ABSTRACT
During the last thirty years of the millennium, a critical turn in architecture transpired in which inquiries into the history, theory, and criticism of architecture increasingly shifted their concerns from form-making to exploring the social, cultural, and political factors that inform built form. In order to understand the complex role that traditional knowledge plays in the formation of contemporary subjectivity, the author examines the everyday practices in architecture that refer to pre-modern/traditional thought and that have remained marginal in academic discourses. At a very basic level, contemporary practitioners of Feng shui focus on the energy systems inside and outside of the human body. Practitioners employ varied techniques that range from interpreting transcendental, astrological, geological, and climatic data to developing basic intuitive sensory awareness of the human body and its environment. The human body is attuned to its own needs for rest, and light will affect it differently depending on how much rest it needs.
