The city aligns precisely to the geomagnetic field with the main axes at cardinal directions. The city and every building in it faces to the south. As you sit on your mat, meditating in your house in one of these neighborhoods, you are completely oriented to the cardinal points of the cosmos. This reminds you how great and impersonal the universe is, and how obliged we are to fit into its cycles. Our prosperity depends on our successful adjustment to these natural forces, and our characters are judged by how well we can appreciate them.
Chinese architecture includes a lot of idealized spatiality.
This illustration indicates one form of the symbolism hidden in structures. The ruler is at center because he is the pole star. The Son of Heaven is a human magician who claims to command the powers of sky and call down rain by virtue of his Mandate. The Emperor is also Everyman, for center is the province of human habitation. Center is also midpoint of the bagua oriented in time and space, the cosmic wheel and compass-card whose every element resonates with a principle of the universe.