The Flow of ‘Qi’: A Study of Feng Shui in the Chinese Mayor Mansion, Muntok - West Bangka

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.201009.015How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Feng Shui, Chinese Traditional Architecture, Chinese Mayor Mansion, Muntok, Bangka

Abstract

Tjoeng A Tiam was the mayor of the Chinese under the Dutch Colonial Government in nineteenth-century Bangka, Dutch East Indies. He built a mansion, which is now registered as heritage, known as Chinese Mayor Mansion in the tin-mining town of Muntok. The building, as seen from the main street, is of Colonial Architecture; but the layout, decoration, and overall plot arrangement is a typical Chinese traditional courtyard dwelling, which design was based on the theory of Feng Shui. Feng Shui is a Chinese science of nature that studies how to best manipulate the flow of energy known as “Qi”, which operates the nature, to benefit mankind. The science has been utilized since the Song Dynasty Era (960-1279) to build palaces, tombs, important buildings, and commoners dwellings. The application of Feng Shui in the mansion is a bit different compared to the ideal form, e.g. placement of elements, plot orientation, and the composition of structures. This paper attempts to understand why such differences occurred, what was the purpose, and how the Qi is expected to flow in the mansion. Physical evidence of the built environment was collected and analyzed using the Feng Shui theory. The analysis shows that there are two different flows of Qi on-site which were affected by the two different architectures. By using the combination of architectures in his mansion, he managed to optimize the Qi on site and affiliated him to two identities: as an officer of the Colonial Government and a Chinese man who worked for the Chinese Emperor.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Widya L. Larasati
AU  - Kemas R. Kurniawan
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/10/10
TI  - The Flow of ‘Qi’: A Study of Feng Shui in the Chinese Mayor Mansion, Muntok - West Bangka
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Dwelling Form (IDWELL 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 137
EP  - 148
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201009.015
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.201009.015
ID  - Larasati2020
ER  -