Feng Shui as a Chinese Mediating Strategy in the Architectural Design of Tianjin Postal Museum

Existing scholarship on Sino-Western hybrid architecture (yanglou) has often treated Chinese elements as marginal, overlooking the agency of indigenous spatial logic. This study examines how traditional Chinese feng shui mediated the localization of Western architecture in the late Qing Dynasty through the case of the Tianjin Postal Museum. The research has three objectives: to distinguish Western architectural features from Chinese spatial rationales, to analyze the mediating mechanisms of feng shui, and to interpret the implications of this case for indigenous knowledge systems in the process of modernization. Using spatial semantic analysis based on UAV mapping and field surveys, the study finds that although the museum displays Western structural systems and proportional canons, its underlying spatial organization follows Chinese logic. This organization includes an enclosed courtyard, a north–south axis that structures dynamic and static zones, and re-signified elements such as the octagonal tower and parapet, which were repurposed to regulate qi and mitigate sha. The findings suggest that feng shui functioned as a pragmatic indigenous framework that enabled the creative appropriation of Western forms and challenged passive diffusion models of architectural modernization.