Q1 大多數(shù)中國人已經(jīng)對OMA很熟悉，但是他們很少聽過AMO。能請您簡短地介紹一下OMA、AMO和您的研究項目嗎（圖1）？

OMA（大都會建筑事務(wù)所，簡稱OMA)于 1975年由 雷姆·庫哈斯（Rem Koolhaas）和他的妻子麥德倫·維森多普（Madelon Vriesendorp）以及另外一對夫婦埃利亞·增西立斯（Elia Zenghelis）和佐伊·增西立斯（Zoe Zenghelis）創(chuàng)立。庫哈斯先生同時也從事著寫作，他寫過《癲狂的紐約》（Delirious New York），并且早年間曾在荷蘭一個知名雜志社做過記者。所以在他成為建筑師的過程中，敘述、故事性和思考的元素總是超出了建筑的范疇。在很長一段時間內(nèi)這只是一個背景，但是隨著項目的發(fā)展和事務(wù)所的發(fā)展壯大，某個時間在事務(wù)所里成立一個部門，一個更關(guān)注思維層面的部門成為了必然。

所以我們試圖建立一種和客戶合作的方式來了解他到底想要什么以及他為什么想要這個，然后在這兩個方面努力。這就是為什么要成立AMO——為了提出問題，同時為了關(guān)注新的發(fā)展。這些發(fā)展可能會使建筑更令人振奮，有時也可能跨學(xué)科。我和庫哈斯先生在這種類型的項目上工作了13年，通常我們會涉及不同領(lǐng)域，比如從政治方面到歷史保護(hù)等方面做設(shè)計，有時是展覽或出版。這時候?qū)σ患赂?、更突出、更廣泛的興趣就產(chǎn)生了。人們往往會關(guān)注他們好奇的事物，AMO也是一樣的，但我們充滿好奇心，更愿意去探究世界的運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)規(guī)律（圖2，圖3）。

Q2 所以庫哈斯先生同時也是位思想家，而不僅僅是建筑師、城市設(shè)計師？

我覺得在一開始你可以看到他曾經(jīng)有城市設(shè)計方面的理想，但是后來，這種想法往往沒有這么強(qiáng)烈了。OMA將重心從城市設(shè)計更多地轉(zhuǎn)移到了建筑上。不過從2000年開始，我們有時也會做總體設(shè)計，但這是一個很難的專業(yè)。如你所知，建筑很難，但可能城市設(shè)計更難。

Q3 現(xiàn)在OMA規(guī)模如何？多少人在OMA工作？

我估計OMA現(xiàn)在大概有250～300人。我們在紐約設(shè)有辦公室，在北京、香港、鹿特丹也有，在其他有項目的地方有一些跟隨項目的小型辦公室，比如巴黎、倫敦和中東的城市，在米蘭也有一個小辦公室。例如，我們其中一個合伙人是意大利人，他就在米蘭做意大利的項目。

Q4 OMA大部分人都是建筑師嗎？有城市設(shè)計師或者其他人嗎？

是的，我們也有一些城市設(shè)計師。但非常不同的是，我本人反而不是設(shè)計師，我是歷史學(xué)家。我們同樣也有記者、生物學(xué)者和其他一些專業(yè)背景完全不同的人。也就是說，你得先有良好的知識基礎(chǔ)和不同的專業(yè)能力，你才能思考。在這里工作更必要的條件是，你得有雄心、有積極向上的態(tài)度、要勤奮。我覺得這才是在事務(wù)所里工作更重要的特質(zhì)。

Q5 您會花很多時間做研究嗎？比如先梳理項目背景和內(nèi)在邏輯然后才繪圖？

是的，很多時候是這樣的。因為大多時候你并不了解你的客戶，你也不知道他是誰、他想要什么以及他為什么想要，所以你必須在這上面花很多時間。正常來說，如果你知道了他想要什么，你也會知道設(shè)計最終會呈現(xiàn)的樣子，這是相輔相成的。這也是庫哈斯先生做的最好的一點。你去深入了解你的客戶其實是一個人際交往的過程，因為你們會在一起共事很多年，你們要一起做出財務(wù)決策，你們會一起分享很多想法。所以跟你的客戶有親密關(guān)系是很重要的，這不像你隨便走進(jìn)一個餐廳點一份漢堡這么簡單。

Q6 當(dāng)OMA和客戶談項目的時候，是不是除了建筑師以外，其他專業(yè)背景的人員也會和客戶交流？

是的，我非常喜歡這個流程，而且我認(rèn)為這一點上還可以做得更多，不僅僅在中國，還有在其他地方也應(yīng)該這樣。這種人際關(guān)系上的工作可以為后續(xù)工作帶來很多便利。

當(dāng)然它也可以讓你很頭疼?？偟膩碚f，你和客戶的關(guān)系越緊密，你的設(shè)計往往就越好。我也試著告訴學(xué)生們，一定要和客戶變得親密，要仔細(xì)地傾聽，也要學(xué)會去問他們問題，甚至是讓他們不舒服的問題。你知道，說實話其實是荷蘭的傳統(tǒng)。荷蘭人非常開放，而且很坦率。你去提問，就能得到答案，甚至有可能是你不喜歡的答案。其他文化背景下，如果有做這些事更好的辦法，我也會樂于接受。

Q7 您怎么看待在中國建筑界，客戶、設(shè)計師和政府的關(guān)系？

這些關(guān)系是存在的，不僅僅在中國，在全世界都是這樣，我不確定它是不是非常特殊。我覺得無論在哪，如果你能建立更緊密的關(guān)系，你就會有更多的可能性，有更好的設(shè)計。但是，我覺得中國有她自己的速度和自己的特質(zhì)。所以我想，或許我們對時間的考慮會有所不同。歐洲對時間的感受會比在中國慢,你能明顯從城市發(fā)展上看出來。舉個例子，在鄉(xiāng)村你就可以不用那么功利，擁有更多閑暇時間，思考得更久。事實上，我覺得在中國，建筑不是致力于長久保存的，這是一個根植已久的傳統(tǒng)。然而在歐洲，建筑需要百年之久的想法仍舊可以通過遺存的建筑或其他被保留下來的東西傳播出去。當(dāng)然了，那里也有很多廉價的、不好的建筑。這也是最讓我和歷史學(xué)家們感興趣的點之一。當(dāng)然，我很多時候是從歷史學(xué)家的角度看事情，所以我對于發(fā)展速度有很多思考，比如你怎么去控制它，或者怎么能讓它更有效率。

現(xiàn)代化早期階段，在歐洲有一個觀點是建筑會存在大概40年，之后這個建筑就應(yīng)該消失了。但是現(xiàn)在你可以看到，過去60年至70年，你還可以看到這些建筑留存了下來。事實上，現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)很難去置換掉它們了，因為它們往往都被以很高的價格被賣給了別人，所以你不能直接把它們拆除，因此40年往后甚至更久的時間里，你還得面對著這些建筑。

我覺得在中國也是一樣的狀況。很多人會想，我們要建設(shè)得很快，40年后我們再建一個新的。但是，當(dāng)你站在城市規(guī)劃的角度上看，這其實很困難。因為通常60年甚至上百年都很難有很大的改變，你仍然會被上百年前的舉措所左右。這是一個非常難、非常有挑戰(zhàn)性的命題。

我認(rèn)為從長遠(yuǎn)考慮會更有益，你可以使建筑有所改變，而無需拆除它們。你可以建一個質(zhì)量非常好的建筑，那樣百年之后這座建筑只須做很少改動，還能在那里。直到80年前，這種狀況在建筑界還是很常見的。在那之前，西方世界認(rèn)為所有的建筑都會被長久保留。

我認(rèn)為這是一個傳統(tǒng)，我們必須用某種方法重新結(jié)合這些想法，從時間尺度上理解城市。

Q8 您喜歡北京嗎？

是的，我很喜歡北京。這里有些地方我去了很多次。我喜歡市中心，但是有時一些建筑的保護(hù)方式會引起人的思考，一些建筑已經(jīng)失去了原汁原味的感覺，變得有點假，這種事情到處都有發(fā)生，包括阿姆斯特丹也是。

但是像望京這片區(qū)域，我就很喜歡，因為它很日常而且令人放松。這里的人們在享受著生活。現(xiàn)在空氣質(zhì)量也變好了，甚至在歐洲都有媒體報道北京又重新開始呼吸了。我回歐洲的第一年就告訴大家，那里沒有那么糟糕了，你們也應(yīng)該去看看?，F(xiàn)在在歐洲人們認(rèn)識到北京變干凈了。所以可能以后會有更多西方人再來。

就目前還是太少西方人來中國了，這一點我總是感覺很難過。這里有太多東西可以看，有很多事你不知道也從來沒見過，這里有完全不同的氛圍，可能會幫助歐洲人從新的視角看待世界。所以我經(jīng)常鼓勵人們來這里，來吧，來好好體驗。

圖 2 / Figure 2卡塔爾國家圖書館概念生成和模型推敲 / Concept and Models of Qatar National Library

圖 3 / Figure 3HKIUD會議安排的體驗活動/HKIUD-Actions for Active Ageing

Q9 您去過中國其他地方嗎？比如上海、香港或者其他地方？

是的，但現(xiàn)在可能去農(nóng)村更多一些。上一次我們?nèi)チ颂?。我們也去過了大寨，那里特別棒，很獨特。我們?nèi)チ擞暄a(bǔ)魯村、文村、壽光、烏鎮(zhèn)和其他一些地方，但仍然有很多地方需要去看。

Q10您認(rèn)為那里是個村、鎮(zhèn)還是城市？您是怎么分類的？

我們國家的首都是當(dāng)?shù)刈畲蟮某鞘?，?0萬居民，在我的認(rèn)知中，大寨的人口規(guī)模就是個城市了。我來自一個4萬居民左右的村莊，能看到地區(qū)之間有這么大的不同，這很神奇。你們很幸運(yùn)有這么富饒的國家。我的意思是，我這么說不是為了奉承，而是我之前在自己國家的經(jīng)歷和這里太不一樣了。

Q11 所以北京市中心有讓您想到阿姆斯特丹或其他地方嗎？

是的，但市中心很多地方像是變成了游客的工廠。我不是說它不好，因為那里其實有很多真正值得看的地方。如果你住在阿姆斯特丹，你就很難再愿意去市中心了。我喜歡像中國國家博物館一類的場所，陳列著古代人類的遺物。我們和一位挪威的教授卡爾·奧托·艾勒弗森（Karl Otto Ellefsen）去了烤鴨餐廳，我和他在一起做一個中國的項目，我們玩得很開心。

Q12 您知道庫哈斯先生最喜歡中國哪個城市嗎？他對那個城市有什么看法？

其實我很難說他的想法，但是我知道他確實很喜歡北京。他去了很多次香港，他也很喜歡那里。我覺得他喜歡北京是因為這里是政治中心，這里大大小小的創(chuàng)新都讓人喜歡，也因為這里的城市布局和城市化格局非常不同，我覺得是相當(dāng)特殊的。因為它有些地方有延伸，有點像洛杉磯這種城市不只有一個市中心，而有很多個中心區(qū)。你們也有相對低增長地區(qū)，和高增長地區(qū)相結(jié)合。所以你們有龐大的各類融合的城市，這一點在當(dāng)時OMA基于這個狀況設(shè)計CCTV大樓的時候尤為重要，我們想要在這個基地上加一個完全新穎的東西，與這里其他的塔有所不同。這就是為什么我認(rèn)為這是對北京現(xiàn)存城市狀況的一個正確回應(yīng)，我認(rèn)為它是個很棒的建筑，我很喜歡它。

Q13 OMA在其他城市有像這樣的項目嗎？

我認(rèn)為這是一個特殊時期的特殊機(jī)會。從歷史的角度看，它是一個從未被模仿的建筑。這是一個世紀(jì)建筑，因為背后有政治需要在支持它，有經(jīng)濟(jì)條件在支持它，也有設(shè)計在支持它。我覺得當(dāng)這三點融合到一起，就像星體在某一時刻重合一樣。我沒法預(yù)見這種狀況在短時間內(nèi)能再次發(fā)生，因為這種級別的雄心壯志實際已經(jīng)達(dá)成了。

它使城市化不再只停留在水平層面，而是試圖創(chuàng)造出一種三維有機(jī)體。至少對于我來說是這樣，我不是個城市規(guī)劃師，所以我其實不能真正地評判它，但我能看見它企圖在水平和豎直的系統(tǒng)中做一些東西，城市設(shè)計是如此，建筑也是如此。

從項目上來看也是有道理的?？蛻舻男枨蠛艽?，空間的需求很大，CCTV大樓就是這樣一個復(fù)雜的結(jié)合體。我認(rèn)為這個循環(huán)真的有助于宣傳理念和公司的運(yùn)營。這不僅是一件看起來好看的東西，它還很實用，背后有運(yùn)營的想法支撐它。

圖 3 / Figure 3卡塔爾國家圖書館室內(nèi) / Qatar National Library Indoor View

Q14 事實上您之前提過有一些途徑是穩(wěn)定的，而且應(yīng)該在歷史上回溯其起點。我的問題是您怎么看待那些普通村落。那些普通鄉(xiāng)村與普通城市有關(guān)系嗎？您會去在村落或者城市里尋找一些固定的基本元素嗎？

這是一個很好的問題。我認(rèn)為其中是有一點割裂的，我們不知道應(yīng)該叫它標(biāo)準(zhǔn)村落還是普通村落。

它可能還是介于兩者之間。我們起初也被學(xué)術(shù)界的反饋所吸引。我們做了6個各具特色的村落。然后我就在想，學(xué)術(shù)界給的評價中正確的是，這些村落是特殊的，那么另外300萬人口呢？你怎么評價那些呢?這是一個非常好的問題。因為你說不準(zhǔn)在這么多樣化的景觀中有多少不同的元素，所以我們很認(rèn)真地想研究什么才是標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的村落。

所以我們做了更多的研究，我們一直在做的是了解農(nóng)村的基本狀況，使用了一些統(tǒng)計數(shù)據(jù)的辦法，還結(jié)合了一些其他研究手段。我們與中央美術(shù)學(xué)院的研究項目致力于能幫助這些調(diào)研村落實現(xiàn)基本需求，然后帶來一些新的東西，比如空間上的思考，或者一些方法來優(yōu)化他們的現(xiàn)有條件。雖然有時候，條件很有限，但我們?nèi)匀豢梢栽囍鳛橐粋€設(shè)計師和這個區(qū)域交流。因為大多數(shù)狀況下，這是一個能把大家都集合到一起的最經(jīng)濟(jì)的方法，把所有城市里來的人和國外來的人，集合到一個小村落里。從經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)來看這是不可理喻的，所以你要怎么做？你還能怎么繼續(xù)幫助這些人？

這就是為什么你可以看到這類項目有巨大需求。我認(rèn)為為了讓鄉(xiāng)村更好、更宜居，讓人們想呆在那兒，想在那兒生活，你需要去展現(xiàn)給他們看，告訴他們怎么能做到。所以這挺難的，我覺得這個項目也挺難的。我不是說我們能實現(xiàn)所有的目標(biāo)、能幫到所有人，但至少我們有野心，去看看我們在這么艱難的狀況下能否做到。

隨著城市化發(fā)展，很多資金投入其中，有了這些資金能更簡單地操縱很多事。但是在農(nóng)村，這個狀況有所不同，所以需要換個角度去思考。如果在這一點上要有所進(jìn)步，需要大量實踐性的嘗試。我們希望能給一個普通村落下明確的定義，但到現(xiàn)在還沒達(dá)成。同樣的，我覺得和庫哈斯先生最初的設(shè)想有所不同的是們嘗試通過更多的交流帶來希望，或者一種新的狀況，使得鄉(xiāng)村的生活等級提高而不是倒退（圖4—圖10）。

Q15中國鄉(xiāng)村和歐洲鄉(xiāng)村或者美國鄉(xiāng)村有什么相似之處嗎？

圖 4 / Figure 4卡塔爾國家圖書館室外 / Qatar National Library Outdoor View

圖 5 / Figure 5普拉達(dá)塔及周邊 / Prada Torre and surroundings

據(jù)我所知，歐洲在這方面介于中國和美國之間。我們都知道各地的一些狀況，美國鄉(xiāng)村某些地方已經(jīng)變得很空曠，沒人在那居住了，村子很少，有些地方全都是機(jī)器和機(jī)器人。而另一方面，中國有的地方在很緊湊的空間布局中有將近300萬農(nóng)村人口，有很多這樣的村莊，并且它們將一直存在著，比如小的定居點、小社區(qū)。我認(rèn)為歐洲有點像是兩者都有。我們有很多機(jī)器人并有很空曠的鄉(xiāng)村，但我們同時也有很成功、很繁榮的村莊。我們也有人口從城市向鄉(xiāng)村的遷移，像在中國你能看到的這樣。我有時候也去美國，那里土地的廣闊和空曠也令人印象深刻。中國的狀況介于兩者之間，因此兩方面的特質(zhì)都兼而有之。對于中國農(nóng)村人來說，我能看到他們身上好的特質(zhì)。我在想我們是否能讓他們提起對空間的興趣，我們能用什么方法提升他們對于鄉(xiāng)村生活的自信，鄉(xiāng)村也需要融入21世紀(jì)，并且需要獲得與城市居民相當(dāng)?shù)淖孕判摹?/p>

Q16其實您提到過城市規(guī)劃的未來80%都是數(shù)字化，而且您也提到了機(jī)器人，農(nóng)村用機(jī)器人。所以未來城市會不會消失，取而代之的是各種村落或者小的定居點，僅由數(shù)字化設(shè)備連接？

就像很多事情都是兩者都有的，我認(rèn)為未來城市生活和鄉(xiāng)村生活依然會繼續(xù)割裂并且人口會持續(xù)轉(zhuǎn)移。比如人們有一半時間住在鄉(xiāng)下，一半時間住在城市里，這是在我看來最有可能的未來趨勢。當(dāng)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)產(chǎn)生的時候，其實已經(jīng)可以預(yù)見空間組織形態(tài)會變化了，因為你沒有必要一直呆在辦公室里，你也不再需要去辦公室了。

但是我明顯不認(rèn)為事情會那么發(fā)展。誠然，它會變化，但沒那么戲劇性。正如你所見，現(xiàn)在越來越多的人開始在咖啡廳里或者酒吧里辦公，界限開始變得模糊。

我認(rèn)為總體來說生活會變得更數(shù)字化，你會去尋找不同的場所，讓你感覺像在家一樣，讓你感覺舒服，或者讓你可以和你的家人多呆在一起。它可能會更重要。比起考慮城市還是鄉(xiāng)下，你可能考慮更多的是身邊的其他人在哪里？然后就去那里，所以它會變得更獨立。

Q17那您認(rèn)為密度對城市來說仍然很重要嗎？

我認(rèn)為現(xiàn)在密度會更難計算。一直以來大家的觀念都是密度是可以被計算的，但其實很難。當(dāng)你想捕捉一些新的居住模式，發(fā)現(xiàn)統(tǒng)計對象并不能固定在一個地方，你很快就會遇到統(tǒng)計學(xué)上的困難。例如，有個人雖然是城市居民，但有一半時間呆在鄉(xiāng)下，那你怎么登記呢？現(xiàn)在有新的實驗技術(shù)能用網(wǎng)絡(luò)設(shè)備追蹤人的軌跡，不失為一個計算密度的辦法。

我覺得這個概念很難理解，而且越來越難說明白它是什么了。因為每個人都像蝴蝶，無處不在，而且會有越來越多這樣的人。所以這種密度的概念發(fā)生在城市化進(jìn)度、房價和城市過度發(fā)展的狀況下，至少在歐洲是這樣，北京也是這樣。你可以看到多少人都愿意為城市里很小的空間買單，而且有時還不是中國最宜居的城市。

你有時也能在荷蘭阿姆斯特丹看到這樣的狀況。人們?yōu)樗麄兊目臻g付很多錢，然而同樣的錢他們在30分鐘路程之外的地方就能擁有兩倍大的空間，而且還能更便宜。所以你能想象在背后肯定有什么吸引著人們?nèi)ミ@些城市。這種現(xiàn)象持續(xù)存在。就像陰陽兩極，你會想從這種狀況中掙脫出來。

Q18有一種理論是讓人們住在城市里，釋放鄉(xiāng)村用地，歸還給自然，您同意這個理論嗎？

其實這已經(jīng)非常常見了，前提是確保大量的糧食儲備。食物生產(chǎn)仍舊需要消耗很多土地，當(dāng)然，這是我們無法擺脫的。荷蘭還有一項實驗技術(shù)，他們培育一種種植箱，可以種植出大自然里的植物。如果在城市里用種植箱種植蔬菜，你不再需要市郊來進(jìn)行這種生產(chǎn)，那你可能需要另外的渠道接近自然，可能會遇到新的問題。

Q19 像都市農(nóng)業(yè)那樣？

不，要比那個先進(jìn)得多。目前來說都市農(nóng)業(yè)都只是生產(chǎn)一些小東西，比如我能制造出一些沙拉，或者一些藥草，事實上這不是你用來養(yǎng)活自己的東西。但是那些實驗，比如大量種植西紅柿，他們背后有非常大的夢想，并不緊緊局限于這些小的農(nóng)作物，而是需要真正的食物。但如今像小麥，在這種條件下依然很難生產(chǎn)出來。但是對于蔬菜來說，其實不應(yīng)該局限在地面上生產(chǎn)，因為只在平面上生產(chǎn)是對資源的一種浪費(fèi)。我覺得這是他們努力的方向，這里面其實有很強(qiáng)的經(jīng)濟(jì)驅(qū)動力，這也賦予了一個城市原有的形態(tài)。要知道他們現(xiàn)在這么做純粹是由于經(jīng)濟(jì)原因。但是通過新技術(shù)，可以讓事態(tài)發(fā)生一些轉(zhuǎn)變，因為它可能更優(yōu)化，比如不再浪費(fèi)能源。

Q20 可能在城市里打工的二代或三代農(nóng)民已經(jīng)意識到了城市中面臨的困難。所以他們會愿意回到鄉(xiāng)村。但是就像您所說的，另一種生活也是一種理想。我不認(rèn)為他們會直接回到鄉(xiāng)村。他們可能會持續(xù)一段往返于城市和鄉(xiāng)村之間的生活，因為他們在經(jīng)濟(jì)上很欠缺。所以我在想或許他們是被迫留在城市的，而農(nóng)村村民依舊會繼續(xù)搬進(jìn)城市，或者小城鎮(zhèn)。但是另一方面，城市里的富人會把他們的公司外遷，從而給鄉(xiāng)村帶來一種新的生活方式，他們可能會置換掉當(dāng)?shù)卦械奈幕?。您怎么看待這種中國未來鄉(xiāng)村的趨勢呢？

這非常有趣。從歷史上看歐洲曾是這么發(fā)展的。如果回溯16和17世紀(jì)，都市和鄉(xiāng)村生活都需要城市。舉例來說，阿姆斯特丹，因為氣候原因以及當(dāng)時衛(wèi)生設(shè)施一般，顯然沒有現(xiàn)代設(shè)施，因此有一些記載說人在5公里外都能聞到阿姆斯特丹的味道，所以人們很難在里面居住。這就是為什么所有富人在城市的周圍的鄉(xiāng)村都有房產(chǎn)以及廣闊的土地。你能看到富人購置農(nóng)村土地的地方，農(nóng)村其實不是一個重要的主題，但卻是發(fā)展的巨大驅(qū)動力。甚至在羅馬人的生活中，鄉(xiāng)村風(fēng)情是他們生活不可或缺的一部分。

Q21未來的自動駕駛會改變城市和鄉(xiāng)村的關(guān)系，您贊同嗎？

這很可能由國家未來的政治意愿所決定。我認(rèn)為政治體系最終會是如何運(yùn)作農(nóng)村的決定因素。因為事實上這是市場經(jīng)濟(jì)不擅長的領(lǐng)域。你知道，城市生活很容易用不同方式被資本化，很容易涉及到錢，這讓市場經(jīng)濟(jì)很容易運(yùn)作。但是在那些只有小市場的地方市場經(jīng)濟(jì)很難生存，并且面臨著很大風(fēng)險。

所以當(dāng)你處在這之間的階段時，政治體系就會傾向于農(nóng)村的發(fā)展。這時民眾的發(fā)展意愿就會有很大的轉(zhuǎn)變，更加傾向于農(nóng)村發(fā)展。同時，機(jī)遇是什么，你怎么讓每個人都過上好日子？所以我想，從這個意義上來說，我很期待了解中國政府會如何構(gòu)建鄉(xiāng)村。在歐洲，這一部分往往都留給了市場來完成。美國也是這樣?；究梢钥吹?，農(nóng)村的條件都非常不好，因為政府不知道在農(nóng)村土地上應(yīng)該做什么。

我認(rèn)為，特朗普大部分支持者都來自鄉(xiāng)下，而且目前還沒有從他那里得到什么。路還是壞的，火車也沒有通，很多地區(qū)仍陷于貧窮。他們目前還沒有從政府那里得到任何好處，特朗普沒有兌現(xiàn)他的承諾，因為我認(rèn)為他在背后對于鄉(xiāng)村沒有任何政治意愿。在這里你能明顯看到，中國政府至少在這上面有很大的投資?？赡苡袝r候很難落實一個想法，但至少有想法。我認(rèn)為，中國的做法對我來說很特殊，非常具有啟發(fā)意義，即使有時候它也伴隨一些失敗和教訓(xùn)。

圖 7 / Figure 7臺北表演藝術(shù)中心 / TPAC

Q22我曾經(jīng)讀到過一篇關(guān)于普通城市定義的文章。那么普通鄉(xiāng)村呢？OMA會給普通鄉(xiāng)村再下一個定義嗎？

是的，我們很可能會做一個標(biāo)準(zhǔn)鄉(xiāng)村。我認(rèn)為普通城市是庫哈斯先生在新加坡研究結(jié)果的一個重要結(jié)論，他試著去描述他所遇到的所有平均結(jié)果，并且以某種方式表達(dá)出來。在這個層面上，解釋“通用”這個詞的方式是不同的，我們把“通用”作為一個發(fā)展的起始點，它能引發(fā)一些想象，也能帶來一些選擇、一些視角和不同的結(jié)果，但它們至少有部分是從這個標(biāo)準(zhǔn)出發(fā)的。那么一個地方的平均條件是怎樣的，我們怎么能從通用的狀況中建立針對特定方向的合理方法。母體村落是個非常非常小的樣板，而你又怎么去給一個條件平均的村莊建議，使它更先進(jìn)、更具挑戰(zhàn)性、更有趣，并且你要怎么去實現(xiàn)它？

Q23在中國，我們經(jīng)常想把村莊合并在一起，因為村里的學(xué)校很小。一般來說我們會將教育納入城鎮(zhèn)，然后這個城鎮(zhèn)周圍的村莊可以共享那里的教育資源。但對于村民來說，會認(rèn)為這太遠(yuǎn)了，他們不能把孩子送到鎮(zhèn)上，而他們又不想讓孩子錯過教育機(jī)會，所以它有兩面性，您怎么看待這件事？

在中國情況完全不同，因為這里的人口太多了。這是一個非常重要的課題，我們在訪問呂品晶教授的板萬村項目時意識到了這一點。他受邀在這個村莊建立一所專業(yè)學(xué)校，在貴州農(nóng)村做了一個很棒的項目，建成一所看起來很不錯的新學(xué)校。但是當(dāng)時的地方政府決定半關(guān)閉學(xué)校，然后將孩子轉(zhuǎn)移到鎮(zhèn)上的學(xué)校，因為他們建造了一座新大樓。我理解，為什么這個項目對鄉(xiāng)村十分重要，因為它是村莊與外界社會的一個連接結(jié)點，但從學(xué)校的角度我同樣能夠理解，招募到足夠愿意生活在小鄉(xiāng)村的高素質(zhì)教師是一個很大的挑戰(zhàn)。但即便如此，我仍然希望保留這個當(dāng)?shù)氐男⌒蛯W(xué)校，它需要面對多元的文化、教學(xué)方式以及差異極大的空間條件。

我并不太了解中國的教育體系，比如中國孩子要上大學(xué)，或者去更大的學(xué)校，或者上高中，你才能更適應(yīng)這個體系。當(dāng)進(jìn)入公司以后，會受到公司或者建設(shè)團(tuán)隊的培訓(xùn)。就建筑業(yè)來說，如果你想成為一個水管工，或者想要去修廁所，你只能在工作中學(xué)到這些技能。歐洲不是這樣的。在歐洲，這個過程之間有個培訓(xùn)。首先你要學(xué)怎么做好一個水管工，然后你才能得到水管工的工作?？赡苓@就是為什么歐洲這類型的手藝活會比中國當(dāng)?shù)厮缴晕⒏咭恍┑脑?。很多時候你去看一個剛落成的建筑，當(dāng)你仔細(xì)看它的細(xì)節(jié)，你會感覺失望。

圖 8 / Figure 8卡塔爾多哈機(jī)場城 / HIA Airport City

這就是手藝，你必須去學(xué)怎么做。這不只是簡單地模仿其他人，你也必須把它看成做好建筑、做好東西的重要一步，這非常重要。

Q24如果幾年前來北京，那時候的狀況比現(xiàn)在要差，那時北京政府著手改善公廁。你現(xiàn)在可以看到幾乎每個地鐵站都有公廁，狀況已經(jīng)有所改變了。

是的，而且我們能做得更好。因為我注意到現(xiàn)在一些剛完成的建筑，他們看起來并沒有想要達(dá)到完美。但我喜歡做得完美，并且我會努力讓項目達(dá)到完美。

Q25 在中國，大部分村落仍是服務(wù)于城市的。尤其這幾年受“城鄉(xiāng)一體化發(fā)展”政策的影響，很多農(nóng)村都發(fā)展為城鎮(zhèn)，由于城市的旅游業(yè)、商務(wù)、貿(mào)易需求增加了經(jīng)濟(jì)收入。目前據(jù)我所知，在歐洲，城鄉(xiāng)在發(fā)展中的關(guān)系可能沒有這么緊密，這就是說，其實鄉(xiāng)村并不需要依賴城市來發(fā)展自己。您怎么看待這種狀況？這兩個模型之中的優(yōu)勢和劣勢分別是什么？

現(xiàn)在歐洲的狀態(tài)有點像您說的，如果看看阿姆斯特丹周邊的城市，你就能看到富人都在往郊區(qū)遷移，這對于建設(shè)鄉(xiāng)村、改善一些原始的小環(huán)境有很大幫助。

但當(dāng)你真正走出城市的限制，當(dāng)你開兩個小時車離開大城市，事態(tài)會變得非常令人絕望，當(dāng)?shù)厝送幵诤芷D難的境地中。所以我認(rèn)為城市需要鼓勵這種城鄉(xiāng)間的資源交換。而且基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施是生產(chǎn)力的重要組成部分，只要建造了就能有幫助。我認(rèn)為這就是為什么中國致力于修高速公路、火車軌道和機(jī)場，這很有意義，因為它真的改善了鄉(xiāng)村基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施的可達(dá)性，這是這個方程式里很重要的一個因子。

Q26 所以在村里您想讓學(xué)生們?yōu)檫@個項目學(xué)習(xí)。這和您之前說的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施是同一件事嗎？

如果能參與到學(xué)校建設(shè)等更有趣的項目中，我認(rèn)為去看看你是否能運(yùn)用新技術(shù)也是一件很有趣的事。如果你能找到一種方法使鄉(xiāng)村學(xué)校也能變成項目的一部分，你就能讓它變得更有效的服務(wù)于村民。為人著想是最重要的。

Q27 庫哈斯先生在一個采訪中曾經(jīng)提到過“保護(hù)”，他提到現(xiàn)在地球表面的12%都是在某種保護(hù)機(jī)制下存在的，而且這種狀況仍將繼續(xù)存在。您認(rèn)為這12%和鄉(xiāng)村有交集嗎？您怎么看待古建筑保護(hù)和鄉(xiāng)村發(fā)展之間的關(guān)系的呢?

這是我和庫哈斯先生正在做的重要項目之一。我有建筑保護(hù)的歷史理論背景，所以我和他在這個課題中做了很多工作。所以這12%也是我的計算成果。顯然這12%涵蓋的更多的是鄉(xiāng)村，而不是城市。

因為這是對自然的保護(hù)。同樣，過去幾年里中國在自然保護(hù)上加大了投入。很明顯，這是與發(fā)展主題相矛盾的，我們至少要找到一種與保護(hù)相并行的發(fā)展形式。在歐洲，你能找到一些兩者兼顧的地塊，它們有著現(xiàn)代食品生產(chǎn)的驅(qū)動力，也有保護(hù)過去事物的驅(qū)動力。這挺困難的，這兩個詞語如何碰撞，對于鄉(xiāng)村來說也是一個很大的課題。

如何在不改變現(xiàn)有環(huán)境的狀況下實現(xiàn)現(xiàn)代化，很明顯，這個話題也適用于建筑。怎么保證所有建筑都是可持續(xù)的，要知道能源產(chǎn)量并不高，這是主要問題。因此我認(rèn)為，我們低估了這世界上有多少地方是我們不想再去改變的。當(dāng)然，新的需求也會隨之而來，我們必須產(chǎn)出糧食。

為了達(dá)成這一點，必須做出改變。然而我們有著另一個體系在說著“不不不，每一件事都應(yīng)該出于好的理由”。我也是個建筑保護(hù)人員，所以我所接受的部分教育是“不不不，不要改變，不能改變”。但同時你能看見這是不可能的。因為可預(yù)見的趨勢是單向的，你會在既有建筑基礎(chǔ)上加建得更多、越來越多。

這是個很大的挑戰(zhàn)，但對建筑保護(hù)很有益，這意味著我們還有很多保護(hù)工作要完成。當(dāng)你研究很多有趣的建筑時，你會學(xué)到另外一件事，就是要時刻保持警惕。當(dāng)一座沒有價值的建筑被拆除的時候，很有可能只是它們的價值沒有被當(dāng)下認(rèn)可。100年以后人們可能會說，為什么當(dāng)初要拆除它！因此你必須時刻保持警惕：哪一座建筑是值得保護(hù)的？對鄉(xiāng)村來說也是一樣，我們應(yīng)該讓哪一片鄉(xiāng)村留存上百年？也有可能我的子孫后代會說，“我爺爺真蠢，他怎么留了這么個錯的東西”。所以，這是個很大的挑戰(zhàn)，但也是個有趣的思考。

圖 9 / Figure 9中國鄉(xiāng)村調(diào)研 / Chinese Countryside Survey

Q28淘寶村近年來被中國人熱議。您怎么看待這一現(xiàn)象？在參加完淘寶村會議之后您有什么感受？

東風(fēng)村對人非常有啟發(fā)，我覺得很有趣，我還就此寫了篇文章，得到了歐洲那邊很多回應(yīng)。人們很好奇，不知道有淘寶村這件事，這對于他們來說真的是全新的。我看到很多機(jī)遇，也看到很多挑戰(zhàn)。所謂機(jī)遇，是人們可以脫離城市生產(chǎn)他們想生產(chǎn)的任何東西，這是一個美好的狀況，你不再需要將城市看作中心。你可以在農(nóng)村工作，你可以生產(chǎn)產(chǎn)品，將它運(yùn)到城市里，然后就會有人將它們賣給別人。這樣就會有個新的產(chǎn)業(yè)鏈。我覺得這個前景很令人興奮。但你著眼東風(fēng)村，也會發(fā)現(xiàn)它顯露出了新問題。你能看到村里的人們有個成熟的關(guān)系網(wǎng)。

于是有人開始復(fù)制產(chǎn)品，并且試圖讓它更便宜一點，然后其他人會想讓它更便宜，到最后人都會失敗，因為彼此間競爭太多了會引發(fā)質(zhì)量下降。這是一個很消極的局面，你必須作出改變，否則它會由于質(zhì)量下降變成一個不運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)的阿里巴巴系統(tǒng)。我能看見這是一個很有趣的基礎(chǔ)角度。我們應(yīng)該怎樣使它更積極，能激勵村民們越變越好，而不是自相殘殺。

Q29雖然淘寶村叫“村”，但您認(rèn)為它的運(yùn)作方式像一個鎮(zhèn)或一個城市嗎？您怎么看待的呢？

這么說其實有點難?；旧希艺J(rèn)為任何形式的發(fā)展都像一個基本的城市。我也認(rèn)為每個村發(fā)展到最后都如同一個小型的城市化發(fā)展那樣。所以我認(rèn)為這種城市發(fā)展的對比和所謂正常城市發(fā)展作對比是有問題的。你會看到這種微型城市或者超級村莊。比如，有時我在城市里工作，某種程度來說，它就是個超級村莊，人們都互相認(rèn)識，整個運(yùn)作方式就像一個我長大的鄉(xiāng)村。所以我猜，其中的機(jī)制是完全不同的。

它更關(guān)乎尺度或密度，但我認(rèn)為淘寶有著有意思的未來。阿里集團(tuán)也是一家很有意思的企業(yè)，我們想和他們合作，看看如何在這種自下而上、彼此聯(lián)結(jié)的發(fā)展中做城市規(guī)劃。我在想他們也需要空間設(shè)計?？梢灶A(yù)見，我們會創(chuàng)立運(yùn)營一個虛擬平臺，有點類似于城市規(guī)劃的最終發(fā)展形式，最后再回歸到現(xiàn)實中來。平臺會持續(xù)給大家提供靈感和趣味，他們會變得更活躍，但同時也具有責(zé)任。

圖 10 / Figure 10中國鄉(xiāng)村調(diào)研 / Chinese Countryside Survey

Q30 您認(rèn)為區(qū)塊產(chǎn)業(yè)鏈等技術(shù)手段會催生城市變化嗎？在科技方面，中國很多企業(yè)對于智慧城市都投入了很大的研發(fā)精力，您怎么看待未來技術(shù)與智慧城市發(fā)展呢？

整個區(qū)塊產(chǎn)業(yè)鏈的理論都很振奮人心，但其實并不重要。智慧城市是很好，但對我來說有點問題。他們已經(jīng)推行智慧城市二三十年了，而每次的結(jié)果都有些令人失望。即便是谷歌自己的項目，比如多倫多城市發(fā)展項目，結(jié)果也不是很好，最后并沒有很大突破。可能我太老派了或者太保守了，但我覺得他們做的那些沒有給生活增加多少價值，他們可能只是讓它更舒適了。比如你可以用智能手機(jī)控制公寓，或者冰箱可以知道你什么時候回家。但對我來說，這并不耳目一新，可能這就是最大的問題。并不是說反對它，只是找不出我想要這些東西的理由。

智慧城市對于我來說，更像是急切的IT公司在尋求新的企業(yè)模式，當(dāng)我意識到這一點我就不再對它感興趣了。如果這只是為了賺錢，就行不通，你必須給我我想要的的東西，而非那些無關(guān)緊要的東西，我才能付你錢。

Q31 在這個問題上庫哈斯先生的意見是一樣的嗎？

有所不同，但他對此也持懷疑態(tài)度。我想他認(rèn)為智慧城市是關(guān)乎生活的，關(guān)乎欲望、動力、理想?，F(xiàn)在一切都是為了優(yōu)化，為了讓事態(tài)更好一點兒，而不是為了革新，為了超凡脫俗。它只關(guān)注于如何讓人更舒適或者讓流程更順暢。所以一方面它可能改善了人的生活，但同時它也很無趣，使得未來的生活可以被預(yù)測。谷歌也在發(fā)展能做藝術(shù)的算法，然而非常無聊。它不能產(chǎn)出驚為天人的藝術(shù)品，我認(rèn)為所以商業(yè)活動都是這樣的，他們只會為了其他理由去做一件事。我寧愿把錢投資給真正的藝術(shù)品，讓那些藝術(shù)品更好玩。他們在投資一項很蠢的科技。有一種很好的想法，那就是如果你只關(guān)注技術(shù)，你是沒法知道21世紀(jì)的生活是什么樣子的。我認(rèn)為這么發(fā)展到最后也就是會變得很舒適而已。如果不去想政治，不去想未來，不去想夢想，而用技術(shù)來達(dá)成一切，總有一天，它會消耗殆盡。那時候我們就會再思考，我們到底真正要的是什么？

Q32 您對近期“鄉(xiāng)村——世界的未來”展覽的工作坊有什么想說的嗎？

現(xiàn)在我們的想法是，因為我們在做中國的版塊，所以得想好要展示什么。我想試著對中國鄉(xiāng)村理想做一個概述，它怎么運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)的，概念是什么，我們要怎么做。我們想帶國際觀眾關(guān)注政府是如何在不同層面塑造鄉(xiāng)村的，因為我們認(rèn)為國際觀眾對此很陌生。正常來說，一個政府，比如我們談到過的美國，對鄉(xiāng)村治理沒有太多想法，而我認(rèn)為中國政府確實是有關(guān)于農(nóng)村的想法的。在展覽現(xiàn)場，我們的想法是建立一個類似于合作社的辦公室，農(nóng)民、政府人員、智庫、相關(guān)技術(shù)人員都能參與其中，為鄉(xiāng)村發(fā)展出謀劃策。從中展現(xiàn)了普遍寬泛的利益關(guān)系，以及這個國家正在發(fā)生的事情。

Q33 我看到中國鄉(xiāng)村這個主題在這次展覽里有3～4個隔間

是的，十月我們想在中央美術(shù)學(xué)院建筑學(xué)院里做一個1：1的展覽空間模型，作為之后古根海姆展覽的1：1模型。我們會將它作為一個測試空間，分享我們的一些初步構(gòu)想。而古根海姆的展會在2020年2月22日開幕。像婚禮的日期一樣！

圖 11 / Figure 11阿姆斯特丹市立博物館展覽空間設(shè)計 / Stedelijk Bas

Q34你能介紹一下這次的展覽主題的由來嗎？

好的。他們選了個非常氣派的標(biāo)題—“鄉(xiāng)村—世界的未來”。在這次展覽中，我只做了中國的一部分，并進(jìn)一步做了更大量的敘事。并且我認(rèn)為它在當(dāng)今這個多元化背景下，會顯示出野心。它也會關(guān)注鄉(xiāng)村和城市的基本問題。舉例來說，有一部分是關(guān)于俄羅斯的冰蓋融化，還有甲烷的釋放導(dǎo)致氣候變暖和對糧食的沖擊。我們正在關(guān)注這樣的課題。但是舉例來說，另一個參加者尼古拉斯·馬克（Nicholas Maak）在關(guān)注非洲野生動物和自然生態(tài)，關(guān)注非洲增長的人口是如何與這片土地上的野生動物共享這片土地的。我們想讓兩者能共存。那怎么和大猴子一起生活，如何在規(guī)劃的同時安置這些生物呢，你要怎么做？這就是明年二月開幕展覽的關(guān)注點。這不僅是對庫哈斯先生，而且對我們都是一個尚待探索與思考的新領(lǐng)域，所以需要完成的工作還有很多。即便從研究者的角度來講，從文獻(xiàn)、素材以及資源等多角度來看，這都是值得思考的。至少對于我來說，思考與定義現(xiàn)代城郊是一個充滿冒險、機(jī)遇且有待成長的空間。在這些年，出現(xiàn)了相當(dāng)多城市和鄉(xiāng)村中的建筑，但在我看來它們多少有一些無趣。人們并不會將這些城郊地區(qū)的明星建筑看作那些巨大現(xiàn)代溫室建筑的同類。比如，在韶光村，建了一個非常引人注意的新建筑，但卻沒有引起額外的關(guān)注，也沒人會為它撰寫文章，或者說沒人把它視為目前發(fā)生的大革新的一部分。至少對于我來說，還有相當(dāng)多的領(lǐng)域值得去發(fā)現(xiàn)。

庫哈斯先生的研究最早來自于他在瑞士的觀察，他和他的妻子在那里有一棟小房子，他們每年都去。最后他們?nèi)チ巳鹗繉W(xué)習(xí)關(guān)于村落的核心知識和想法。很明顯整個20世紀(jì)八九十年代的歐洲都在討論農(nóng)村和農(nóng)村人口減少的問題。相反，他看到他經(jīng)常去的那個村子在發(fā)展，那里的房子越來越多。所以我在思考，為什么一方面我們在爭論鄉(xiāng)村縮水，與此同時出現(xiàn)了越來越多的房子。我也在想是什么在最初使他意識到這些奇怪的現(xiàn)象發(fā)生，讓他開始研究。確實這個問題可能更關(guān)乎富人和鄉(xiāng)村的狀況。農(nóng)村正在從簡單農(nóng)業(yè)向精英模式轉(zhuǎn)變，你能得知那些越來越多的房子其實是城市人的產(chǎn)業(yè)，他們都有專人照顧他們的貓和狗。這是最近農(nóng)村的最新態(tài)勢，這使人非常感興趣。因此我在思考，某種意義上，這也是對城市轉(zhuǎn)型為只有快樂、只有愉悅、只有美好事物的回應(yīng)。我們開始把生活中所有外在的不好事物都排除在城市之外。

這是另外一個我感到有趣的點，但就庫哈斯先生的興趣而言，他正在做很多該類型的項目（圖11—圖12）。他去年完成了很多大型項目，今年也會繼續(xù)，但我認(rèn)為他的主要精力還是放在這個項目上，這很令人激動。我也會做這方面的工作，如你所見，還有很多工作需要完成。

Q35有多少國家和地區(qū)參展？

8個或9個，但可能也有一些會分散在歐洲。我們看到移民潮從非洲流向歐洲，跨越了整個大陸。他們其中很多人抵達(dá)了意大利，或者去了德國，這是一部分，但還有一部分展品是觀察南美和智利的成果，反映美國富人是如何買下智利的一部分的。

還有一部分是關(guān)注海洋的，這個課題更大一些，但是這一部分我還沒有看到太多東西。我們可能看到海洋里的城市化，也可以描述這個狀況并從能源、糧食或者數(shù)據(jù)中心的層面對它進(jìn)行規(guī)劃。

我覺得我們越來越能預(yù)見，未來會發(fā)展沒有人類居住而以海洋為基礎(chǔ)生產(chǎn)設(shè)施的城市。如果你有龐大的、已經(jīng)有了海洋數(shù)據(jù)中心的漁場，那么你就已經(jīng)為在海里做設(shè)計準(zhǔn)備了一些材料。我覺得規(guī)劃海洋聽起來很有趣。人們需要修路嗎？在我看來那是城市化層面另一個有趣的點，這種產(chǎn)業(yè)景觀是城市化的規(guī)則。

內(nèi)華達(dá)州有一個很有趣的事。在沙漠里，有一個是硅谷很多公司放置龐大數(shù)據(jù)中心的地方。它剛好在加州的邊界上，因為如果在加州他們得付很重的稅，所以所有硅谷企業(yè)的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施都轉(zhuǎn)移到了內(nèi)華達(dá)州。在這個村落或者安置點，只有大量的倉庫、貨箱，幾乎沒有人，因為有電子眼。問題來了，你怎么看待這里的城市化？你要怎么設(shè)計，還需要鋪路嗎，需要路標(biāo)嗎？或者你可以忽略這一點，因為這里沒有人。正常來說城市由人組成，但如果當(dāng)你做設(shè)計的時候排除人類會怎樣呢？這些都是基礎(chǔ)的問題，我們沒有答案，但至少我們可以開始思考了。這很有挑戰(zhàn)性，也很有趣。因為目前為止幾乎所有專業(yè)都是圍繞人的。當(dāng)你把人這個元素剔除出去會發(fā)生什么呢？這么做不是因為我們討厭人類，我們愛人類，只是剛好可能有全新的領(lǐng)域要去探索。機(jī)器人做的是什么?它想要什么？可能我們只設(shè)計植物或者機(jī)械。

我們正在和幾個大學(xué)合作。其中一所大學(xué)是荷蘭的瓦赫寧根大學(xué)，他們有龐大的農(nóng)業(yè)研究計劃。他們正在做各種完全不同的研究。我們跟一些人做過很有趣的對談，他們在制造蒼蠅幼蟲，想以巨大的產(chǎn)業(yè)化規(guī)模生產(chǎn)這種動物，用來喂豬。這種方法基本上比用大豆制造更可持續(xù)，耗能更少，效率更高。但是現(xiàn)在越來越多動物保護(hù)組織開始保護(hù)這些幼蟲的權(quán)益，因為幼蟲可能也有意識，他們希望制訂新的規(guī)章。有點像我們對待豬那樣，我們應(yīng)該尊重動物，所以我們也應(yīng)該尊重幼蟲。這是一個全新的事物，幼蟲需要得到尊重，這樣每個群體才能有姓名。

圖 12 / Figure 122014年威尼斯雙年展意大利的世界 / Monditalia

Q36 OMA希望和中國一些機(jī)構(gòu)或公司開展怎樣的工作？

對我們來說，更重要的是和其他規(guī)劃人員進(jìn)行溝通。比起去規(guī)劃一個地區(qū)，這些人才是我們更想合作的。我的意思是有些建筑設(shè)計公司做得很好，他們有雄偉的藍(lán)圖，做了很厲害的工作，但是這不是我們所尋求的合作。我們對文化合作更感興趣。并不是說要把我們的想法強(qiáng)加給中國，而是說我們想有更多的交流。對于庫哈斯的理想我們會有不同的方法，也歡迎這些想法。舉例來說，我們現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)和CAFA中央美術(shù)學(xué)院合作了。對我們來說更重要的是要向外界表明，我們作出了選擇，我們想要變得活躍，但不僅僅只是通過承接大項目的方式，雖然這很重要。或許因為CCTV大樓人們可能會想，好一個大建筑師，他只在乎做大設(shè)計，不在乎其他事情，但我們不是這么看待這座建筑的，我們想要表達(dá)的是，我們也在向外界學(xué)習(xí)，學(xué)習(xí)中國的工作方式，而不僅僅只想要單純做大項目。我們的目標(biāo)也不是為了變得無比富有或無比輝煌，而更多地想讓雙方的合作更有意思。如果我們能做到，就最好不過了。我認(rèn)為這也是庫哈斯先生的想法。他真的很想讓大家看到OMA和他的工作，能更多關(guān)注這些點，這是有層次和有不同趣味的。

Q37像您之前所說的，如果我們找到了一塊普通的鄉(xiāng)村用地，我們就能理解鄉(xiāng)村所需的現(xiàn)代基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施和服務(wù)。您如何在中央美術(shù)學(xué)院建筑學(xué)院的教學(xué)中發(fā)掘這些點?您認(rèn)為分層提取信息是一種通用且有效的研究方法嗎?

嗯，關(guān)于教育，我們之前已經(jīng)討論過了。要去嘗試和發(fā)現(xiàn)不止一種設(shè)計技巧，要更注意去理解客戶所想，也要注意設(shè)計的不同形式。我們不是在做一個出色的圖紙，而是將你的時間和想法投入進(jìn)課題里。至少這就是我想告訴大家的。

圖 13 / Figure 132014年威尼斯建筑雙年展《建筑元素》展 /Elements of Architecture, Venice Biennale 2014

Q38 《建筑元素》（Elements）和當(dāng)下對鄉(xiāng)村的研究方法有相似之處嗎？您認(rèn)為學(xué)生做的研究中最重要的是什么？

我認(rèn)為庫哈斯先生和我的相似之處體現(xiàn)在，我們都認(rèn)為，只要你以一種新的方式看待事物，基本上生活中任何事情都可以是有趣的。因此比如對一個無趣的杯子，仍然可以提出一百個問題，為什么這個杯子是正的，為什么它是塑料的，為什么是紙板的，它從哪來，究竟為何這個世界上大家都能有一樣的杯子，你知道后面的產(chǎn)業(yè)流程嗎？這只是一個很簡單的例子，但是總的來說，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)鄉(xiāng)村共有的那些日常用品和平凡的物品，如果你從新的角度去看待它，就能變得非常有趣。

這就是20世紀(jì)六七十年代庫哈斯先生在當(dāng)作家時候得到的經(jīng)驗，他從一些藝術(shù)思潮中學(xué)會了如何去欣賞這些東西。我對此表示贊同，因為我也確實認(rèn)為即使是日常用品也用很多故事可以講?！敖ㄖ亍保▓D13—圖14）就是很好的例子，我們已經(jīng)發(fā)掘過廁所的歷史，還有屋頂和斜坡等都有很多故事可以講。庫哈斯先生是我見過最有好奇心的人。這也是為什么他總是很渴求新的信息。

我也是個很有好奇心的人，所以我也有很多想知道的。但是和庫哈斯先生比起來，我就顯得很微不足道。當(dāng)我和他一起旅游的時候，他會走進(jìn)機(jī)場的書店買下所有你能見到的雜志。當(dāng)航班結(jié)束要起身的時候我就能看到一個書堆。無論去哪，他總是買新的，他一直把信息灌輸給自己。我覺得，在他的私生活中，他也極度有好奇心。他不總是那個最好相處的的人，他體內(nèi)有很強(qiáng)大的能量、欲望和動力，但他在很多方面也能很友好、有趣幽默。我必須強(qiáng)調(diào)一點，他真的是個很有趣的人。

Q39 在您的建筑研究生涯中，對你影響最深的是什么？您在Volume E的工作是否讓您對建筑和文本工作有新的了解？

在Volume E雜志社的工作是我第一份建筑領(lǐng)域的工作。我寫了部分論文。至于對我最深的影響是什么，我認(rèn)為，驅(qū)使我的恰好也是好奇心。還有一個事實，就是建筑和城市化是不可避免的。如果你早上起來睜開眼睛往窗外看，第一個就會看到建筑，其次你會看到城市化。我覺得這也是驅(qū)使我的一大原因。它很有效，同時也是生活中不可避免的一部分，意味著你必須為它做點什么。對我來說，至少你會想去理解它、改變它、感受它，了解它怎么運(yùn)作以及對其他人來說意味著什么。

在那里，我受到了歷史學(xué)的培訓(xùn)，專攻中世紀(jì)和文藝復(fù)興建筑，更主要是教堂。我同時也很喜歡宗教建筑，因為我認(rèn)為它們是人類建造的最瘋狂的建筑。因為他們建造了一個精神用途，而非實際用途的東西。我覺得這很有趣。這其中投入了多少熱忱、時間、金錢、權(quán)力，只為了建造這種家族性、精神性的建筑。

如何建造這種很棒的建筑對我來說仍然是個謎。上一次在中國臺灣，我第一次去了在中國的天主教堂，令人印象深刻。我深受觸動。那一次我們也去了臺灣的寺廟，它們也很漂亮，也給我留下了很深的印象。我是精神性建筑的“大粉絲”。

圖 14 / Figure 14建筑元素：立面，門，陽臺，電梯 /Architectural Elements: Facade, door, balcony, escalator

Q40 有一些建筑師和城市設(shè)計師對普通城市很感興趣，因為我們在尋求更多人們使用空間的方式。我們把它看作城市或者小村落的基本要素。20世紀(jì)80年代，我們開始了小村落的斗爭，想找到這種小村落背后的社會經(jīng)濟(jì)現(xiàn)象，您怎么看待城市或者村莊社會經(jīng)濟(jì)層面的普通元素呢？

這是一個很難的問題。但目前為止我注意到城市和農(nóng)村有很多現(xiàn)象是一樣的。它有著相同的因子，面對著相同的社會或者經(jīng)濟(jì)上的挑戰(zhàn)。某種程度上來說有點令人絕望。有時候人們想要變得獨特，獨特會通向成功，這是一種創(chuàng)造性的驅(qū)動力，能讓事情與眾不同，但是同時這意味著我們懷著相同的抱負(fù)。所以我總是在思考是不是要變得獨特，還是說不變得獨特也沒關(guān)系。這是一個基本問題，你也可以在這個例子中看到。所以有時候我認(rèn)為我總是讀《普通城市》是因為它帶了點諷刺意味。

他在文中取笑了很多事情，同時回應(yīng)了這些類似于你是誰、個人定位、你是否獨特或者變得普通化能不能行的基本問題。我喜歡這種對立。這不是你能解決的，也不是你能挑戰(zhàn)的。你總是夾在“要變得獨特”和“堅持自我”中間，然而你必須接受一般和普通，但你也要能夠打破自己的平均水平，挑戰(zhàn)自己。

所以我把它視作個人的一個挑戰(zhàn)，要保持積極，堅持對自身的思考，并參與其中，反思自己是誰。至少我能看到一般和獨特之中有著能讓人認(rèn)清自己定位的價值。像是一直照鏡子，而不是做一些瘋狂的舉動。

在形態(tài)學(xué)的泛型研究之后，我認(rèn)為還能有很多探究的地方。20世紀(jì)初曾經(jīng)有過很多社會理想，而我們現(xiàn)在仍然能看看我們能找到什么新的話題。

因為住在鄉(xiāng)村能有更多空間，所以我看到了比城市更大的實驗空間，也因為城市變得如此經(jīng)濟(jì)、如此束縛、如此狹窄。我不是建筑師，但我能看見我的同事們苦惱于如何在規(guī)劃、經(jīng)濟(jì)和探索中尋求平衡來做設(shè)計，但是總是難以施展。每個實驗空間最后都會被拋棄?；蛟S在鄉(xiāng)村可以找到讓他們重新思考的空間。我認(rèn)為這在某種層面上也是庫哈斯先生的抱負(fù)，他能看見形態(tài)學(xué)上的機(jī)遇，符合他對鄉(xiāng)村的樂觀態(tài)度。那里還能有留給新事物的空間。

注釋

Notes

1 “鄉(xiāng)村——世界的未來”展覽中中央美術(shù)學(xué)院工作坊，課程導(dǎo)師團(tuán)隊包含OMA事務(wù)所主持建筑師雷姆·庫哈斯客座教授，斯蒂芬·彼得曼客座講師；呂品晶教授，李琳副教授，史洋講師。

Q1 Most Chinese people are already familiar with OMA, but they seldom hear about AMO. Could you please briefly introduce OMA and AMO and your research projects?

OMA(Office For Metropolitan Architecture, OMA)started around 1975,was founded by Rem Koolhaas and his wife, Madelon Vriesendorp,and another couple, Elia Zenghelis and Zoe Zenghelis together to do architecture projects.But Rem also had a career as a writer. He wrote Delirious New York,and before that he was a journalist and working for a popular magazine in Netherlands. So there was always an element of narrative, of storytelling and of thinking that goes beyond just line embedded in how he became an architect. And for a long time that remains also a bit on the background. But then the more, the project develops. And also the larger the office became, at some point, it became more logical to start a different department within the office, which only looks at the thinking side of architecture.

So trying to establish ways of working with clients to understand what they actually wants, and also why they want, what they wants, and then to work on this aspects. And this is why AMO was founded basically to question things and also to look at new developments which might make architecture more exciting and also cross interdisciplinary. So this is why it was founded. And I have been working with Rem on this type of projects for around 13 years and then normally do go into various directions from politics to reservation, to design, sometimes to exhibitions,to publications. So a better,an brilliant, a very broad direction of interests of things that happen. I think that you just want to know you’re curious about. So it is also a machine that looks at curiosity, trying to understand the world, why it is functioning in the way it functions.

Q2 So Rem is a thinker as well,not only architecture,an urban designer?

I think you see that in the beginning, there was were more urbanism, or more dreams of urbanism at least. And then, at some points, it gets a bit lower. OMA leaves urban design a bit and goes more towards architecture. But then starting from the year of 2000 again, sometimes also master planning. But it's a difficult profession. As you know,architecture is difficult, but maybe urban design is even more difficult.

Q3 what scale of OMA now is? How many people works in OMA?

OMA is around between 250 or 300 people, I think, with offices in New York, and here in Beijing,in Hong Kong and Rotterdam, and some very small satellites in other parts where there is also a construction going on, and in Paris, London, the middle east. Also there is a small branch in Milan operated by one of the partners who’s Italian and does Italian projects from Milan.

Q4 Are most of them architects? Is there any urban designer or other major?

Yeah, I think there are some urban designers as well. Very different. I, myself, am not a designer.I'm a historian. And we also had a journalist, people with the background of biology and some very different backgrounds. It's more like you should have a very good basic skill set and then you can think. It's more of a prerequisites to working there so that you are ambitious, that you are positive,that you are a diligent. I think those are the most important factors of being in the office.

Q5 Will you use a lot of time to do research, and do something like analyzing the storyboard and then drawing? So drawing is not the first step, is the next step in the moment, right?

Yes,this has been the case for quite some time.Because most of the times you really don't understand your client and you don't understand who he is, what he wants and why he wants. So you have to really spend a lot of time on that part. And normally by the time that you've fi gured out what he wants, you also have figured out what the design could be. So that goes hand in hand. And it's one of the best cases for Rem. It's a very personal process where you really get to know a clients very well also because you'll share a lot of years together.You share a lot of financial decisions together.You share a lot of ideas together. So you it's very important to keep this very close relationship with your client. It's not just somebody who comes in and orders hamburgers.

Q6 When you talk with client of OMA, are they not only architects but also many others from other background talking with clients together?

Yes. It's a process that I still like a lot, I think there's still might be a need for more of that. Yeah,not only in China, but everywhere.This type of personal relationship to your work can bring a lot of extra bene fi ts to the quality of the work.

Although it can also make you go mad. I think it's overall, the more committed you are, the better normally a design becomes. This's also what I tried to tell the students: Really be close to your clients,listen very well, but also ask him or her questions,uncomfortable questions, you know. Be honest,that's also a bit of a Dutch tradition. The Dutch are very open and very straightforward. You ask the question and you will get maybe an answer you don't like. I also like the way other cultures fi nding other clever ways to do this.

Q7 What do you think of relationship among clients and designers and government stuffs in architectural design process in China?

The relationship's exist, not only in China, all over the world. I am not sure if that is very special. I think it's everywhere that you have a lot of possibilities to make through closer collaboration, better design work.But, I think China has its own speed,of course, on its own temperament.So I think maybe there is a difference in the sense of thinking about time. That's Europe is still slower in thinking about time than China, which is very clear when you look at urban development. But for example,in the countryside, you can also think a bit more longer term. The fact that buildings are not main to last. That's a very deep tradition, I think, in China.That even is centuries old, whereas in Europe perhaps that idea is still split between a lot of heritage,a lot of things that are preserved, but also a lot of very cheap and bad construction there. And this is one of the things that interest me and also historian,of course, because I look at things from a historical perspective most of the times that I wonder a lot about the speed of development and how can you manipulate it, or how can you make it more productive, perhaps.

Because you also see that in early modernity and in Europe there's been an idea that buildings last for 40 years. And then after that, buildings were supposed to be gone or disappear. But now you see, obviously past the sixty～seventy years, you still see these buildings which remain. Actually, it's very difficult to replace them now, because they were sold to people who spent a lot of money. So you cannot just go out and demolish it.

So then you're still far more longer than forty years stuck with buildings. So I think this might also be the case for China, where you know, there's a lot of people thinking that, Okay, we're gonna do it fast and 40 years later, we're going to make a new one.I think it might become difficult speci fi cally when you look at urban design. Because urban design, is very difficult to change even after sixty years, after a hundred years. You will be stuck with choices done hundred years before. And that's a very diffi-cult, very challenging proposition.

I think it would be more bene fi cial to think really long term. It's really try to make buildings that can somehow change, but you don't have to tear them down anymore. But you build a very good standard quality and only have to make few changes over the hundred years that the building is there. And it used to be normal for architecture until eighty years ago. Before that, all architecture was all at least in the west was built with the idea that it would stay,it would last.

I think that's a tradition we have to somehow reconnect two or three think of how we work with cities on that time scale.

Q8 Do you like Beijing?

Yes, I like it very much.I have seen quite some parts of the town. I like the inner city area. But some of the preservation works are always inspiring. They don't have their originality, some of them anymore. It's a bit fake, which also happens everywhere including Amsterdam.

But like Wang Jing area, I like it because it's very normal and just relaxing. People are having a good life. Also the quality of the weather are much better, I think. Now even in Europe they are reporting that Beijing is breathable again. As soon as I came back to Europe,I said to people, It's not that bad any more, and you should go there. And now fi nally, in Europe, they're saying, Beijing is a bit cleaner now. So also more people from the west will come again.

I always feel a bit sad that there are so few people from the west coming here to China. I think there's so much to see, so much things you don't know,you've never seen. You never thought about such a different atmosphere, which would really help a lot of Europeans in terms of getting a new perspective in the world. So I always try to encourage people to come. Come, enjoy and have fun!

Q9 And have you been to other cities in China? like Shanghai, Hong Kong or somewhere else.

Yes, but now also more in the countryside. Last time we went to Taiyuan. We went to Dazhai (大寨) village, which was amazing. It's strange and it has very strange way. We went to Yubulu (雨補(bǔ)魯）, Wencun, Shouguang, Wuzhen, amongst many other places. And still there are so much to see.

Q10 Is that a village, town or a city, you think? How do you classify that?

The capital, our largest city is seven hundred thousand inhabitants. So for me, I think it is a city.I come from a village which has forty thousand inhabitants. It has such a great diversity in places. It's amazing. You are blessed with very rich country. I mean, I don't say it for fl attery, just say because I've had such different experiences in one country.

Q11 So the inner city of Beijing reminds you of Amsterdam or somewhere?

Yeah, but like inner cities, a lot of places become“factories for tourists”. And I don't say it's bad, because there are truly great things to see of course.If you live in Amsterdam, you hardly go to the inner city anymore because of it. I like the Chinese national museum, the imperial relics. We went to very good duck restaurants with Karl Otto Ellefsen who is the professor from Norway, who I am also working with for Chinese projects. We had some good time.

Q12 So do you know which city is Rem’s favorite of china? What's his opinion of that city?

Well, it's difficult to say what his opinion is. However, I know he does like the city of Beijing a lot.For some time he also traveled a lot to Hong Kong.He also likes there. I think for Beijing just because of the political center and also the all of the size of the innovation has been a favorite, and also that is a very different city in terms of configuration and types of urbanism. I think it's rather unique.Because some parts of it are a bit more stretched out, bit more Los Angeles type of city with not only one center, but with many centers. You have very relatively, also low rise areas for some parts,-combined with highrise. So you have very big mix of types of urban development and this was also very important when OMA was designing CCTV to add something to this landscape we did not wish to build the CCTV tower looking like any other of these towers, but to add something really new to this landscape. And that's why I think it is a very authentic response to the existing urban condition of Beijing. I think it's a fantastic building. I like it very much.

Q13 Do OMA want to do something like this in other cities?

Well, I think it was a very unique opportunity on a very unique moment. Also looking at it from a historical perspective,it's a building that will never be repeated. This is a once in a century building,because there was the political ambition to support it. There was the economic condition supporting it. There was the design support in it. I think the moment that three of these things come together,It's like the stars that come together at one point. I won't see it happen very soon again, as such a level of ambition is made into reality.

It tries to make an urbanism that it's not only sort of on a horizontal level, but it tries to create more three dimensional form of the organism. At least for me. I'm not an urban designer, so I can't fully comment on it, but that's always how I see it as trying to do something new on this horizontal and vertical system that urban design is this and then architecture is this. And this one tries to be.

From the program also it made sense. There was a very huge request from the client or a lot of space, and CCTV is a very complex organization.So I think this loop actually really helped both the thinking of the broadcasting and the functioning of the company. It's not just only as a beautiful thing. It’s also pragmatic. There's operational idea behind it.

Q14 Actually you mentioned some avenue is stable and should go back to the start point in the history. My question is about what is your object of the generic village. Does generic village have any relation to the generic city? And are you going to look for some stable element in the village or in the cities?

It's a very good question. I think the generic village project is a bit cut between where we were not sure if we would call it standard village or generic.

And it's still a bit in between those two words. We were originally at least tempted by feedback from the school. We just did this project about six villages which are special and with unique features.And then there was, I think, one correct comment from the parts of the school which they said. But these are special, what about the other three million villagers? What can you say about those? That was a very good question. Because how can you say something about such a diverse landscape in such a diverse elements. So that we took that seriously,and we tried to find out what is the standard village.

So we did more research, which we have been doing to understand what is the basic condition in the countryside and for using statistics and using other research. And what we, I think, aim to do and with this project in the end, this to come to a level that we can try to help all of these villages basically with some basic functioning and and sort of some new thing, spatial thinking, some ways to optimize their existing conditions. Although there are sometimes, you know very humble conditions, but still that you can try to communicate with this type of areas as a designer, because economically for most of the times, it would make sense to get all of us,all of people from the cities, people from abroad to a one small village somewhere. It doesn't make sense from economics. So what do you do? How can you still help these people?

And this is a bit why this project and you still see a big need. I think in order to make the countryside even better and make it more lively that people want to stay and have a good life there. You need to somehow show them things and ways of how to do that. So this is a struggle. I think, that this project is. And I'm not saying that we will be able to achieve everything and we will be able to help everybody. But at least we have the ambition to see how can we operate in this landscape, which is so difficult.

With urban development,there is always lots of money involved and which makes sometimes it's easier to propose things. But with the countryside,it's a bit of a different proposition. So you have to also think differently. So this is what we are developing a bit. And it's really just testing and experimenting. So we hope that maybe we will get to the point that we will be able to declare a generic village, but not just yet. And also, I think in a different way than the original text of Rem was trying to communicate more as is a sign of hope and a sign of and a new condition where life in the countryside is again, grades and appreciated and not considered as a step back or step that it's actually a fantastic place to to be.

Q15 Do you find any similarity between the Chinese countryside and the European side or even the countryside in the united states?

I think Europe is in between the US and China in that respect. So we know a bit of both worlds.We know how empty sometimes the the American countryside already is. It's already nobody living there, very few villages, and all machines and robots partially. And the other side, China with around maybe depending on where you ask around three million villagers very tight spatial configurations. So really a lot of villages are existing and also continuing to exist, just like small settlements, small communities. And I think Europe is a bit in between where we have both. We have a lot of robots and we have empty parts of the country side. But we have very successful, flourishing villages. We also have movements where people from the cities are actively moving back to the countryside, which you also see in China sometimes.

So we have a bit of both, and I understand both. And also I sometimes stay in America. The vastness of the landscapes is also impressive. So somewhere in between that I can appreciate, it'll be both. And for the Chinese villagers, there's, I think, quite a good future for some of them. I think we should manage to get them more spatial interesting, and also we should manage to somehow give them the confidence that they need to be there, to be part of the twenty first century and the arrogance that the city normally always has. They also need to be more strong, I think.It's the countryside when it can also be more say, oh,you guys in the city, you just go.

Q16 Actually you illustrated the future of the urban design in the 80% of a digitalization. And you also mentioned a robot,a village of robot. So I just wonder, in the future will the city disappear and only exist the full of villages or small settlements,merely connected by the digital facilities or robots?

I think, like many things are always a bit of both,life will increasingly be split between city life and countryside life. And people will be constantly moving. That is you have half of your time living in the countryside, and half of your time living in cities. I think this will seem to be the most plausible future for me. When the internet started, there has already the idea that now the spatial organization will change dramatically. And since you don't have to be in an office anymore, you will not go to an office anymore.

But I obviously didn't really work out like that.You see, obviously, things have changed, but not as dramatic, that there would be no office anymore.So you see, but still people are more and more working in cafes and bars. You get a bit of foggy.

So I think that life in general will be with more digital. It becomes that you look for different places where you feel at home, where you feel comfortable and where either you're close to family,maybe. It will become more of importance. And then really urban or rural. It's more where are the others? And Okay, I go there. So it becomes a bit more independent.

Q17 Do you think density is still important for cities?

I think density is much more difficult to calculate by now. It's always been an idea that you can calculate it, but it's very hard. When you look in detail,for example, if you want to catch these new patterns of, you know of living here and living there,then you obviously come very quickly into statistical difficulties like, somebody's registered in the city, but spends half of the time in the countryside.So how do you register that? Yeah, and this is very difficult. So you have new experimental techniques where there are more tracking people with internet devices on the calculators to get an idea of density.I think the notion is very difficult. It's becoming increasingly difficult to say what it is. Because everybody is just like butter fl ies and they're everywhere,or more and more people at least. So this idea of density is at the same time you see that you know,urban development and house pricing and cities are extravagance at least in Europe, but also here in Beijing. You see how much people are willing to pay for a relatively small amount of space in the city that is not the most comfortable city in China sometimes.You would also see the same situation in the Netherlands. The people in Amsterdam pay really lot of money, whereas like thirty minutes away you can get like double amount of space and save money.And you think there must be still something is, you know, pulling people to these cities. It remains.You get like a Ying Yang (陰 陽 ) effect that you then want to have release there, and want to go here.

Q18 There is a theory that to make people go to the city and then we can release the land in the countryside to give it back to the nature, do you agree?

That happens already a lot. All you have to check is food. Food production still consumes a lot of land, of course, and that's something we cannot really live without.

But apart from that, there's also in which Holland very experimental techniques with which they are growing food containers, which could also create a totally new thing for what nature is in life. If you can grow vegetables in a container somewhere in the city, you don't need the outskirts of the city anymore for this type of production. Then you could maybe need closer proximity to nature again.So there might be some things are changing there too.

Q19 Like urban agriculture?

No. It's far more advanced than that. I think urban agriculture so far has been always a bit the only doing like little things, like little piece of salad,and like some herbs. Exactly it's not really what you use to feed yourself. But there are experiments by big growers of tomatoes, for example. They try them on an ambitious scale. It's not just like little things, but the real food that you have all of the wheat, which will be very difficult like some of these products will be very difficult to grow in these conditions. But for vegetables, for example,you really don't need any ground. It's a waste of money to use only fl at surfaces. I think that's what they are now experimenting with. So there's also a very strong economic drive in it, which is also given the shape to cities as they are. You know why they organized the way they are is purely economics. But you see with your technology, you see is there some things are changing because they are making these things super optimal, like they are not wasting any energy, like every drop of electricity goes directly into the production of tomato.

Q20 Maybe the second or third generation of the farmers who have worked in the cities have realized some difficulties in the cities. So they would like to go back to the countryside. But as you said, the other life is also the dream. So I don't think we will go to the countryside directly.Maybe they will stay a double life between urban and countryside because they are weak in terms of economic aspect. So I think they may be forced to stay in the cities and the villagers who stayed there before will continue to move to the cities,or maybe a small town. But on the other side, the rich people in the cities will go outside the company. They will brought a new lifestyle in the countryside. So they may replace the original local culture.What do you think about the future of the Chinese countryside?

That’s very interesting. It's a bit historically how in Europe these things also went. If you look back to sixteenth, the seventeenth the century, urban and rural life that need cities were very like Amsterdam. But the city was very difficult to live in because of the weather and very basic sanitation.There were obviously no modern facilities. So there's stories that you could smell the city of Amsterdam from fi ve kilometers away. So it 's somehow very difficult to live in the city. So that's why all the rich people had big country estates around the city with huge land. And you see that need, the countryside as a place for rich people is not a very important theme and it's a lot of big driver of development. And they also with them, even when in roman life. It's the same pattern.

Q21 Do you think that automatic driving,if in the future, will change a lot for the relation of the countryside and urban?

I think probably also the political will of a country will be determining. I think the political system will, in the end, be an important factor in how you work with your countryside. Because it's actually, it's a space where the market economy is not strong. You know, urban life is quite easy to capitalize in different ways. I think there's always a lot of money involved. It makes that the market economies goes very fast there. But I think the spatial conditions in the countryside are different and it's more difficult for the market to adapt and also to take risk in these areas where there is a small market only.

And the moment that you have a state that intervenes and that the political system that can say,now we need to consider the countryside. That is a big difference in terms of power and also how you develop it. And, what are the opportunities, how do you keep the good life available for everybody.So I think in that sense, I'm very curious to see also how the Chinese government can,will and is modeling this countryside. In Europe, much of this is left to the markets. And also in America. You see basically that the countryside is a very poor condition because there's no government who wants anything or has an idea of what should happen in this countryside.

I mean, for Trump, most of his supporters are in the countryside who have not received anything from him yet. Still, the roads are still bad. There's still no train connections. They're still stuck in poverty in many areas. They have not received, I think, any bene fi ts so far from his government because he has no idea, because I think that he doesn't have the political will behind him to make something out of the countryside. And here at least and you can obviously see, there's a the Chinese government,at least see a huge drive to invest to do something.Maybe like sometimes difficult to pinpoint the idea, but there is an idea. And this is, I think, a big difference, which does make China unique for me.Even if it might also lead sometimes to failures or mistakes.

Q22 I used to read an article that is the definition of the generic city. So how about the generic village? Does OMA will get another definition to the generic village or not?

Yeah, but we might be going to a standard village.I think generic city was an important text which was the result of Rem doing research in Singapore,which he tried to describe the all the average mix that he encountered somehow all these, and he wanted to express that somehow. I think the work,the way we are interpreting the word generic is different in the sense that we take the generic as a starting point for developing something that can create fantasy or that can create alternatives, visions, different outcomes, but sort of to start out at least with the standard. So what is the average condition in a place? And then to see, okay, how can you know from that generic condition, establish plausible ways of very speci fi c directions. A bit like that, I mean, the parent village is a very tiny, tiny,tiny example of course, but there are also a bit of how can you now even for a very average village,gave them advice to make it more adventurous,more challenging, more specially interesting. And how do you do that process? This is what I think hopefully we will end up with.

Q23 You know, in China now we often want to combine the villages together because the schools in villages are small.And It’s a general option to put the education in the town. Then the villages around the town can share the education resources there. But for the villagers, the parents think that is very far away. They can not send their children to the town.However, they don't want to let their children miss their educational opportunities.So it is two sides. What do you think about it?

It's quite different in China because the population here is quite large. It's a very important topic somehow, because we saw it when we visited professor Lv’s project in Banwan (板萬 ) village. He was invited to build a professional school in this village.And he made a fantastic project in the countryside in Guizhou for a new school which looks good.But then local government decided to half close the school and move children to the school in the town.There was just a great new building that they built.I think of trying to keep the part of the school's still in the village and only have part of the students go to the town. There's still, I think, but it shows you a bit, of course, also the lack of power sometimes an architect has when politics takes control. And I understand also why this project is actually important for the village, because it was really coherent social connection. And I understand also from the school's perspective, probably might not be easy to get teachers and very high quality teachers to go and live in a very small village. I think that's probably a big challenge and I understand that as well.It's easier to get teachers to move to the larger village or large town. But still it would be somehow that I still want to preserve this small local schools.You have to face diversity and also the ways of teaching. And then you still have to have different spatial conditions.

I don't know too much about the education system in China. It seems that either you go to university,a large school, high school or whatever, then you are more set in. When you just join a company, you get your training from a company perspective or from a construction team. For example, for building, if you want to become a plumber, or if you want to build toilets, you just learn it on the job.This is not the case in Europe. In Europe, there's a kind of school in between. So fi rst you learn to become a good plumber, and then you go and work as a plumber. And this is where, I think, something that would be interesting to add. Maybe because you just see that the level of quality of that type of craftsmanship, It's a bit higher in Europe than here.Lots of time when you see even newly finished buildings, you may become disappointed at observation of the details.

It’s craft and you have to learn how to do it. It's not simply just copying the other guy, but you also think it's a very important step of building making something good is very important somehow.

Q24 If you came to Beijing ten years before, the quality of that was worse than now. And you know the government of Beijing wants to improve the toilet. You see now almost every subway station has toilets. It has been changed.

Yeah, we can go further. Because I still notice that even like very recently finished buildings, they sometimes like there's not so much attention for making them perfect somehow. But I like this idea of perfection, and I would like to contribute this in my work here.

Q25 Most of the villages in China still serve the cities. In recent years, especially driven by the policy of "urban-rural integration development", most of the rural areas around developed cities have increased their economic income due to the demand of urban residents for tourism,commerce and trade. As far as I know,in Europe, the relationship between rural and urban development may not be so close, that is to say, the countryside does not rely particularly on the city to drive itself. What do you think of this situation?What are the advantages and disadvantages of these two models?

Now Europe is a bit similar if you look around the city of Amsterdam. You already have this process of the rich of moving through the small villages quite established this stuff, cute little areas that still need somehow pristine are doing very well.

But then it's more like when you go outside of the city limits, when it's two hours' way driving to the large city, then things become really desperate.They are in a very difficult position. So some proximity to cities gives this type of encouraging rural and urban exchange. And then I think infrastructure is a big part of that productivity. As long as there is sort of enabled, I think that's why the huge efforts of China are made with the highways, and rail connections in the airplanes, which makes a lot of sense. Because it really improves the accessibility to infrastructure for the countryside, which takes a very important factor in this equation.

Q26 So in the village you want students to study for the program. Is that the same thing like the infrastructure you said before?

If there's other program that you can develop,which is more interesting, for example, the schools.I think it's a very interesting thing to see if you equip with new technology. If you could fi nd a way to make the schools keep as a part of the program at the village and how to make it in a way that it works economically and specially, it is a good way to think for people as a key project.

Q27 Mr. Koolhaas once talked about"Preservation" in an interview, mentioning that 12% of the earth's surface exists under some kind of protection system, that is, these parts will remain unchanged. Do you think that 12% of the surface and the countryside intersect? What do you think of the relationship between the protection of ancient buildings and rural development?

That is an important project I worked with Rem.My background is History and the Theory of Building Preservation. So I worked with him on this topic quite a lot. So the twelve percent calculation was partially also mine. Obviously, twelve percent includes already lot of countryside and certainly not urban areas more to say.

Because it's nature preservation. Also, China has been expanding the amount of nature preservation a lot in the last years. And obviously, that contradicts or at least has to find a way to collaborate with on preserving the forms of development. Also in Europe, you have quite some landscapes which have both. They have the drive for modern food production and the drive to keep things as they were in the past. There are sort of difficulties, how do these two worlds meet, which is also a very big topic in the countryside.

How do you modernize without changing in a way.And this is obviously that it applies this landscape to buildings. How do you make sure that all buildings are sustainable? And you know the energy production is not too high. And then you know the key functioning. So this is a big big challenge,I think. It's underestimated how large part of the world is that we don't want to change anymore.Well, we still have obviously, a lot of new demands that come across that we have to produce food from people.

And in order to do so, you have to change things.But then we have the another system that is saying no no, everything should say and sometimes for good reasons, I mean. I'm also a building preservation guy. So also part of my education was really no changes. That's how I was trained, so to say not. But at the same time you see that sometimes it becomes impossible. But also because the reservation is always a one way road. And then you also get more, always have more and more. It's not that you say, okay, now this building is not part of preservation anymore that sort of show you can only become more instead of that.

So it's a huge challenge, but it's also very good for preservation because it means there's a lot of work.There are lots of interesting buildings that's the other thing you learn when studying this is obviously that you have to be in the lookout always, also when buildings are being demolished, if they are not valuable, maybe they are not recognized now as valuable. A hundred years from now, people say,Ah! why did they demolish that? So you always have to be on the lookout. Okay, which one of the buildings is good for preservation and also same as for the countryside? Which parts of the country side should we keep because it'll sit hundred years?Maybe my grandchildren will say, oh, stupid grandpa! He preserved the wrong things. Yeah, so it's a huge challenge. But it’s very interesting to think about.

Q28 Taobao Village is a hot topic recently discussed by Chinese. What do you think about this phenomenon? How did you feel after going to Taobao Village Conference?

I Think it's very interesting. I wrote this article about it, about Dongfeng (東風(fēng)村), which was very inspiring, also got a lot of response in Europe and people are really curious about it and they don't know this thing of Taobao village. It's really completely new for other people. I see a lot of opportunities, but I also see a lot of challenges. Still.I see opportunities in a way that a new freedom to produce things wherever you want so that you in a perfect world, you can do without a city, that you don't need the city anymore as a hub to sort of that you have, you work in the countryside, you make a product, you ship it to the city where somebody sells it and to somebody else. So you have a different value chain. I think that's a really exciting prospect. But then if you saw in Dongfeng,there’s also new problems that emerge with it. That's also the social relationships in the village that you see that the people are successful.

Other people start copying it and try to make it slightly cheaper, and then the other guys to make it any cheaper so that in the end. You know, everybody starts losing because everybody is trying to compete too much with each other. And that also leads to poorer quality. And that's a very negative aspect, which you somehow have to try to change because or else it will become a system that also founded by Alibaba will not work because the quality will go down. So I see it as a there's a really interesting fundamental aspect. But then how can we make it more positive and that it's upward spiral, that encourages the villagers to become better rather than just, you know, killing each other.

Q29 So although Taobao villages named village, do you think it is run like a town,city or a village? What do you think?

This is always a bit difficult. In principle, I think that even like every form of development is basically urban. I think every village in the end also steps mini-urban development. So I think this contrast of that you have urban development, you have normal urban development is in a way a bit problematic for me, so you just consider this micro city or you can see cities like mega villages. I mean sometimes in the city that I grew up and worked in at one point. They are mega villages where these kind of people function a bit like the village where I grew up in. So I guess the system was fundamentally different.

There's larger scale; there's higher density and more stuff. But I think Taobao has an interesting future. They're also very interesting companies.Alibaba Group, and we want to collaborate to see how we can do on urban design and this type of bottom-up development can connect to each other,as I think they also need spatial development. It's very clear to me that at one point we will discover our discovering that just running the platform in the virtual world, sort of virtual urban design in the end, comes back to a real physical world. And then there is a task in it for them also to be able to maintain their own platform and to keep it inspiring and interesting for everybody. I think they will recognize that they need to become more active, just like you see in the west, for example, Google and Facebook, etc. You see them more and more realizing that they're not simply a platform. So far they always got away with saying, okay, we don't have opinions, we don't have any ideas, we just how's the platform. And now it's becoming is increasingly clear that they are used for political reasons that they are a vital player in how democracy functions and they have to sell then start making rules for that. So they cannot be any more saying we know nothing. It's the users who are doing it. They have to recognize this responsibility. I think that might be the same for Ali.

Q30 Do you think block chain will change? like something technology?You know that Alibaba group they pay a contribute a lot to the smart city. The situation is like the smart city in China, like Xiongan or some somewhere. So how what do you think of the smart city in the future?

This whole theory of block chain was always very inspiring, but it's doesn't matter. Smart city is good.It's a bit problematic for me. They've been promising smart cities for twenty or thirty years now.It's a disappointment somehow. Even the projects that, for example, google doing in Toronto. But they are doing their own urban development. It's not that good. It doesn't really have too much in the end. Maybe I'm very old or conservative, but I think most of these things. They are not adding that much value to life. They make it maybe slightly more comfortable. You can operate your apartment with your smart phone. And that's sort of the refrigerator knows when you're coming home. But for me, it's not very inspiring somehow. That's my big problem with it. It's not mean that I'm against it,but I just don't see the reason why I want this.

And for a lot of other things, I do want. To like a lot of this part from I like, but just for smart cities,it's never really been like it's always been very much like, I think, desperate IT companies looking for new business models and you recognize it and that makes me already like uninterested. So if this is the only way that you want me to give you more money, this is not going to work. You have to come up with something that I want, really want. And I will give you my money but not with that thing.

Q31 Is the opinion of Rem towards things almost same or different?

It’s different. But he's also very skeptical about it. I think how he thinks is how smart city thinks about life. That is about what people wants, desires,drives, dreams. Everything is just geared to optimization and just making things slightly better, and not about revolution, about spectacular things. It's only about having more comfort and more seamless stuff. So it probably is good for your life, but at the same time it is also very dull, boring, making life more predictable. Well, you see something like this, you know that google has also these things where they make art, that the algorithms to make art. And they always dull. These are pieces that never become something surprising. I think every business is like this, and they still keep doing it for some reason. Come on! Stop wasting glorious or stop wasting computer time and just have fun and spend the money on something else. Because this is not worth your money. I agree this to give more money to the arts and make the arts more funny.They're investing in the stupid technology. There's been an idea that if we only focus on technology, we will not know what the life will be in the 21th century. I think that's running through an end almost its been always very comfortable. Do not think politics or future, or dreaming. And just to say we can fi x it with the technology, which a lot of things you can do with technology.

But at the same time, at the same point, it runs out.And then we have to think again, you know, what do we really want exactly?

Q32 Maybe we can talk about the exhibition rural the future of the world. What would you like to say about the workshop for the exhibition?

Well, for the current idea, we are for the Chinese section, we are starting to get an idea of what we want to show. Basically I want to try to establish an overview of China's countryside ambitions, and also it's working. So how does it think and do at the same time. So we want to give an international audience looking into how the government tries to give a shape to the countryside in various levels.And because we think that for an international audiences is new. Normally a lot of governments don't have ideas about the countryside. And I think China does have ideas about the countryside. And we want to give a reading of that. So we want to share what it means if that is trying to deal with a lot of relevant topics. I think for the 21 century.And the way we are currently thinking about this in establishing like a temporary government office,almost which shows you the width and the broad mass of the interests, and what is happening in this country.

After that, we want to use all the research material we have developed. Add more ideas, more stuff,and also historical materials like all the posters. We want to see how we can share that with people to express their there.

Q33 And I saw our space is about 3-4 rooms in the exhibition.

Yes, and in October, we want to make 1:1 model in CAFA for an exhibition space in the architecture department to make a 1:1 model of the Guggenheim part in the building. So we can use it as a testing space and also to share some preliminary vision of what we hope to do. For the exhibition in Guggenheim, February 22, 2020 is the opening date. It's like a wedding day!

Q34 Would you talk about something about the exhibition, Rural-the future of our world?

Yes. It's a very imposing title that they chose.In the exhibition, I'm only doing the part of China. I did also work on the developing the larger narrative.Now I'm focusing only on this. And I think it will show in its ambition a very diverse landscape of the world, really also very fundamental questions that concerned the countryside, but also urban life.For example, one part will be about Russia and about the huge gamma frost that is melting and the release of methane gas, which will be for the climate, warming, and hugely impact food. So we are looking at a topic like that. But for example,another participant, Nicholas Maak, is looking at wildlife and nature in Africa of how the growing population of Africa has to share the land with wild animals and how do you do that. Because you know, we want to keep both somehow. How do you live together with a big monkey? How do you manage this life and also in terms of planning?How do you do it?

So the exhibition will broadly be focused on interesting starts in February next year. And it's still a lot of work. Just because it for Rem also for us is a very new terrain to think about. And for me as far as a researcher, also in terms of resources and in terms of references, archives and objects, it's very new to think about and very difficult if you ask me about it. It's been at least for me, a very new experience. And I think it's a very necessary experience to really think about the normal urban areas, also as a space for adventure, a space for growth, space for optimism and where something you can be located. Because I think the last years, you know for a lot of architecture and urban architecture, for me at least, it's a bit boring. We know what the big studios are. We know what they do, and they do good work. But at the same time, It's a bit good one. Nothing really gives you like, Oh! that's what I do see in the countryside, but people don't see it as architecture like these enormous greenhouse landscapes. Okay, for example, in Shaoguang (韶光). This is dramatic. This is new landscape, but nobody's ever written about them, or nobody really sees that as part of huge development. There is a lot of discovery there, at least for me.

Rem and I have been looking at it together since 2010, came from his own observations in Switzerland, where he and his wife has a little house there.I've had it for a long time. So they went every year.They went to Switzerland to distill village in the end of it. Obviously this whole talking about the countryside and how it's shrinking and everybody populating has been going on in Europe since the Eighties, Nineties. And contrary to that he saw the village he always went to be growing. There were more and more houses growing. So I was thinking how it is possible that on one hand we have this debate that everything is shrinking, but on the other hand there are more and more houses. And so,I think, what triggered with him for the fi rst time was there's something weird going on here. And he started looking into it, and it's indeed a bit more about the state of the rich and the country side, so that's village life transformed from simple farming into more elite type of results that you know more and more of the houses are owned by people from the city. And you know they have people taking care of the dog and the cats. And this is sort of the new shape in village. So he became very interested in that. And then I think in terms of and also as a response to how the city has been transforming into something that is only about pleasure, only about comfort, only about good things of life. And that's we have excluded all the bad things in life from the city that are all external.

I think this is the other one which is most interesting. But in terms of his interest, now he's working a lot on these projects. He fi nished a number of big architecture projects last year and he's also doing some architecture projects this year. But I think the majority of his time is in this project. It is pretty exciting. I also still have reservations, as you can see. There's a lot of affairs still needs to work on.

Q35 How many countries and regions include in the exhibition?

Maybe eight or nine, but sometimes also with scattered we have in Europe. We look also bit of migration and the fl ow of African migrants to Europe and they cross throughout the continent. So a lot of them arrive in Italy and they travel more to Germany, and that's a part. But there's another one part looking at the south America and then the Chile, and how rich Americans are buying up parts of Chile.

There's also one part about oceans. That's even bigger. I think in principle, I haven't seen too much about it. So it's only partially my own speculation,but I think that you could also do in urbanism for the sea. You could describe this landscape as well,and also start planning it, also in terms of energy,in terms of food, in terms of information data centers.

I think it's becoming closer and closer that we can develop cities which are not inhabited by humans,but production facilities more that are sea based.

If you have already enormous fi sh farms who have already kind of data centers which are in the sea,you have already some ingredients for every design in the in the sea. I think it sounds like a fun thing through how do you plan with the sea. Do you build roads? That's the other thing in terms of urbanism has an interest is in this production landscapes, what are the rules for urbanism.

There's a big interest in the area in Nevada, in the desert, uh, where a lot of Silicon Valley companies have huge data centers. And it's just across the border in California and it's there because in California you pay a lot of taxes. So all the infrastructure of Silicon Valley is pushed into Nevada. So you have this village or this settlement, which is only enormous warehouses and boxes and almost no people, because the boxes and robot eyes. Then the question is, what is the urbanism that is connected to that?

How do you design it? And do you need a pavement? Do you need a road signal, or can you forget about that there is like everything that is nobody? Normally the city is organized around the human. But what happens if you take the human out and start planning without human? So these are very fundamental questions that we don't have the answers of course, but at least we are about to start thinking about it. It's very challenging and interesting. Yeah, It's very cool because the whole profession has always been about humans. What happens if you take it out? And it's not because we don't like humans, we love them. But it's just that there might be really new areas to look into. What is a robot made of? What does he want? Maybe it is designed only for the pear trees.

We are collaborating with several universities. And one of them is a big university in Holland which is Wageningen University. There is huge agriculture.And they are doing all kinds of research, really different ones. But we had an interesting conversation with people who are making magnets, you know, a little before a fl y is fl ying. They are larvae. So they make this larva and if they want to make it on a huge industrial scale, and feed it to pigs, basically because it's more sustainable than to make soybeans. It takes less energy and it's more efficient.But now there are increasingly animal rights groups who are defending the rights of larvae because basically wish there should be new rules for how you can keep lively because they might also have a consciousness. And it also might like how we treat pigs. We have to treat animals in a respectful way.So you also have to treat larvae in a respectful way.So this is a whole new thing that it's not a pear tree,but also the larvae has to have in reality and has to be respected to get everyone of the mass to get a name.

Q36 What kind of collaboration OMA would like to do with some Chinese institutes or companies?

I think what more important for us in terms of communicating to other people in the planners and all these people is more that we are really looking for new collaboration forms which are not the typical that you know this is an urban area. I mean some architecture design company do a very good job in terms of common. They make or propose a big master plan and mission which is great. But it's not the collaboration we are looking for. We are more interested in cultural collaboration. It's not that we want to impose how we think on China,but it's more of a protest we want to engage more in an exchange. I think we have a different way of Rem’s ambition and we also welcome the different ways. So I think for us it's more of showing that, for example, we are in the collaboration with CAFA already. We chose different ways that we want to be active, not only by making big projects.You know, surely for us, this has been the important thing also because of the controversy around CCTV, that people think, here comes big for an architect, he designs the last big thing and then he doesn't care. But that's not the way we think that is what that building is and also what we want to say is. Because we also want to learn from outsiders almost how China works and how distinct in it, More than just doing simple or big projects, etc. It's not our mission to become incredibly rich or incredibly glorious. And this makes collaboration that are interesting in both sides. So anything we can do about that is, it will be really well, we would be fi ner. I think these from grams perspective as well.He'd really like to show people that OMA and his work is more about it, and it has really been the layers and different interests.

Q37 As you said before, if we fi nd a common rural area, we can understand the modern infrastructure and services that rural areas need. How do you explore this point in the teaching of Architecture Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts? Do you think the method of classifying layers to extract information is a general and most effective research method?Well, for the education, we already discussed it a bit that you trying to or fi nd it's one more than one design technique that you more focus on understanding what the client was, that you focus on a different form of design. And we're not in terms of making a brilliant sketch, but invest your time and you're thinking or with the project. I think this is what I try to at least give.

Q38 Are there similarities between the Elements and the current research methods in rural areas? What do you think is the most important in the research of students?

Well, the similarities with Rem is what we share.We both think that basically anything in life can be interesting if you just look at it in a new way.Therefore if you have this stupid cup, then you still find a hundred questions I could ask almost this cup, like why is it plus? why is this thing plastic?Why is this cardboard? Where does it come from?Do you know where, how, and why does everybody in the world now have the same cup? Do you know what is the process behind? So it's just very simple example, but I think in general we have the elements shared with the countryside is that everyday objects, mundane objects can be very interesting if you try to look at it from a new way.

This is a technique that Rem experienced in the 1960s～1970s from his time as a writer, where he through some art influences learned how to appreciate these things. And I feel very sympathetic towards it. Because I think indeed a lot of everyday objects have so many different stories to tell. And that element is a classical example of that. The history of the toilet, as we already explored, also the roof or the ramp, or all these things, are all the same. You know, there's so many stories to tell.

And, Rem is one of the most curious person that I have ever met. I think it will remain, that's way he has an incredible hunger for new information.

I'm also very curious person. So I also want to know a lot. But compared to Rem, I'm really quite,quite tiny. When I travel with him, he goes to book shop at the airport and buy all the magazines that you can find. And then at the end of the airplane and just get out and I see this big pile. Wherever the city he goes to, he buys new ones and he buys new ones and he constantly like feeding himself with information. I think, also in his private life,he is extremely curious. He's not always the most easy person. He's also very a lot of power in him, a lot of desire and a lot of drive. But he's also can be extremely friendly and curious and funny and on a lot of ways. Really fascinating human. I can really say that.

Q39 In your architectural learning career,what is the deepest impact on you? Does your work in VOLUM E give you a new understanding of architecture and textual work?

It was my first job in architecture which was to work for Volume E magazine. I did part of my thesis. As to what is the deepest impact, well, I think what drives me most is a bit also for this curiosity,but then also the fact that architecture and urban development is simply unavoidable. You open your eyes in the morning, and the fi rst thing you see is architecture. And the second thing you see is urbanism. If you look out to the streets in the city, it is the street. So that's I think what drives me most.It is effective. It's so unavoidable that it's such a part of your life. Uh, that automatically means that you have to do something with it, for me, at least that you have to want to understand it, change it,feel how it feels, how it functions, what it means to other people.

And in that, I'm trained as a historian, specialized in medieval architecture and renaissance and that mostly into churches. I'm still very enormous big fan of religious buildings, you know, because I think they are the most crazy buildings that humans make. Because you make something that is not of practical use, but it's about spiritual use. I think that has been incredibly fascinating. How much love,time, money, power has been spent on something that is so familial, so spiritual.

I think that is still a big mystery to me how made these great buildings. Last time in Taiwan, we went through. For the fi rst time I was in a Chinese catholic church, which was very impressive. I was very touched. Then also the same goes for the temples in Taiwan as well. They are so beautiful and I am so impressive. I'm a huge fan of spiritual buildings.

Q40 Some architects and urban designers are very interested in the generic city because we seek more explore ways to know people how to use the space. We think it is a basic element of the city and also for small settlements. And in the 1980s, we started the small settlements to fi ght, trying to fi nd social economy impacts behind the phenomena of such kind of the small villages. How do you think about the generic element or general animals behind the city and villages in terms of social economics?

That's a tough question. But I think so far I've noticed is that there're a lot of phenomena which villages and cities are the same everywhere. I have the same types of dynamics which show that the village and urban area are facing the same challenges. And this is somehow becomes desperate.Sometimes for people who want to be unique.You know. And that sometimes leads also to great things. This type of drive to make something that is unique. And that is something out of the ordinary.But at the same time, it may be an ambition that we all share to be unique. That is also at least I'm always for myself also, personally, always doubting whether you should be unique, or if it's okay to not be unique. I think that's a very fundamental question that you also see in this thing. I think partially how I always read generic city was full of irony.

He was making fun of a lot of things in the text and also responding to these types,like a fundamental question about who you are, about your own position. And I like that opposition. It's not something that you can solve. It's not something that you go up. It's this or is that, but you're always in fl ux and in between being unique and being part of yourself,which are generic and just average, you have to accept it. But it's always then also the input to break out of your own average and challenge yourself.

So I take it as a personal challenge to always be avtive and thinking about yourself and engaging and also working on re fl ecting on yourself of who you are. And that's at least the value I see in the opposition between generic and unique that you want to figure out who you are. And what it means to be uh,re fl ecting and looking in a mirror the whole time. And not to do sometimes crazy.

And after generic really things in terms of morphology, I think there's still a lot of things that can be explored. I think there's a lot of dreams in the beginning of the 20th century which we can still see how we can gets something new.

Living in the countryside where there is more space. I see there are more space to experiments than in cities because cities have become economically, so tied, so constricted. I'm not an architect,but I see my colleagues struggling so much to make all the fine balance between the planning committees and the economy and sought to make something and do something. But it is always very tight, very difficult. Every room for experiment is normally gets thrown out. Maybe in the countryside we can fi nd a bit more space for them to really rethink. And I think Rem also has his ambition for the countryside, That's also the morphological opportunities that he sees. In the end, it is one of the parts with his most optimistic about the countryside. There’s a space for something new.