李利維/Amy Lelyveld

張思銳 譯/Translated by ZHANG Sirui

構建“最佳”

Building the "BEST"

李利維/Amy Lelyveld

張思銳 譯/Translated by ZHANG Sirui

2002年，《世界建筑》創(chuàng)辦了兩年一度的WA中國建筑獎獎項，意圖選出最優(yōu)秀的中國建筑，并向中國乃至世界宣傳建筑本身、其中包含的觀念、建筑的設計者，以及對這個行業(yè)的思考。

由此開始，《世界建筑》將這個獎項視為測量行業(yè)溫度的指標，同時也試圖通過諸多來自各個領域的國內外建筑學界或業(yè)界評委來引入各式各樣“最佳”的概念，并以期擴充話語。

但“最佳”的概念并不牢固。以評選的方式生成的“最佳”既不穩(wěn)定，也不持久。如同世博會的場館（一個早期的現(xiàn)代收集佳作和能產生話題的物件的容器），選擇的準則、最終對場館的認可和發(fā)出的獎項都是以時間為基準的。這些都是對當下模式的快照（重要但仍然是一張快照），對在這個節(jié)點中，什么樣的建筑在未來最受到期許的快照。它如同照片一樣是一個物化的瞬間。在《世界建筑》中沒有差別：獎項的每個片段都對“最佳”有其獨特的思考，它是一個每兩年都要重建一次的水晶宮。

和其他“建筑”一樣，這個“宮殿”也無法逃脫建構的邏輯。在世博會中，溝通的單元是最初的驚鴻一瞥時對每個場館分別的體驗。只有在此之后，各個場館的內容才開始變得有所關聯(lián)。在《世界建筑》中，構筑的“最佳”宮殿的磚石是照片。照片是特殊的結構單元：它們被用來豎立在物體的“真實”和期許之間。它們用帶著強烈意愿的鏡頭觀察現(xiàn)實、捕捉建筑。

現(xiàn)在，考慮到以上這些，2014的“最佳”宮殿到底是怎樣的形狀？它又是如何區(qū)別于之前的宮殿并標識出我們現(xiàn)今的方位？從2002年到2008年，WA中國建筑獎褒獎了一系列持續(xù)凝練的項目。選出的項目在尺度和文化價值上都屬于較為重要的類型。它們共同描繪的“宮殿”趨于向心和穩(wěn)定。從2010年到2012年，雖然獲獎的建筑類型基本與前幾屆一致，但其所涵蓋的地理范圍和數(shù)量都有了很大的提升。項目位置和數(shù)量的增加自然而然地產生了變化，為這幾年的“宮殿”注入了新的響應力。

2014年的“最佳”宮殿記錄了迄今已來最為多樣的系統(tǒng)、觀點和尺度?！白罴选钡奈蓓斚率占烁鞣N各樣的項目，包括在武漢由兒童們在樟樹林里建造的樹屋、以莫比烏斯環(huán)造型并意圖表達“經營理念”的北京鳳凰中心，以及陜西黃帝陵祭祀?yún)^(qū)的擴建項目。這些回應的廣度再加上2014年各種類別獎項（每一個都是一個自我成立的小宮殿）的出現(xiàn)，暗示了一個為實驗和可能性找尋落腳之處的結構。這個多義的模型相比其凝練的前身來說不那么穩(wěn)定，但是卻毫無疑問真實有效。這不恰恰是我們從一開始就期望用來構建這些宮殿的豐富多樣性嗎？

In 2002 WA began their bi-annual awards, identifying the best in Chinese architecture and broadcasting this－the buildings, the ideas behind them, the people who designed them and the concerns of the profession－to the nation and beyond.

From the start, the magazine situated the awards as a way to regularly take the temperature of the field. And, by including a breadth of opinion about what is best－that of foreign jurors and a spectrum of voices from China's architecture community, both academic and professional－it has hoped to broaden the discourse.

But BEST is slippery. As a designation it is neither static, nor even permanent. As with a worlds fair pavilion (an early modern container for collections of superior and conversation starting objects), the selection criteria, and ultimately the recognition bestowed as awards, are time specific. They are a snapshot (an important one but a snapshot nonetheless) of the pattern of NOW and what－and what kind of building－at this juncture, seems to hold the greatest promise for the future. It is, again like a photograph, the materialization of a moment. At WA it is no different. Each episode of awards builds a unique vision of BEST, a crystal palace that will be rebuilt in two years.

Like other "buildings," the palace built cannot escape the logics of its tectonics. At an expo, the unit of communication is first the WOW and experience of each pavilion. Only after these does what each building contains become relevant. With a BEST palace being built in a magazine, the bricks are photographs. These are special structural units: they are used to erect a position between the "fact" of a thing and its promise. They capture the built using a lens that views the object through its aspirations.

NOW, with all this in mind, what exactly is the shape described by the BEST palace of 2014? And what does how it differs from the palaces that came before tell us about where we are NOW? From 2002 through 2008 the WA Awards lauded a consistently condensed series of projects. The recognized buildings were substantial both in size and cultural value. The "palace" they described as a series was as centered and stable. From 2010 through 2012, while the types of buildings recognized were consistent with earlier years, their geographic range and number increased markedly. The variety that necessarily comes with differences in place and number introduced a new responsiveness into the "palaces" of those years.

The BEST palace of 2014 registers the widest variety of systems, attitudes and even scales yet. The projects collected under the roof of this BEST are as varied as a child-built tree house twisting through a stand of camphor trees in Wuhan, the Mobius gymnastics expressing the "operation concept" of a Beijing Phoenix Center and a the expansion of the sacrifice zone at the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum in Shaanxi. The breadth of such responses when combined with the new categories possible for awards (each a mini-palace in their own right) suggest a building seeking to make a home for experimentation and possibility. This multi-valent model is less stable than its more condensed predecessors but there is surely real validity to it. Isn't it for the shimmering drama of such a wealth of possibility that we build these palaces in the first place?

1 組裝“最佳”的宮殿：1765年沙龍一景，紙上水彩，加布里埃爾·德圣歐班，法國巴黎盧浮宮藏/"BEST" Palace Assembly: View of the Salon of 1765, watercolor on paper, by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France. （圖片來源：Erich Lessing /ART RESOURCE N. Y.）

2 WA的“最佳”，2002-2014年/WA "BESTS", 2002-2014（制圖：李利維，張思銳/Amy Lelyveld, ZHANG Sirui）

耶魯大學建筑學院

2015-03-09