Pause between Rooms
SPATIAL PHILOSOPHY OF PINGFENG
The Pingfeng was never created as ornament.
It originated from core Fengshui principles-"To store Wind and gather Qi (energy)" "To block negative forces" —serving as a spatial tool for regulating interior energy.
Its purpose was not to divide, but to guide. It responded to a foundational problem in Fengshui: how to direct airflow without blocking it. Open doors, linear sightlines, and sharp corners were seen as symbols of uncontrolled, excessive flow.
The Pingfeng offered a solution: a movable threshold that softened entry, filtered vision, and slowed momentum. Straight lines were turned into gentle paths; visibility gave way to partial concealment.
In the modern era, the Pingfeng gradually detached from its original Fengshui context and entered Western interiors as a furnishing with "Oriental" resonance.
In the early twentieth century, amid a wave of Japonisme and Sinophilia among European elites, folding screens, lacquer finishes, and silk-painted panels became symbols of exotic aesthetics -functional, yes, but also decorative.
In this translation, the logic of the Pingfeng shifted. No longer used to "gather and contain Qi," it became a tool for visual partitioning, backdrop
composition, and material contrast.
Especially within the mid-century modernist vocabulary, its lightness, mobility, and pictorial quality suited the desire to impose soft order within open spatial plans.
The screen's role moved from regulating energy to modulating atmosphere-a tool not for flow, but for mood. Over time, its materials and forms diversified.
Its function extended from the practical to the symbolic and aesthetic-but its original intention remained: to achieve the deepest modulation of space with the lightest of interventions.
CREDITS
Photo. 1
PARTITION SCREEN 01 by EVA SZUMILAS
300 × 45 × 175cm
Photo. 2
Coromandel Kuancai lacquer screen, China
1661-1772
Photo. 3
Screen design in modern Chinese interior design
rednote
Photo. 4
Brick, Lacquered wood with steel rods by Eileen Gray
213 x 178 x 2cm
1925
Photo. 5
Grater Divide, Mild steel by Mona Hatoum
2002
Photo. 6, 7
Flat Room Divider by studio_sibisibi
105.5 x 230 x 161cm
2022
Photo. 8, 9
Ro Screen by Enrico Pellizzoni
Photo. 10
Venier Screen by Sebastian Herkner
CONTENT CREATIVE: EST8 MAG