Curio House, designed by Shirley Shen?s firm Haeccity Studio Architecture, is a multi-generational home in Richmond, BC. The layout refers to the traditional Chinese courtyard typology and to principles of feng shui in its hierarchy of spaces. Photo by Ema Peter
Amidst the diversity of emergent narratives on culture and identity, I?ve been thinking about my own experiences with architecture, as a Chinese-Canadian woman. I found myself reflecting on how, like architecture, Chinese culture is founded on structure, order and relation.
The ancient Chinese were fascinated with numbers and mathematical patterns, acquiring a sophisticated understanding of how they relate to alchemy, divination and astronomy. Certain arrangements and sequencing of numbers were imbued with cosmic significance. The ubiquitous yin/yang symbol stems from this set of inquiries; in the classical text I-ching, this dualism represents a philosophy of balance which permeates language, culture, food and traditional medicine, collectivizing those indigenous to China and its diaspora across time and place. It is no wonder, then, that mathematics is the most essential of extracurriculars, insistently instructed to the ambitious and diligent Chinese student. More than mere calculation, mathematics is tied to ancestral wisdom that provides the guiding principles governing all facets of daily life. For many children of Chinese ex-pats, the study of mathematics takes its place alongside the cultural activities of c...