The Great Assistant is a Feng Shui snowman protecting the newly built Jut Complex area from the evil dragon winds generated by the nearby elevated highway crossing.
After negotiating with a local Feng Shui Master the JUT Developers came to understand, that their construction process was threatened by bad Feng Shui from the direction of a busy and stressed highway junction. If this would happen, they would not be able to sell the new apartments. The Master advised, that a new element should be invited to the theatre. An element, which would have the right composition of materials and which would create a suitable energetic aura to counter the threat of the dragon wind. Wood and natural stone were suggested to be used, and after some negotiating bronze was accepted as a suitable metal.
The Great Assistant is a combination of these three materials: lower body out of bronze, natural Andesite stone in the middle section and the head hand carved out by the red ironwood tree. The stone and bronze parts are partly hollow contains a complete irrigation system and filled with top soil, so that the two octopus bush, the hands of the snowman, can properly grow roots through the structure and into the original soil.
When we proposed the first sketches of the Great Assistant to the construction experts of the JUT Developers, they were shocked. But the Feng Shui Master advised that the Great Assistant is perfect. He could protect the new development from the dragon wind, and so the Great Assistant had to be built.
The Great Assistant has successfully stopped the bad Feng Shui with ease. His hands are growing and his power is steady. People in the newly built area are happy and the Great Assistant has become a must-see destination in Taipei for proper selfies, blessed with good Feng Shui.
Author: Marco Casagrande
Project Manager: Nikita Wu 巫祈麟
Client: JUT Land Development Group
Location: Taipei, Taiwan
Dimension: height 6 m, width 2,5 m
Materials: natural stone, bronze, wood, trees
Casagrande Laboratory team: AdDa Zei 蔡明輝, Frank Chen 陳右昇, Yu-Chen Chiu 邱郁晨
Photos by You-Wei Chen 陳又維, Lea Yi-Chan Lin 林宜珍
Completed: 2017
