Today I’m going to tell you about Yin and Yang.
Landscape is characterized by two basic concepts: Yin and Yang, Mountain and Water. Most schools refer to Water as Yang and to Mountain as Yin. Let’s take them as the topic of today’s talk. You know that Americans have two parties: Democrats and Republicans. Therefore, let the Mountain be the Republican Party and the Water be the Democratic Party.
What is the Republican Party, or the Mountain, or Yin, like?
You are on the top and people have to come to see you. You don’t go towards them; you don’t make requests; you don’t reduce prices.
Your strategy is to be where you are. Clients come to your place to ask you for something.
It’s the business of jewelry shops to sell diamond necklaces worth several million dollars. In fact, these shops are not crowded. But if somebody comes in, it is purposeful.
You don’t haggle. You don’t discuss discounts and things like that. It’s your principle. The same goes with posh restaurants and luxurious hotels.
Then there is the Yang business. It’s the Democratic Party. What does it promise?
They won’t raise the retirement age. They promise everything people want–everything popular, unwinding the spiral of price reduction. It’s the Yang approach. The Democrat position is to be closer to the people.
Businesses that are not democratic need to have the interior designed in the non-democratic or nocturnal way: soft-dimmed light, dark colors, yellow lamps. There are cafés where you come in from the evening twilight and bright white light blinds you. You see white tablecloths and you leave the place immediately because you feel uncomfortable. I don’t know if you notice these things… but you don’t want to go there again. It’s a Yin business. A nightclub or an evening café: bright lights are not supposed to be inside.
Or you go into a bank and you find that you have to climb stairs; you see brown curtains and everything is dimmed. Banks have a Yang nature; it’s necessary for them to have high ceilings and bright lights. They have to be open and spacious. To sum up, if your business has a Yang nature, you have to design a Yang interior.
And it’s only the beginning.