth can collide — sometimes producing design changes, but sometimes only symbolic remedies. 

3. Hopewell Centre (1980, Gordon Wu / W.V. Chan & Associates)

Context: Constructed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Hopewell Center was, for 9 years– Hong Kong’s tallest building, until the Bank of China finally dethroned it. Despite now being that ‘round’ building in causeway bay, it still has significant history. 

Architect / philosophy: As always, Hong Kong developers seek to maximize profit from limited space. The design is simple and pragmatic in its cylindrical tower form – efficient for office plate and mechanical stacking — but its facade was a form of ‘bad luck’. 

Feng-shui controversy / claims: When the Fung Shui master was consulted over the design, he feared that the building represented too much of a cigarette, or a candle, and could bring bad luck or ‘catch on fire’. To “cool” the building, the architects added the famous rooftop pool, a round swimming pool at the top of the building without any purpose other than balancing out fire for Feng Shui. The intervention is one of the clearest examples where a design detail (an added pool) was explicitly justified with a feng-shui rationale.

4.The Henderson (The Henderson / 2 Murray Road) — Zaha Hadid Architects (completed 2024)

Context: Among the most expensive land purchases globally, Henderson Land commissioned Zaha Hadid Architects to build their new Headquarters. Completed in 2024, its now one of the most recognizable buildings in Hong Kong, also being called the “flipped water bottle” by many. 

Architect / philosophy: Zaha Hadid architects, led by Patrik Schumacher, took the form of the building from an orchid, and used innovative construction techniques to accomplish the facade. They engineered curved glass facades that not only could withstand Hong Kong’s violent typhoons but also made the structure look fluid and organic, reflecting a project where “form-making and manufacturing precision are paramount”. 

Feng-shui controversy / claims: Feng shui masters sought to influence the design as curving and soft to counter the balance brought on by the Bank of China building, yet architecturally it remains imposing, stark contrast to the conventional cookie cutter rectangular buildings that cutter Hong Kong’s landscapes. 


Unique design & construction:

The facade required intricate glass panels that were not only smooth, but needed to withstand the violent typhoons that hit the city. They were manufactured with advanced CAD/CAM systems, modelling and German fabrication)and had them shipped and assembled in Hong Kong. The complexity was not only symbolic but a major technical and procurement challenge — a contemporary example of cultural and formal aims driving engineering innovation.

5. Controversies, skeptics and the ethics of design

Feng shui sits at the intersection of culture, globalization and design. To some it may appear as an outdated superstition, yet to practitioners, it represents a long standing empirical tradition rotted in observation and luck. Yet for architects, the challenge of design lies in navigating between the spectrum, adapting to cultural expectations in changing times. Feng Shui is neither trivial nor monolithic. In Hong Kong, it can transform façades, programs, and even the public acceptance of a building. Ignoring these narratives risks friction, while treating them as surface spectacle weakens architectural depth. The most successful projects integrate culture with rigorous design thinking, balancing sensitivity with innovation, making Feng shui’s role not just a belief, but a tangible factor in how projects are delivered and received. 

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