Why the Age of the Skyscraper Is Over

为什么摩天大楼的时代已经结束

 

In 1964, the year Japan last hosted the Summer Olympics, 10-year-old Kengo Kuma went to Tokyo with his father to look at some of the new venues that had been built for the Games. Until then, little Kengo, who loved cats, had dreamed of becoming a vet. But the moment he set eyes on Kenzo Tange’s spectacular National Gymnasium, he changed his mind: he would become an architect.

 

1964年，也就是日本上一次举办夏季奥运会的那一年，10岁的隈研吾和父亲一起去东京，游览为奥运会新建的一些场馆。在那之前，爱猫的隈研吾一直梦想成为一名兽医。但是，当他把目光投向丹下健三设计的宏伟壮观的国立体育场时，他改变了主意：他要成为一名建筑师。

 

More than half a century later, Kuma – now 65, and one of the most respected architects of his generation – has designed his own Olympic arena: the 60,000-capacity National Stadium for the 2020 Games that, were it not for Covid-19, would have been starting this month.

 

半个多世纪过去了，隈研吾——65岁的他已经成为他这代人中最受尊敬的建筑师之一——设计出他自己的奥运会场馆：为2020年奥运会设计的能容纳6万人的国家体育场，要不是因为发生了新冠疫情，奥运会本应该在本月开幕。

 

One can only imagine his frustration when, earlier this year, the Olympics were postponed to 2021. Speaking via Zoom, he tells me that, rather than ruing the devastation caused by the disease, he wants to concentrate on how it could spur a change for the better: “We should be thinking about the future of the city,” he says, “the future of humanity.”

 

可以想象今年早些时候，当奥运会被推迟到2021年时他有多么失望。他通过Zoom对我说，他并不懊恼疾病造成的破坏，而是希望集中精力思考疫情如何能催生向好的变化。他说：“我们应该思考这座城市的未来，人类的未来。”

 

In homage to the nearby forest, the exterior of Kuma’s stadium consists of up to five layers of gigantic overhanging eaves – evoking, as he says, a “five-storey pagoda” – built using timber, including cedar and larch, from all 47 prefectures of Japan. The terraces have also been planted with more than 47,000 trees, representing 130 different species, so that, as Kuma puts it, the entire arena is a sort of “living tree”.

 

为了向周边森林表达敬意，隈研吾体育场的外立面是由5层巨大屋檐组成的——正如他所说，让人想起一座“五层宝塔”——建造时使用了产自日本47个县的木材，包括雪松和落叶松。阶梯看台上还种植了4.7万多棵树，代表130个不同的物种，正如隈研吾所说，整个体育场就像一棵“活的树”。

 

“I wanted to create a symbol of the Japanese respect for the environment,” Kuma says. “Traditionally, in the forest, people didn’t make big buildings, but always wanted to create in harmony with their environment.” As statements go, then, Kuma’s stadium is a deliberately muted contrast to the 1964 arena that inspired him. But these days, Kuma says, “People’s needs are the total opposite.” What we want in 2020 is “quietness” and “environmentally friendly” buildings, he explains.

 

隈研吾说：“我想创造一个象征着日本人尊重环境的符号。传统上，在森林里，人们不会大兴土木，而总是希望与环境和谐相处。”因此，从这句话可以看出，隈研吾的体育场刻意与激励他的那座1964年的体育馆形成淡淡的反差。但如今，隈研吾说：“人们的需求完全相反。”他解释说，2020年我们要的是“宁静”和“环保”建筑。

 

Kuma has always had an unfashionable passion for simple, low-lying buildings. In the late 1970s, he went on a two-month field trip across the Sahara, researching villages whose “beauty”, he says, has never left him.

 

隈研吾一向对简单、低调的建筑怀有一种不合时宜的激情。20世纪70年代末，他曾到撒哈拉地区进行过两个月的实地村落考察，他说那里的“美”令他难以忘怀。

 

He established his own practice in Tokyo in 1987, during the economic boom, but when the bubble burst, Kuma spent the so-called “lost decade” of the 1990s working in Japan’s countryside.

 

1987年经济蒸蒸日上的时候，他在东京成立了自己的公司，但当泡沫破裂后，隈研吾在上世纪90年代所谓“失去的十年”里一直在日本农村工作。

 

In the countryside, Kuma refined his architectural philosophy. He started using surprising phrases, such as “defeated” or “weak” to describe his architecture. Architects, he once said, should be “very shy”. He became convinced that the “goal of society” in the 20th century – to construct “outstanding, symbolic buildings, to make skyscrapers” – was fundamentally out of step with people’s needs and desires.

 

在乡下，隈研吾完善了自己的建筑理念。他开始用“失败”或“软弱”等一些令人惊讶的词语来描述他的建筑设计。他曾经说过，建筑师应该“非常腼腆”。他越来越坚信，20世纪的“社会目标”——建造“与众不同、有象征意义的建筑，盖摩天大楼”——从根本上不符合人们的需求和愿望。

 

As a result, Kuma, unlike many famous “starchitects”, has no interest in letting “the ego of the artist” dictate a building’s form. Critics call his work “anti-monumental”.

 

因此，与许多著名的“明星建筑师”不同，隈研吾无意让“艺术家的自我”来主宰一座建筑的样子。批评者称他的作品是“反丰碑的”。

 

Kuma says it took 20 years for the world to come around to his vision, and only now do “people want to understand my aesthetics and method”. Natural materials such as wood are back in favour: “I am designing wooden buildings in many countries, not only Japan,” he says, citing the stacked timber boxes of a new modern art museum in Turkey. “Definitions of happiness and richness are changing. People no longer want to own huge apartments. They want to enjoy small spaces.”

 

隈研吾说，世界过了20年才接纳他的理念，直到现在“人们才懂得我的美学和方法”。木材等天然材料重新被人青睐。他援引土耳其一座犹如堆叠木盒的新现代艺术博物馆说：“我在许多国家设计木制建筑，不仅仅在日本。幸福和富有的定义正在改变。人们不再希望拥有大公寓。他们想享受狭小的空间。”

 

Kuma’s celebration of littleness has been vindicated by the pandemic. “Most people are working from home now,” he says, “so big office buildings aren’t needed any more. We can go in a totally different direction. This is a new attitude, a new phenomenon. The world is changing.”

 

隈研吾对小巧的推崇在这场大流行病中被证明颇有道理。他说：“现在大多数人都在家工作，所以不再需要大型办公楼。我们可以朝着完全不同的方向前进。这是一种新态度，新现象。世界正在改变。”

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