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

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

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

對于一名雄心勃勃的年輕建筑師來說，生在這個時代可謂正逢其時。對于將在紐約世貿中心遺址建造的一棟摩天辦公樓，世界最大傳媒帝國接班人詹姆斯•默多克(James Murdoch)剛剛否決了英國建筑大師福斯特勛爵(Lord Foster)的設計，轉而采用40歲的丹麥建筑師比亞克•英厄爾斯(Bjarke Ingels)的前衛創意。

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

另一群高要求客戶是高端房地產開發商。如果一幢公寓樓被貼上“明星建筑師”的標簽，就能確保較高的定價。格里和維諾里已經在紐約設計了這樣的樓群;而赫爾佐格-德梅隆建筑公司為巴黎設計的新大廈將包括辦公空間和一家酒店，其玻璃三角形設計呼應了貝聿銘(IM Pei)設計的盧浮宮玻璃金字塔。

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

這可能是不可避免的——上世紀60和70年代實行城區中央規劃、推倒街道建造高樓的嘗試，最終成為一場災難。無論是好是壞，當今是一個注重個性的時代，房客委托建造自己的堡壘。

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

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