A few years ago ING as well as ABN AMRO have constructed new headquarters along the "Zuidas", which could be translated as the so called "Southern axis" on the Southern ring highway of Amsterdam, famous as the new financial center of Amsterdam. When they were going up, I was interested as an architect with experience in high rise buildings in New York (Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects PC, where I've worked on high rises in London and Frankfurt as well), and, with my experience in Feng Shui - I was worried.
To put it bluntly, ABN AMRO headquarters is out of balance, tilting over to one side, and visually split in two narrow volumes over its entire height. The see through headquarters of ING is hovering in the air, sitting like a cricket on its piles, as though it could take off any moment to fly off into mid air.
Moreover during the year 2008 we've had what we call in classical Feng Shui the most inauspicious number 5 Yellow Star standing in the South, indicating accidents, loss of wealth and unpredictable developments to the Southern sector of homes, buildings, property, neighborhoods and cities.
It is interesting to see, I think, that RABO Bank, with a well founded headquarters in the center of Utrecht, came through the financial crisis of 2008 relatively unscathed, while we've all experienced the shocks that conditions at the other two banks and the financial center on the "Zuidas" have brought.
Mind you, I do sympathize with what some of you have personally gone through, and may still be going through as we speak, working at these banks and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Please accept that I don't mean to hurt your feelings. I hope you realize and appreciate that I've taken a rather controversial example to hopefully elicit some responses, and find ways to realize an entry and contribution to that corporate world. I think the case is clear enough to be taken seriously.
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