摩天大樓模糊城市個性 Cities are hard to see through the skyscrapers

Everywhere one ventures in cities, skyscrapers are being built or planned. Even Paris is getting one. The French capital last week backed plans for a 180-metre high triangular tower by Herzog & de Meuron of Switzerland, its first in four decades.

無論你去世界各地哪座城市，都可以看到那裏正在建造或規劃摩天大樓。甚至連巴黎都將擁有一座摩天大樓。日前，巴黎當局40年來首次批准了一個高樓項目，建造一座由瑞士赫爾佐格-德梅隆建築公司(Herzog & de Meuron)設計、高180米的三角形塔樓。

There may never have been a better time to be an ambitious young architect. For an office skyscraper at the World Trade Center site in New York, James Murdoch, scion of the media dynasty, has just replaced a design by Britain’s venerable Lord Foster with a jazzier idea by Bjarke Ingels, the 40-year-old Danish architect.

對於一名雄心勃勃的年輕建築師來說，生在這個時代可謂正逢其時。對於將在紐約世貿中心遺址建造的一棟摩天辦公樓，世界最大傳媒帝國接班人詹姆斯•默多克(James Murdoch)剛剛否決了英國建築大師福斯特勳爵(Lord Foster)的設計，轉而採用40歲的丹麥建築師比亞克•英厄爾斯(Bjarke Ingels)的前衛創意。

There is plenty of work to go around for any global “starchitect” who can produce an iconic museum, office or residential tower from London to Chongqing. Mr Ingels is building a campus for Google with Thomas Heatherwick, the UK designer; Herzog & de Meuron are to remodel Chelsea’s football stadium; Rafael Viñoly is finishing an apartment block at 432 Park Avenue that is New York’s second-tallest building.

從倫敦到重慶，對任何能夠設計標誌性博物館、辦公樓或住宅大廈的全球“明星建築師”來說，都有大量業務可供爭取。英厄爾斯正在與英國設計師托馬斯•赫斯維克(Thomas Heatherwick)一起爲谷歌(Google)打造一個校園；赫爾佐格-德梅隆建築公司將改造切爾西的足球場；拉菲爾•維諾里(Rafael Viñoly)即將完成紐約第二高樓——位於派克大街(Park Avenue) 432號的公寓大樓。

Every first-tier global city, and many a second and third-tier one in Asia, wants to put itself on the map with an iconic tower, or several. This creates plenty of strange shapes on the skyLine — a firm of architects in Melbourne has just unveiled plans for an undulating 68-storey apartment and hotel block inspired by the fabric-clad dancers in a Beyoncé video.

每個全球一線城市以及亞洲許多二、三線城市都想擁有一幢或幾幢標誌性大樓。這使得城市天際線出現了大量奇奇怪怪的輪廓——墨爾本的一家建築設計公司剛剛公佈了一棟68層波浪形公寓和酒店大樓的設計方案，其靈感來自碧昂斯(Beyoncé)視頻中穿着緊身衣的舞者。

Such expressions of architectural individuality have the paradoxical effect of making cities look more and more like each other. Once upon a time, Chicago and New York were skyscraper-villes, while European capitals such as Paris and London had muted streetscapes. Now, many are converging on what Rem Koolhaas, the avant-garde architect, dubbed “the generic city”.

如此表現建築個性產生了矛盾的效果：使城市看起來越來越千篇一律。曾幾何時，芝加哥與紐約是摩天大樓的聚集地，而歐洲國家首都（如巴黎和倫敦）的街貌看起來更加平緩。如今，許多城市在邁向先鋒派建築師雷姆•庫哈斯(Rem Koolhaas)所稱的“泛化城市”。

This worries some designers. Moshe Safdie, the Israeli-American architect who has designed towers in cities including Chongqing, says some skyscrapers are “objectified, branded ego trips” that are more like giant sculptures than buildings forming parts of a public space. In Asia, “hundreds of towers are being built but you do not get a city from it, just individual pieces”.

這讓一些設計師感到擔憂。在多個城市（包括重慶）設計過高樓的以色列裔美國建築師薩夫迪(Moshe Safdie)說，一些摩天大樓是“物化的、追求個人虛榮的旅行”，它們更像是巨型雕塑，而非構成公共空間一部分的建築物。在亞洲，“數以百計的摩天大樓正在建設中，但它們不會形成城市，而只是一棟一棟的高樓”。

The advantage is that the best new towers are superior to what came before — an era of second-rate modernism in which skyscrapers were designed by the large, anonymous architecture firms that still build most offices and infrastructure. The centres of many cities are stuffed with buildings designed mainly to hold bank trading floors.

如今的優勢在於，最優秀的新摩天大樓勝過之前那個平庸現代主義時代的產物，那時的摩天大樓由不知名的大型建築公司設計，這些公司仍在設計大多數辦公樓和基礎設施。許多城市的中心都擠滿了主要設計用作銀行交易部門的高樓。

The City of London’s skyline is sprouting unusual shapes, from Lord Rogers’ “Cheesegrater” Leadenhall Building to Mr Viñoly’s “Walkie Talkie” at 20 Fenchurch Street. But both beat the mundane blocks that dominate Canary Wharf and other financial hubs. The rapid expansion of global finance in the two decades up to 2008 created many boring monuments.

倫敦金融城的天際線正在涌現不規則的形狀，從羅傑斯勳爵的被稱爲“奶酪刨”(Cheesegrater)的Leadenhall大樓，到維諾里的位於芬丘奇街(Fenchurch Street) 20號的“對講機”(Walkie Talkie)大樓。但這兩棟摩天大樓使佔據金絲雀碼頭和其他金融中心的普通高樓相形見絀。2008年之前，全球金融業20年的快速擴張造就了許多乏味的建築物。

One symbol of changing times is Two World Trade Center, Mr Ingels’ design for 21st Century Fox and News Corp’s headquarters. Lord Foster’s tower, topped by diamond-shaped panes, was designed with banks in mind. Mr Ingels’ replacement is a stack of cubes mirroring Tribeca’s streets while offering a smooth face to the memorial site.

時代變化的一個標誌是英厄爾斯爲21世紀福克斯(21st Century Fox)和新聞集團(News Corp)總部設計的世貿中心二號大樓(Two World Trade Center)。福斯特勳爵菱形屋頂的頂部設計是爲銀行設計的。英厄爾斯的替代方案是一堆可以反射翠貝卡街區（Tribeca，紐約市曼哈頓下城的一個街區——譯者注）的立方體，同時爲紀念遺址留下平滑的一面。

Media and technology companies — the city’s rising forces — are more imaginative clients than banks. They do not want a plain skyscraper but something smarter that they can show off. The pioneer of this trend in New York was Frank Gehry’s curvy IAC building, and Mr Ingels says such buildings “must accommodate diversity, so a single extruded form does not make the cut”.

這座城市正在崛起的力量——傳媒和科技公司——是比銀行更富有想象力的客戶。它們想要的不是一座普通的摩天大樓，而是一座可以炫耀的、更智慧的大樓。在紐約，這種趨勢的先驅是弗蘭克•格里(Frank Gehry)設計的曲線形IAC大廈。英厄爾斯稱，這樣的建築“必須包容多樣性，因此單調的擠出形狀是達不到要求的”。

Another set of demanding clients are high-end property developers, who can secure higher prices if an apartment block has been stamped by a “starchitect”. Mr Gehry and Mr Viñoly have designed such blocks in New York; while Herzog & de Meuron’s new Paris building, with its glass triangle echoing IM Pei’s Louvre pyramid, will hold office space and a hotel.

另一羣高要求客戶是高端房地產開發商。如果一幢公寓樓被貼上“明星建築師”的標籤，就能確保較高的定價。格里和維諾里已經在紐約設計了這樣的樓羣；而赫爾佐格-德梅隆建築公司爲巴黎設計的新大廈將包括辦公空間和一家酒店，其玻璃三角形設計呼應了貝聿銘(IM Pei)設計的盧浮宮玻璃金字塔。

The proliferation of skyscrapers has its problems. One is that many are being built but only a small number by the most thoughtful architects. Many Asian and Middle Eastern cities are filling with what Mr Ingels calls “perfume bottle” designs — flamboyant towers intended to attract attention rather than to respond to the local setting.

摩天大樓的大量出現也帶來問題。其一是，許多摩天大樓都在建設，但其中只有少數出自最有思想的建築師之手。亞洲和中東的許多城市都佈滿了英厄爾斯所稱的“香水瓶”設計——誇張的外形旨在吸引注意力，而不是適應周邊環境。

Mr Koolhaas celebrated the notion of cities being “liberated from the captivity of identity”, but that looks better on paper than set in concrete. There used to be no difficulty in knowing whether you were in London or Paris, or which continent you were on, but many cities now resemble a mash-up between Hong Kong and Las Vegas.

庫哈斯贊同將城市“從身份桎梏中解放出來”的理念，但將這一理念付諸實踐的效果不怎麼好。過去，很容易就能知道你身處倫敦還是巴黎，或者哪個大洲，但現在許多城市都像是香港與拉斯維加斯的混合體。

The second problem is the one identified by Mr Safdie: that towers are individual sculptures rather than buildings that form part of a streetscape. The best-loved urban constructions are often terraces and rows of houses not single buildings.

第二個問題是薩夫迪所指出的：摩天大樓成了個別的雕塑品，而非構成街景一部分的建築物。最受歡迎的城市建築往往是排屋和成排的房子，而非獨棟的大樓。

This may be inevitable — attempts at central planning of cities in the 1960s and 1970s by razing streets and building towers mostly turned out to be a disaster. For better or worse, this is the era of individual patronage, of tenants commissioning their own fortresses.

這可能是不可避免的——上世紀60和70年代實行城區中央規劃、推倒街道建造高樓的嘗試，最終成爲一場災難。無論是好是壞，當今是一個注重個性的時代，房客委託建造自己的堡壘。

Yet the best architecture is often the quietest, taking what is there and knitting it into a public space — from the High Line park in New York to the restoration of King’s Cross station in London. You would not notice either from a distance, but they matter.

不過，最好的建築往往是最不顯眼的——從紐約的高線公園(High Line Park)到整修一新的倫敦國王十字車站，它們都無縫融入公共空間。從遠處，你不會注意到它們，但它們很重要。