人物访谈

1、 能谈谈你在中国的几个项目设计过程中不同于美国本土的几个方面吗？这种不同的地域文化是如何影响到创作的？

建筑的每一个场地和环境都是独一无二的。当我在中国工作时，我试着用有意义的概念将建筑与场地之间相结合。例如，成都“来福士广场”的灵感来自曾经居于成都的杜甫（713-770）的一首诗。

2、我观察到您的作品中，在简洁的形体下往往会局部做一些复杂的精巧的变化，您是想要通过这种方式强调某些深层的意义吗？

我相信建筑需要与项目和场地锚定。建筑的意义必须深深植根于它诞生的条件，而不必追赶潮流。我的第一本书《锚固》描述了一栋建筑与建筑场所、其文化、及其本源的关系。如果建筑具有更深层次的原始概念，而不追求概念是否宏大，则将赋予建筑以意义。概念的思想和哲学希望，甚至幽默感和故事性比风格更加重要。

3、听说您多年来一直有画水彩画的习惯，它仅仅是一个个人的爱好，还是水彩画会对您的创作思考有特殊的意义？

我的想法大多来自绘画。画画的时候，我可以把主观和客观结合起来；这是一种开放思维和自由感受的方式，而且结果往往令人惊喜。除了只能在5×7英寸的素描本上创作，其他我不做任何限制。为了更接近一种梦幻般的个人感受，我喜欢在早饭前的黎明时分画一些简单的素描和水彩画。有时候我会对一个建筑项目进行构思，这些主观的探索将开辟尝试新的思路，从而可以在工作室里通过草图模型进行尝试。以这种方式开始会让我感觉快乐，并为我带来灵感。

4、您做过很多美术馆的项目，那你是如何考虑到让建筑去满足观展者在观展过程中的艺术与精神上的融合？

建筑的作用是为展出的每件艺术品带来一种具有灵感之光的空间能量。我在设计赫尔辛基奇亚斯玛（Kiasma）当代艺术博物馆时，我的雕塑家朋友理查德·诺纳斯（Richard Nonas）告诉我，“史蒂文，我的雕塑位于地板和墙的交界处，那里必须是一个直角！”今天，我们看到两种类型的艺术博物馆:白色盒子——建筑可以从艺术中吸取生命，或者表现主义形式——其复杂的几何形状掩盖了艺术。我们对第三种方式感兴趣：建筑的空间能量为人带来灵感，而至上的艺术令人着迷。

历史悠久的伟大博物馆——如柏林的阿尔特斯（Altes）博物馆——是建筑艺术对文化做出巨大贡献的例子。当然，展览空间也很重要，但是，整个博物馆的体验更重要，当你在停车场打开车门时，体验便开始了。

5、您似乎偏爱半透明的玻璃，透过半透明的玻璃的朦胧的光线让建筑的存在显得温暖柔和。能谈谈对这种朦胧的光线的更深层次的作用吗？

建筑的感性精神和形而上学力量是由光和影的品质驱动的。光影通过实体和空隙，不透明、透明和半透明塑造。建筑的视觉感受和感官感受到的是根据光影条件形成的。11月，德克萨斯州休斯顿美术博物馆将开设一座新的美术馆，那里的阳光炙热。因此，阴影和漫射光在设计中变得非常重要。在这种环境下，你看到的光线与在斯堪的纳维亚半岛的奇亚斯玛博物馆或挪威哈马罗伊的克努特·哈姆生中心看到的完全不同。我们依靠阳光的力量来创造阴影、反射光和柔和的光，这样我们就可以液化光线，使之成为一种存在，而不是一种压抑的元素。

6、您是如何将抽象的设计概念转变成建筑语言的呢？有没有一种特殊的逻辑存在？

对现象的体验——对空间和时间的感知有别于对物体的感知——为建筑提供了一个“前理论”基础。这样的感知是前逻辑的；它需要暂时放弃先天思维。现象学作为一种思考和观察的方式，成为建筑构思的媒介。虽然现象学让我们重新认识到真实哲学中生活经验的重要性，但它依赖于对预先存在的条件的感知。

建造一个非经验建筑需要一个概念或者一个构型想法。在每个项目中，我们都从无序的信息、混乱的目标、不确定的项目、无限多的材料和形式开始。所有这些，就像模糊的烟雾，在紧张的气氛中旋转。建筑就是在这种不确定性的作用下产生的结果。为了进行感知，我们必须摒除怀疑，解放头脑中理智的那一半，而只是简单地玩耍和探索。理智和怀疑必须让位于探索。愉快地放弃后方可得到创新精神。并且研究先于融合。

7、光是否可以作为限定建筑空间的一种材质呢？

光和空间——桑福德·克温特称之为“无尽呈现的虚空”——是建筑将是否可将意义具体化的核心。就像音乐中的声音和节拍一样，建筑中的空间和光线是一种手段，但它们本身却什么也不是。在给出一个组织化的理念之前，空间什么都不是。然而，人们无需了解驱动设计的理念，就能体验到优秀空间带来的非凡乐趣。

建筑中对光线的体验——重叠的视角——就相当于空间声学。如果你有一首音乐，你有配乐，你有节奏，你有某种复调，你有某种结构，但是只有声音才能赋予其生命。否则只是一种抽象概念。建筑也是如此：你有空间概念，概念策略，但没有一个是真正有生命的，除非你给它注入光。

8、您是怎么让光变成建筑的一部分甚至说建筑的灵魂的呢？

没有光，空间将被遗忘。建筑通过光线营造出的寂静的感觉来进行表达。光度对于空间体验来说是不可或缺的，就像孔隙度对于城市体验来说是不可或缺的一样。我们从一开始就对作品的空间、光线和概念有所构想。通常在绘制概念水彩画时，我们会在第一幅素描中就绘出光线。光是建筑概念中不可或缺的一部分，不同场地和地点都具有独特的光线。从建筑之初就足见光的无限可能性，这种可能性也将延续到未来。新空间的启示，就像交织的语言，在光中溶解和重现。宏伟的空间中，光线变化塑造空间构型。

9、您认为建筑师在设计大型商业建筑与公共建筑的立场是否有所不同？

我们一直努力致力于公共建筑和公共空间的创造。当我们接到大型商业项目时，如北京的“当代万国城”或成都的“来福士广场”，我们重新制定了开发计划，以塑造一个大型公共空间。在成都，开发商打算建造一组裙房，顶部建设一个购物中心和两个塔楼—— 一栋办公楼和一个住宅。我们对此进行了改造，取而代之的是将购物中心下沉到一个有游泳池和喷泉的大型公共广场之下，周围建设住宅和办公项目，使阳光穿梭其间。

1.Could you say something about your design process in China, which is different from that in the US? How does this different regional culture influence the creation?

Each site and circumstance for architecture is unique.When I work on sites in China, I try to make meaningful conceptual connections to a site.For example, in Chengdu, our “Sliced Porosity Block” began with a poem by Du Fu (713-770) who lived in Chengdu.

2.We have observed that in your works, under the concise form, some complex and delicate changes are often made locally.Do you want to emphasize the deep meaning in this way?

I believe that architecture needs to be anchored in its program and site.Its meaning must be deeply rooted in the conditions of its inception, and therefore it’s unfazed by fashion.My first book, Anchoring, describes the relation of a building to a site,to its culture, to its metaphysical origins.If architecture’s original concept can get deeper, rather than broader, it builds a meaning on the site.It fortifies a locus of thoughts and philosophical hopes, or even humor and stories, which are oblivious to whatever style it is.

3.We heard that you have been painting watercolors for many years.Is it just a personal hobby or does watercolor have special significance to your creative thinking?

In general, I generate my thoughts through painting.When I draw and paint, I connect the subjective and the objective; it’s a way of open thinking and freefeeling, and it’s unpredictable.I don’t make any restrictions except using a five-byseven-inch sketch pad.In order to get closer to a dream-like subjectivity, I like to make these little drawings and paintings at dawn before breakfast.Sometimes, if I’m thinking about a building project, these subjective studies open experimental paths to be tested in the studio in rough sketch models.There is a joy in this way of beginning; it’s inspiring and light.

4.You have done a lot of art gallery projects, how do you consider that architecture can satisfy the visitors' artistic and spiritual integration during the exhibition?

The role of architecture is to form a spatial energy with inspirational light in respect of the expression of each artwork.While I was working on the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, my friend the sculptor Richard Nonas told me “Steven,my sculpture exists where the floor meets the wall, and I must have the right angle!”Today, we see two types of art museums: the white box—where the building can suck the life out of the art—or the expressionistic form where the complications of the geometry overshadow the art.We are interested in a third way: where the spatial energy of the architecture is inspiring, while the primacy of art is engaging.

Historic, great museums —such as the Altes Museum in Berlin — are examples of the great cultural contribution of art of architecture.Of course, exhibition space is important, however, the whole museum experience is important, and it begins when you open your car door in the parking lot.

5.It seems that you prefer translucent glass, through which the hazy light makes the existence of the building appear warm and soft.Could you talk about the deeper effects on this dim light?

The perceptual spirit and metaphysical strength of architecture are driven by the qualities of light and shadow, shaped by solids and voids, by opacities,transparencies and translucencies.What the eyes see, and the senses feel in questions of architecture are formed according to conditions of lights and shadow.

In November, we’ll open a new gallery building for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in Texas, where the sunlight is very hot.So, shade and diffuse light have become very important in the design.In this context, you’re looking at light completely differently that ina place like Scandinavia, such as in our Kiasma Museum or the Knut Hamsun Center in Hamarøy, Norway.The sun becomes a force to be employed and used to create shadow, reflected light, and soft glows so that we can liquify the light and it becomes a presence rather than an overbearing element.

6.How do you translate abstract design concepts into architectural language?Is there a special kind of logic?

Experience of phenomena —sensations in space and time as distinguished from the perception of objects — provides a “pre-theoretical” ground for architecture.Such perception is pre-logical; it requires a suspension of a priori thought.Phenomenology as a way of thinking and seeing becomes an agent for architectural conception.While phenomenology restores us to the importance of lived experience in authentic philosophy, it relies on perception of pre-existing conditions.

Making a non-empirical architecture requires a conception or a formative idea.In each project we begin with information and disorder, confusion of purpose, program ambiguity, an infinity of materials and forms.All of these elements, like obfuscating smoke, swirl in a nervous atmosphere.Architecture is a result of acting on this indeterminacy.To open architecture to questions of perception, we must suspend disbelief, disengage the rational half of the mind, and simply play and explore.Reason and skepticism must yield to a horizon of discovery.The creative spirit must be followed with happy abandon.A time of research precedes synthesis.

7.Can light be used as a material to limit the architectural space?

Light and space — what Sanford Kwinter calls, “the void endlessly presented” —are at the heart of architecture’s ability to concretize meanings.Like sound and time in music, space and light in architecture are the means, and yet they are nothing in themselves.Space is nothing until given an organizing idea.Yetthe idea driving a design need not be known to experience the phenomenal joy of a good space.

The experience of architecture—the overlapping perspectives— is the equivalent of spatial acoustics in light.If you have a piece of music, you have the score, you have the rhythm, you have some kind of polyphony, you have some kind of a structure,and then there is sound that executes and brings it all to life.Otherwise, it is just an abstraction.The same applies to architecture: you have the spatial conception, the conceptual strategy, but none of that is really alive until you infuse it with the light.

8.How do you make the light become part of the building or even the soul of the building?

Space is oblivion without light.A building speaks through the silence of perception orchestrated by light.Luminosity is as integral to its spatial experience as porosity is integral to urban experience.We conceive of the space, light, and concept of a work from the very beginning.Often in concept watercolors, the aspects of light are there in the first sketch, integral to the concept of the architecture, unique to the site and place.The infinite possibilities of light have been evident from the beginning of architecture and will continue into the future.The revelations of new spaces, like interwoven languages, dissolve and reappear in light.In magnificent spaces, light changes and appears to describe form.

9.Do you think there is a difference between architects' position in designing large commercial buildings and public buildings?

We have tried to focus on public buildings and the creation of public space.When we have been given large commercial projects, such as “Linked Hybrid” in Beijing or“Sliced Porosity Block” in Chengdu, we have reorganized the developer program to shape a large public space.In Chengdu, the developer was going to build a podium with a mall and two towers on top—one offices and one residential.We reworked this and instead sunk the mall below a large public plaza with pools and fountains,surrounded by the residence and office programs “sliced” for sunlight.

Shanghai Cofco Cultural & Health Center,2016-2018上海中粮文化健康中心（ 2016 - 2020年 ）

Shanghai Cofco Cultural & Health Center,Shanghai, China上海中粮文化健康中心（ 中国，上海）

University College Dublin Future Campus Competition, 2018都柏林大学学院未来校园竞赛（ 2018年 ）

University College Dublin Future Campus Competition, Dublin, Ireland都柏林大学学院未来校园竞赛（爱尔兰都柏林 ）