中国特色

（文）Christian Kerez

中国特色

Chineseness

（文）Christian Kerez

无论是客户要求、城市建设还是建筑规范，对我而言，都是可以作为一种了解建筑空间的可能途径。本文中谈到的三个案例都与中国特色相关。这里所说的中国特色并不是指在中国发生的一系列激动人心的变化，而是指中国城市的这些显著变化能为中国文化遗产带来的创新，更重要的是，能使我自己对建筑的理解达到一个新的高度。因此，这里的每个项目都截然不同。

中国的某些标准与其他许多国家相似。例如，建筑需要满足一些相互矛盾的需求，不仅要符合建筑的经济性和功能性等普遍标准和目标，同时还要达到与众不同的非凡效果，成为标志性建筑和新地标。据我所知，一些重要的新建筑被要求与中国传统文化遗产相融合。这种对于中国特色的要求，有利于避免传统建筑及其价值在现代城市中的消失，也可以在一定程度上限制境外建筑师，在中国做设计时对旧式国际风格的重复应用，还能够避免出现一些个人风格强烈、标新立异的建筑，从而确保建筑为人们所普遍接受。因为，其实同一个设计师的建筑作品看起来都差不多，不论这些建筑是在欧洲、美国还是在中国建造。

将新建筑与传统中国价值观相融合的要求，通常被当成一种设计理由，由此将一般概念转化成一种通俗比喻。建筑变成了一种隐喻性的雕塑，而室内空间则借助一定规模的材料实现某种形态。在我看来，去不同国家工作的唯一理由是，可以通过不同的方式进行空间想象。因此，中国特色的要求是要对抽象的建筑理念、原则进行定义，而不是单纯从功能性或前后关系的角度进行解释。

一望无尽的建筑

这座塔楼仿佛是由无限增加的木棍构成。利用一种脆性构件的无限累积，是出于美学上的需要，而不单纯是结构上的需要，因为同期用于加固工程的木质建筑结构外形都极为巨大。就连这些建筑的外部都可以看见堆叠的单一水平屋顶，农舍的规模和水平延伸映衬了塔楼的宏伟。

这座大楼高120米，在郑州属于超高建筑，但其实按中国标准，只能算中型建筑。它遵循相同的逻辑，即在不改变其尺寸或组合方式的前提下增加结构件。因此，这些结构性构件的密度在这座建筑中自上而下不断变化。不再集中于核心区域的结构件分散到大楼整个表面上。整体结构采用分散式立面系统，可以最大程度地减少大楼重量。

装饰空间

紫禁城内帝王家族居住区的空间特性在于一系列无穷无尽的相似空间，这种特性在许多古村落和古城中也可以看到。这一系列住宅和庭院在各个方向汇聚。你可以把这种空间递增现象称为装饰空间，因为它描述了不断重复的同一种空间或类似空间且无明确界限的空间概念。

我在哈佛大学期间，这种空间概念成为一组学生的研究课题。此外，北京中央电视台总部附近一个新中心商业区文化中心内连接各个机构的大型走廊也基于这种空间概念进行设计。该走廊利用地板、天花板和墙壁上的大开口，打开了三维视角，巨大的公共走廊内提供了小规模的私密空间，新城区的空间内创造了一个都市丛林。

公共空间

在人口数百万的现代化城市，有必要通过建筑方式构建一个与城市规模相称的公共空间。中国的美术馆对公众免费开放，这类建筑方案的多样性和开放性与工人俱乐部（社会活动、教育和休闲的主要场所）的传统密不可分，而西方国家的美术馆主要用于收藏和妥善保存艺术品，同时定期或长期展出其中一小部分精选艺术品。西方国家的美术馆旨在让参观者与艺术品进行亲密接触。广州美术馆拥有一个巨大的公共空间，这个公共空间在布局和规模上更接近景观，而不是建筑。这个公共空间在任何天气条件下均可开放。拱形人造空间对任何参观者都极具吸引力，不管他对本地书法有无兴趣。即使没有任何展览项目，这个公共空间本身已经成为这座中国美术馆的新主题。

Any personal request from a client, any urbanistic settlement, any building code interests me only as a possibility to find a specific and basic understanding of space in architecture. The three projects presented in this article, for the first time together, relate to chineseness, not to refer to the breathtaking changes in China but to take these dramatic resettlements in Chinese cities as a possibility to change Chinese heritage into something new and most of all to change my own understanding of architecture into something new. Therefore each project is totally different from one another.

Certain criteria in China are similar to many other countries. For example an ambivalent desire for an architecture that fits common standards and common expectations such as building economy and functionality, but fulfills, at the same time, a desire for the extraordinary and for the exceptional, a desire for an iconic building and a new landmark. Different to other countries and, for my knowledge, unique is a general request to relate any new important building to Chinese heritage. This demand will not protect a traditional architecture and its values from disappearing in large central areas. But this request for chineseness seems to set an obstacle for an everyday modernism of an outdated international style repeated endlessly by corporate architects worldwide. It could also become a chance to avoid an architecture defined by a personal, eccentric style, easy to recognize, since buildings by the same author look very much the same, no matter if they are built in Europe, America or China.

Normally the demand to relate a new building to traditional Chinese values is taken as an alibi, is taken as an act of translation from a generic concept into a popular metaphor. The architecture becomes a figurative sculpture. The interior space becomes the filling material to give the right scale to a rhetoric gesture.

In my understanding the only reason to work in different countries is to imagine spaces in different ways. Therefore, the request for chineseness becomes a possibility to define abstract ideas, principals in architecture, beyond a purely functional or contextual explanation.

The endless structure

The tower of a pagoda reassembles wooden sticks in an infinite addition. To work with an uncountable multiplication of one fragile element comes from an aesthetical desire and is not purely a structural necessity, since wooden constructions of the same periods used for fortifications have a massive appearance. Even the exterior of these buildings show a stacking of singular horizontal roofs to translate the scale and horizontality of farm houses into the monumental appearance of a pagoda tower.

The super tall building of Zhengzhou, is, with its height of 120m, actually for Chinese standards just a middle size commission. It follows the same logic of adding structural elements without changing their dimension or the way of putting them together. As a consequence, the density of structural elements changes from top to the bottom of the building. The structural elements that are not concentrated any more in the core areas are spread all over the entire surface of the building. The overall structure allows a decentralized facade system which could reduce the building weight to a minimum.

The ornamental space

The specific spatial quality of the residential area of the emperor’s family inside the Forbidden City, which you might also find in many ancient villages and cities is defined by an endless sequence of similar spaces. The sequence of houses and courtyards is multiplied in all directions. You could call this phenomenon of spatial multiplication also ornamental space, because it describes a spatial concept of identical or similar spaces repeated again and again, without clearly defined borders.

This spatial concept which was a topic for a group of students, during my stay in Harvard, became the spatial concept defining a huge hall connecting different institutions within a cultural center, in a new Central Business District in Beijing, quite close to the CCTV headquarter. This huge hall opens perspectives, in three dimensions through large openings in the floor, the ceiling and the walls. It offers spaces of small scale and intimacy within a huge public hall. It creates an urbanistic jungle within the voids of a new urban district.

A space for the public

Within the modernistic, contemporary cities for several millions of inhabitants, there is a necessity to create a public space to relate to the scale of the city with architectural means. Art Museums in China are free of admission for the Chinese public. The diversity of program and the openness of this building typology is linked to the tradition of labor clubs, primarily places for social activity, education and distraction, while museums in western countries are mainly to collect and safely store art pieces, while showing a small selection of them from time to time or permanently. The art museums in western countries are built for the intimate encounter of the individual visitor with the singular work of art.

The art museum in Guangzhou covers an enormous public space, which is more related to the landscape than to architecture in its settlement and scale. This public space is open to all weather conditions. A high vaulted artificial sky invites any visitor, no matter if he is interested in local calligraphy or not. The public space itself without any justification by any program becomes the new theme in this Chinese museum.