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《景观设计学》2015年第5期
作 者：约翰•R•罗根（John R. LOGAN），李津逵（Jinkui LI），李迪华（Dihua LI）,黄剑（Jian HUANG）等类 别：景观出 版 社：高等教育出版社有限公司出版时间：2015年10月
俞孔坚•给中国城市治病：我的18年自白
——《景观设计学》2015年第5期“主编寄语”
Reflecting on Eighteen Years Healing Chinese Cities
By Kongjian Yu
我对于中国城镇化和城市建设的反思始于1996年，当时，我为自己的回国前景投石问路，乘火车从香港、深圳经上海北上，到达北京，眼前的景象令我震撼：在深圳，那些带我参观的人们都以城市中超尺度的宽广大道为豪，却无视一位老农吃力地蹬着三轮车、负重横穿马路时的惊慌失措；城市中心大面积的良田撂荒，野草丛生，名曰预留作为深圳市的未来中心区（现今这里果然成为了拥有巨大的花岗岩轴线和中央公园的中心城区）。上海的浦东正在开发，上百座在建的楼房，构成一片吃力生长着的怪异钢筋水泥丛林；列车窗外，沃野里平地拔起一两座高楼，地面上却是一片狼藉—湿地成了建筑垃圾堆填场，村庄只剩下断墙残垣。北京的大街小巷则在进行着轰轰烈烈的街道拓宽运动，包括北京大学东门外的中关村北大街，一排排高大的白杨树被悉数砍去，一片片低矮的四合院被推为瓦砾；河流治理工程也同时兴起，河道硬化和截弯取直工程将河道两侧的茂密树林伐去；所到之处，用于开发小区的地块被高高的围墙圈起，“三通一平”的工程迅速将“生地”变为“熟地”；奇花异卉和来自乡村的古树被肆无忌惮地用以装饰街道、政府大楼前的市政广场和新建住宅小区。全国人民似乎都在欢呼：让中国的城镇化来得更快速而猛烈些吧！
而我当时所见的一切，均是与我所学到的城镇化和城市建设理论和观念相违背的。深受简•雅各布斯的《美国大城市的死与生》、伊恩•麦克哈格的《设计结合自然》等著作的影响，我确信中国正在陷入疾患，犯了西方城镇化和城市建设已经犯过的错误！于是我心生不忍，匆匆于次年一月回国，自命不凡，开始大声疾呼，并投身于阻止和治疗城市病的艰苦工作中。多方求证之后，我意识到，这种病同时因为4类人所携带的病毒而起：第一类，也是最主要的一类病毒被城市建设的决策者所携带，这种病毒由“权力+GDP业绩考核+低俗”结合而成，它可以开动国家机器沿着特定的轨道前行，因而拥有巨大的杀伤力；第二类病毒被开发商所携带，这种病毒由“资本+贪婪+缺德+低俗”构成，所以其携资本的力量，创造并适应堕落时代的广泛需求；第三类病毒被规划设计的专业人士所携带，由“奴性+陈旧知识+权威”结合而成，所以，凭借知识的迷信和“知识就是力量”的符咒，往往能助纣为虐；第四类，则是被广大的民众，也就是城市的受众所携带，由“盲从+低俗”结合而成，为其他几种病毒的泛滥提供社会和文化环境。由于上述四类病毒的侵害，中国城市泛滥着我们今天已经普遍感受到的各种城市病：文化与社会的、经济的、生态与环境的，在此无须枚举。我认为要阻止这一人类有史以来最泛滥、最严重的“流行病”，必须对这4类病毒的携带者同时进行治疗、对症下药！且必须是猛药！
我的第一剂猛药是开给城市决策者和开发者的。我于1998年便开始发表系列文章，发起了对城市化妆运动的猛烈批判，并明确指出，这是封建集权意识、暴发户意识和小农意识的综合症，克服这一系列病毒的良药是“续唱新文化运动之歌”，使决策者重新回到我党建党之初的伟大理想，回到“德先生”和“赛先生”，并在中央和地方级电视台，以及各类市长和部长级研修班上宣讲（该药的核心内容后编撰于和李迪华合著的《城市景观之路》[2003]一书中）。
我所开的第二剂猛药叫作“生存的艺术”和“反规划”，是开给规划设计的专业技术人员的（包括城市规划师、景观设计师和建筑师等）。这剂药是从专业批判和自我批判开始的，我批判了中国传统园林没有能够走出封建士大夫的“园”，没能走向探究土地适应新时代快速城镇化需求之路，而丧失了解决迫切的人地关系领导学科的地位（此观点集中体现在1998~2000年在《中国园林》上发表的系列文章和《生存的艺术》一书中）。我也批判了计划经济时代助纣为虐的城市规划方法论，它滋长了权力机器的膨胀和开发商的贪婪；因而我大喝住手，并下了“反规划”的猛药（2002年首次发表，集中体现在我和我的同事及学生合著的《反规划》[2005]一书中）。强调必须先做不建设规划，尽快划定禁止建设区，特别是生态红线，来阻止病态城市的蔓延，并在具体方法和技术上提出了通过判别和规划生态安全格局和生态基础设施来确定生态基底，并通过生态基础设施—而非灰色基础设施—来建设诸如“海绵城市”等生态而宜居的可持续性城市。
我所开的第三剂猛药叫作“大脚革命”，是针对大众文化的—这里的大众当然也包括上述三类人。我坚信，“大脚革命”是解决中国城市病的社会文化基础，其核心是批判上千年来中国文化中的小脚审美—以牺牲健康和功能来换取畸形的美丽—而倡导寻常、健康的大脚之美，倡导“足下文化与野草之美”。这是一场城市启蒙运动，一场新美学、新文化的运动。它呼唤生态环境意识的觉醒，回到平常、回到土地、回到公民性。这剂药是通过大众媒体传播的，最具代表性的是被收入中学教科书的《足下文化与野草之美》（江苏版）一文，以及在网上流传的《大脚革命》“一席”报告和大量相关散文；此观点亦集中体现在散文集《回到土地》[2009]一书中。
上述三剂药如要起作用，还需要有相应的触媒。我认为有4个触媒可以有效地传播思想、发挥药效：
第一是向“五四”新文化时期的思想领袖学习，走出大学的象牙塔，直接与“病毒携带者”交流沟通，为他们当场治病。我发现关于这一途径最有效的方法是与决策者进行交流。他们是中国社会中具有抱负也聪慧的族群—除了部分人假公济私以外—他们能够快速接受新思想并令其发挥效用。在给书记、市长们讲完课后，我常常在一小时内即被拉至工地现场，当场制止正在进行中的河道裁弯取直工程、民居或工业遗产拆迁工程、湿地填埋工程等。其中，最最直接有效的是向最高决策者建言，例如，我关于国土生态安全格局、“海绵城市”建设、大运河遗产廊道保护等方面的建言，最终都被国务院、国家部委和最高决策层采纳或参考，并在全国发挥效用。这令我非常欣慰，也使我对治理中国城市和国土充满了信心。
我对秉信陈旧专业知识的技术官僚和所谓的“专家”感到无奈，他们不但很难接受新的思想，且往往是旧知识体系的卫道士，也是既得利益者。而对于中国的广大民众的教育，只能慢慢来，并需要从娃娃抓起。所以，我特别热衷于给掌握权力且并非专家型的市长们、带孩子的家长们，以及广大的青年学生授课。
第二，当然是办学。通过培养新一代技术官僚，在可预见的将来，将会对根治城市病有重要的功效。与第一种途径相比，这是一个中长期的工程，也可能是个星火工程。但毕竟，北京大学的学子毕业后即便不能谋个一官半职，但有幸成为未来的总规划师也未可知，如果我可以在有生之年看到他们中有人能解救一方的人民和土地于病痛之中，将是一件欣慰之事。但办学谈何容易！经过15年的努力，从设立中心开始，经过研究院、学院，我和我的同事都从黑发变成了白发，曲线救国，终于办起了一个建筑与景观设计学院，入驻未名湖畔的红四楼。其间的艰辛，只有我们自己知道。
第三，也是从“五四”新文化时期的先贤那里学来的：发表文字、创办杂志，包括新媒体。开始时给一些杂志的投稿都被欣然接受，但由于良药苦口，这些批判性的文章很快引起了行业内部分专家的关注，甚至愤怒。因为直言不讳但有效用的文章不能顺利发表，于是便和志同道合的同事一起，决心自己创办刊物。当然大家都明白，这很难，办了5年，连个“户口”都没有，只能以书代刊。之后终于有了自己的刊号，办起了这本《景观设计学》期刊，并在同志们的齐心协力之下，获得了国际认可。
第四，实践。榜样的力量是无穷的。土人设计从无到有，近500名同仁的参与和努力，为我的理论的发展和检验提供了不可或缺的基地和后盾。“大脚革命”的思想分别在规划和设计两个层面上展开：规划层面是“反规划”和城市生态基础设施（包括“海绵城市”）的大量规划实践；在设计层面上，则是大量低维护的、以综合生态系统服务为目标的当代城市设计和景观工程实践。生态性和当代艺术性是这些设计实践的标志。
到目前为止，体现上述思想的土人实践已经遍布全国200多个城市，并走向了国际。我可以自豪地说，它们在解决中国城市问题病症方面起到了积极的作用。
这篇文章读起来像是在自吹自擂，也或是给所有一起艰辛走过来的同志的告慰，但在如此浩瀚磅礴的时代大潮里，不写自己知道的那点事，还能写些什么有深度的文字呢。毕竟我有幸经历了这轰轰烈烈的城市建设高潮，并自命不凡地苦苦抗击着蔓延全国的各种城市病，一路走来，倍感孤傲，却努力留下可供考据的文字及实践案例。抛下这一堆砖，权当为后来者敲打、批判或吸取经验教训，以作玉石大厦之粗料吧！
译 萨拉•雅各布斯 陈立欣
My musings on Chinese urbanization and new construction began in 1996 when I prepared for returning China. At that time, I traveled by train from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, and then arrived in Beijing via Shanghai. The changes I saw during this trip astonished me. In Shenzhen, our guides proudly showed off the newly finished, oversized urban avenues while turning a blind eye to the helplessness of an old farmer laboring his way through. Large areas of farmland in the heart of the city had been abandoned and were covered in weeds in anticipation of future preservation at the city center. (The city center was built up eventually with giant paved axial streets and a central park.) Also at this time, Pudong in Shanghai was under development, and hundreds of half-finished buildings were becoming a bizarre concrete jungle. From the train window, the havoc wreaked on the landscape, from the wetland filled with construction waste to bulldozed villages, was visible. Entering Beijing, I saw roads undergoing a campaign of aggressive enlargement, including the Zhongguancun North Road just outside the east gate of Peking University. Rows of aspens had been cleared and clusters of courtyards were filled with debris. At this time, river management projects were increasingly popular. The concretization and straightening of waterways had reduced riparian edges to nothing, land for neighborhood development was becoming enclosed, and the “three connections and one leveling” campaign had turned raw land into developable, ripe land. Exotic flowers and ancient trees replanted from countryside had been used to decorate streets, municipal plazas, and luxury residential buildings. The country was unquestioningly celebrating urbanization.
What I witnessed nineteen years ago went against the urbanization theories I had been taught. Influenced by The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs and Design with Nature by Ian McHarg, I became convinced that China was sick from the mistakes of urbanization. In response, I returned to China in January, 1997, began speaking my qualms, and devoted my practice to healing and preventing the illness befallen so many Chinese cities. Like an epidemiologist, I identified four groups responsible for spreading the virus of poor urbanization. First, are the policy makers, empowered by the state and motivated by a combination of power and GDP, this group follows a predestinated course. The second are the developers, who feed off capital, voracity, wickedness, and vulgarity. The third are urban design professionals who carry the virus by misusing their authority and promoting outdated knowledge. Finally, is the general public, who incubate a social and cultural environment that facilitates invasion of the previous three carriers. For these reasons, a myriad of urban illnesses are wreaking havoc in Chinese cities, culturally, socially, economically, ecologically, and environmentally. To treat this epidemic — the most severe in human history — it must be treated.
My first prescription is directed at urban policy makers and developers. Since 1998, my fierce criticism has been lunged against the urbanization movement for its unchecked centralized power and parvenu syndrome. The cure for this is a return to the Culture Movement which will help guide focus back to democracy and science. This can be taught to policy makers and the public through media campaigns and seminars. (The main points of this strategy were discussed in my 2003 book, The Road of Urban Landscape, coauthored with Dihua Li.)
Second, I have advocated for an art of survival, or an approach of negative-planning aimed at urban planners and designers, landscape architects, architects, etc. This antidote is as much self-critique as it is directed towards the whole profession. The traditional Chinese landscape has been unable to develop beyond the garden of feudal times, and has failed to adapt in response to rapid urbanization. Landscape as a tool for mitigating relationships between people and land was the focus of my 2006 book, The Art of Survival and a series of articles published between 1998 and 2000 in Chinese Landscape Architecture. I have also been critical of urban planning under the background of planned economy, which has only consolidated resources for power hungry and greedy developers. I brought up the concept of negative-planning approach in 2002, and explored the idea in detail in the 2005 book, Negative-Planning Approach. My directive was not to begin with one plan, but to define a non-construction area and particularly the ecological essential line, that would prevent unregulated sprawling. Additionally, we established a more detailed methodology for defining and initiating the ecological security pattern and ecological infrastructure — rather than conventional grey infrastructure — that would help build livable and sustainable cities.
My third cure is aimed at popular culture and is what I have called the Big Feet Revolution. I am fully convinced that the people are the social and culture base and the public education of Big Feet Revolution will be the cure to China’s poor urban development. My proposal for this social change takes its name from the small foot aesthetic — the practice of pursuing a concept of deformed beauty at the expense of health and function — that has dominated Chinese beauty standards for a thousand years. Rather, I propose harnessing the knowledge of the environment and everyday life — Big Feet knowledge — to awaken a new culture of aesthetics. This calls for an urban enlightenment, an eco-friendly consciousness that responds to the land. The Big Feet Revolution has been written about in the article, “Foot Culture and Virtue of Weed,” has been included in middle school textbooks (Jiangsu Province version), and in various other essays. This point is also heavily reflected in the book Back to the Land (2009).
For the strategies mentioned above to work, corresponding interventions are needed. There are four agents that can be effective in advancing these strategies.
First is to learn from the spiritual leaders of the May Fourth New Literary Movement. I find stepping out of the ivory tower and direct communication with policy makers to be the most effective approach. Policy makers are an ambitious and smart group, and except for the small part of them who abuse their power for private interests, they are open to new approaches. Often, after meeting with this group, I am immediately taken to construction sites where I stop the construction of straight river channels, the destruction of historical residential settlements, and the filling of working wetlands. It has been most effective to intervene with policy makers at the highest level. For example, in advocating for an eco-security pattern and sponge city construction, my concepts and suggestions have been accepted by the national ministry. Reaching the highest level of management has worked around the country, and it gives me confidence in the management of Chinese cities.
However, I feel helpless towards the technical officers and professionals who adhere to outdated knowledge. They are not only resistant to new strategies, but also defenders of the old knowledge system. Education of the younger generation gives me hope. Therefore, I am especially eager to teach mayors, professionals, and parents who have the power to reach children and young students.
The second intervention is education. Mentoring a new generation of technical officers will potentially help cure cities for the foreseeable future. This is a long-term project. In my teaching, I am inspired by the knowledge that graduates of Peking University will probably become chief designers, if not governmental officials. It will be a solace to see some of them save land and communities. But what a tough task it is to run a school! In the 15 years it has taken to start a design center, research academy, and college, my colleagues and I have grown white hairs.
My third technique also comes from the May Fourth New Literary Movement: publish articles, launch periodicals, and explore as many methods of new media as possible. At the beginning, the articles were accepted with alacrity, but these critical ones attracted the attention, even anger, from the industry. Knowing how difficult it is to publish critical articles, I began reaching out to those with the same objectives and motivations. During our first five years, we did not have access to officially launch periodicals, and could only publish “series books” instead. This was very difficult. Finally, we obtained our own ISSN, and started the journal Landscape Architecture Frontiers, which received global recognition with its concerted effort to general real conversation around the Chinese urban condition.
The final catalyst for change is practice. Through professional practice, we have the power of examples. The involvement and effort of nearly 500 colleagues at TURENSCAPE has provided an indispensable base for the development and implementation of my theories. The Big Feet Revolution has spread into two layers of planning and design, first is the negative-planning approach and urban eco-infrastructure on the planning layer, and the second is contemporary urban design and landscape engineering aimed at low maintenance and comprehensive ecosystem services. The layering of ecology awareness and contemporary art is the foundation for our design practice.
By now, TURENSCAPE has worked in 200 Chinese cities and more around the world. I am very proud of the role we have played in solving the woes of contemporary Chinese cities.
This article may feel self-focused; but what better insights do we have than the work and research we have completed ourselves? I have been fortunate to have developed the experience, among the aggressive waves of urban construction, to fight urban illness in this country. Meanwhile, I can leave my words and works for the future reference. May they be a source for future generations to ponder, to judge, and to learn from, and find inspiration.
Translated by Sara JACOBS Connie CHEN
