Feng shui: ancient Chinese art is cutting edge design

Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 22, 1997 by David Mack

PHILADELPHIA -- For architect-designer Floss Barber, planning the interior of a successful restaurant is about a more than textures and patterns. It's also about energy, symmetry and spiritual balance with the universe. In short, it's about feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of using placement to create comfortable environments that exist in harmony with nature.

Feng shui -- pronounced fung shway -- which translates literally into "wind and water," is a discipline whose roots stretch back more than 5,000 years. It is a tradition that rapidly is having a population and widespread influence on modern interior design. Many people employ feng shui to improve the comfort and prosperity of their homes, but Barber said she also has found it to be a valuable resource in her effort as the designer of such restaurants as Opus 251 and Rococo, both located here.

Barber, who is president and principal of Floss Barber Inc., began practicing feng shui in 1989 after she was introduced to the art at a campus lecture at Princeton, where her daughter was an undergraduate. Barber studied feng shui formally with Steven Devine, a nationally known expert in the discipline.

"Feng shui in the study of ch'i, or energy, in terms of balancing things," Barber said. "A designer who has been educated in feng shui has been trained to make a space balanced and harmonious by design. Most good design generally has good feng shui, or good balance."

Barber is equally clear in her explanation of the value of feng shui to restaurant design: "If you feng shui a place, it draws the attention to the interior being balanced, so people will want to come and be there and want to spend money and want to eat and want to enjoy themselves and, most important, want to return, because it creates a good environment where you feel nurtured. And in restaurants it's very important to feel nurtured."

Feng shui expert and consultant Melanie Lewandowsky -- who is the sole consultant of Philadelphia-based Phoenix Design Associates and the Delaware Valley's most sought-after feng shui consultant -- concurs with Barber on feng shui's influence on the fortunes of a business. "Feng shui is about balancing the energy of an environment with the universal energy, which is related to the goals and objectives of a business," she explained. "There would be different principles that would be applied for a seafood restaurant than might be applied for a Mexican restaurant or an Italian restaurant."

When successfully applied, feng shui helps direct the flow of energy, or ch'i, through the restaurant in a manner that enhances its own profitability, bolsters its physical identity, and improves its patrons' comfort and enjoyment, according to Lewandowsky. Good feng shui, she added, can help prevent a restaurant's ch'i from being misdirected or lost, which can result in a loss of profit or, worse, the failure of the business.

Seemingly offering support to the theory are two Philadelphia restaurants that have been "feng shui'd" by designer Barber -- Rococo and Opus 251 -- both of which are thriving.

According to Barber, the two restaurants enjoy good karma because of the histories of their respective adopted spaces. Rococo, located in the old Corn Exchange Building on Chestnut Street, and Opus 251, situated in the Philadelphia Art Alliance building, a turn-of-the-century Italianate-style structure that formerly was known as the Weatherill Mansion until it was willed to the alliance in 1923, carry with them the trappings of money and success, a fortuitous omen in terms of their feng shui.

Opus 251 is a relatively small space -- only about 2,400 square feet -- that has what Barber describes as a "private-club type of feel," which she said is enhanced by its location in the Philadelphia Art Alliance building. Its decor and color scheme reflect old money as well as modern aesthetics by blending rich woods with bold primary colors and preserving an antique landscape mural, which Barber "brought into the space" by placing live plants in front of it to extend its elements into the "real world."

Barber incorporated feng shui into Opus 251's decor "as a function of the design," according to owner Brian Martin. "She talked about how designs would accentuate and add to the flow of the energy in the restaurant," he said.

"I wanted Opus 251 to have a casual, comfortable elegance appropriate to the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the neighborhood, which is the Rittenhouse Square area," Martin added. "I pretty much left the design up to Floss.

"Floss said to me that she wanted just to accentuate what was already here, and I told her that I wanted it to be comfortable enough that people wouldn't be intimidated. Because as you come into the Art Alliance building, the decor is all heavy wood with an Old English feel to it. I wanted for people to step into the entrance of the restaurant and say, `Ah, here's a place I can have a nice comfortable dinner and relax.'"

In contrast, Rococo, according to chef-owner Al Paris, is a "larger-than-life" location covering some 10,000 square feet in the vast interior of the former Corn Exchange, which was constructed in 1857. Its tremendous pillars pull the eye toward the high ceiling. Balancing the very "masculine" energy created by the pillars are the restaurant's new, very "feminine" organic curves and its placid blues and earth tones.