俞孔坚•设计“有感觉”的城市
——《景观设计学》2016年第4期“主编寄语”
Designing Cities that Make Sense
By Kongjian Yu
我们通常会用一些大家所共识的词汇来描绘一座城市或一个地方，诸如美丽、丑陋、安静、吵闹、整洁、杂乱、干净、肮脏、凉爽、潮湿、宽广、狭窄、明亮、幽暗……这些描述在很大程度上是可以被定量的，因而是客观的、可以被设计和规范的。而有一个人们常用却充满神秘的词汇，我们却很难将之客观地定量为人们共识的指标，那就是“有感觉”。这似乎是一个高度主观和个性化的词，我们可以将之理解为“有意义”，或者更为口语化的“有意思”。
我完全相信，在今日中国强有力的行政力量下，在众多工程师们的集体努力下，城市会变得更加漂亮、干净、整洁、明亮和宽广。但这并不意味着我们的城市能够更加“有感觉”。其模糊性和高度的个性化，使得设计和管理“有感觉”的城市变得非常困难且往往被忽视，致使我们的城市逐渐沦为缺乏感觉的城市。
“有感觉”的场地关乎其场所感和意义，需要在现象学语境中来讨论。从马丁•海德格尔的“栖居”，到凯文•林奇的“城市意象”，再到包括克里斯蒂安•诺伯格-舒尔茨在内的哲学界、建筑学界以及人文地理界关于地方感和意义的问题，相关的概念已经被讨论了近一个世纪。尽管研究讨论甚多，但仍有较多的问题需要厘清。归结而言，这些研究对当代中国的城市设计和管理具有极其重要的意义，其可借鉴之处主要包括以下几个方面：
第一，求知于理性之外：不要被所谓的“理性的”、“科学的”抽象模型和统计数据所蒙骗，要通过现象背后的真实存在来感知和理解我们的城市和环境；要抛开所谓的“理性的”、“理想的”城市模式，去设计忠实于自然和人类生活需求的城市。诸如田园城市、光明城市、广亩城市等理想城市模式，最终被证明离我们的城市生活何其遥远。相反，基于真实城市生活体验的简•雅各布斯的城市生命之道却大放异彩，至今熠熠生辉。
第二，回归日常生活：要回到日常的、个体的体验和感觉中来设计和管理城市环境。只有设身处地地体量生活其中的每个人的感觉和使用方式，我们才不会以“建设美丽城市”的名义，去清理城市中那些热闹非凡、“有感觉”的城中村和街边的杂货摊、“杂乱的”居民区菜市场、胡同里吆喝的摊贩；只有这样，我们才不会热衷于在城市中建设纪念碑、大剧院、体育馆、博物馆、文化中心、宽广的景观大道和巨型广场。
第三，理解“有感觉”之源：场所或城市之所以“有感觉”，是因为栖居其中的个体找到并获得了属于自己的地方并认同于这个地方，即诺伯格-舒尔茨所强调的两个方面：定位与认同。前者关于空间的结构属性，如焦点、边缘、区域等，决定了城市和地方的可识别性、可想象性，使人们能在茫茫世界中定义出自己的空间位置，在浩淼的宇宙中拥有自己的立锥之地，有了坐标才有安全感，探索世界的旅程才有了起点；所谓认同，则是关于城市与地方的特性，即有别于其他城市和地方的属性，它是弥漫在时空中并通过人的全部感官所感知的氛围和“东西”，诸如温度、湿度、气味、颜色、质感、材料及各种物体及其形状，道路的铺装、墙面的斑驳、树干的裂纹……它们随时间的推移而变换，因地域而不同，从而赋予地方以历史感、地域感，构成了城市的个性和认同感，使人们浸染其中，他们的五感和行为因此适应城市万千的变化，从而潜移默化地成为城市的一分子，共同构成城市中弥漫的氛围和真实的大千世界。简单地说，正是城市的空间特征、自然和文化氛围以及各种真实的物体存在和人本身，使城市或地方变得“有感觉”、“有意思”，体现为城市的归属感和认同感。
所以，设计“有感觉”的城市就是设计可以栖居的、能生活其中的、适应于自然环境、城市历史脉络以及当下人们生活方式的城市。理解这一点，对当前轰轰烈烈的城市设计运动具有重要意义，可使城市设计避免重蹈欧美的“城市美化运动”之路—这是本人在近20年前就在呼吁的，自以为，到今天这种呼吁仍然没有过时。
译 萨拉•雅各布斯 张健
Our common descriptions of the city or place, including beautiful, ugly, quiet, noisy, tidy, messy, clean, dirty, cool, moist, broad, narrow, bright, gloomy, etc., are largely quantifiable. Yet, we have developed methods for these characteristics to become objective and standardized designs. Still, there are other common but mysterious characteristics of the city we cannot understand objectively, for example, “making sense.” This seemed highly subjective and emotional item means making a place meaningful or interesting in the colloquial language.
I believe that today under China’s strong administrative lead, cities will become more beautiful, clean, bright and broad through the collective endeavors of engineers and designers. However, this does not mean that our cities will be more meaningful or interesting on a personal level. It is difficult to design and manage cities for our personal sense of place, since it is often vague and highly individual. As such, designing for a sense of place is often ignored, resulting in cities that are less and less interesting.
“Making sense,” concerning the sense of a place and its meaningfulness, needs to be discussed in the context of phenomenology. In the past century, Martin Heidegger’s “Dwelling,” Kevin Lynch’s “The Image of the City” and Christian Norberg-Schulz’s viewpoint have tried to bring philosophy into human, spatial, and architectural discussions. But, making sense of place continues to puzzle us despite the growing amount of research on the topic. As Chinese cities grow, the study of making sense of place will be an essential piece of China’s contemporary urban design and management that should be noticed from the following perspectives:
First, we must seek more-than-rational knowledge. Instead of focusing on the so-called “rational” or “scientific” abstract models and statistics, cities and environments should be perceived through lived experiences. We should abandon the so-called “rational” and “ideal” city models of the 20th century, such as the Garden City, the Radiant City, and the Broadacre City, which have proven to be so distant from our real urban lives. We should design cities that respond to our needs as feeling, sensing, emotional beings, and that draw from work such as Jane Jacobs, who showed urban life to be diverse, unpredictable, and sparkling.
Next, we must design with daily lives. As we design and manage our urban environments, we should consider how daily, personalized experiences affect urban space. In doing so, we can no longer prioritize building beautiful cities while dogmatically sweeping away bustling villages, messy community vegetable markets or crying Hutong vendors. Our work as designers is no longer to be enthusiastic about monuments, theatres, stadiums, museums, cultural centers or wide avenues and blank city squares.
Finally, we must understand what it means to feel a sense of place. As designers, we must understand that for a city to have a meaningful sense of place, individuals must be able to make it their own, to identify it as their place. Orientation and identification with place are two elements emphasized by Norberg-Schulz. In this case, orientation refers to the spatial structure, being able to identify one’s position in a place and taking place in the vast universe by orienting elements such as a focus, edge or region. Orientation provides a sense of safety and coordinates for exploring the world. To identify with a place, concerning the characteristics which differentiate places and cities, is to place yourself through an understanding of atmosphere perceived by the senses, such as temperature, humidity, smell, color, texture, material and shape. The paving of roads, patterns of walls, and cracks on tree trunks change over time and differ from region to region, giving a sense of history, identity and identification to a place. The identity of a city is created through the senses and actions of its residents, and the ways they adapt, infuse, and mold the forms and shapes of the city. In short, the spatial characteristics of the city, the natural and cultural atmosphere of the city and the various existing objects and ways people live in the city, make the city “interesting” and “meaningful,” through a sense of belonging and sense of identity.
Designing cities for a sense of place is to design cities for dwelling, living, and belonging, to design cities that respond to environmental and cultural histories, as well as contemporary wants. By designing cities that prioritize the needs of residents, we can avoid the path previously taken by the City Beautiful Movement in many European and American cities. I made this same appeal twenty years ago, and the need remains relevant today.
Translated by Sara JACOBS Angus ZHANG
地址：北京市海淀区中关村北大街100号（北楼）北京大学建筑与景观设计学院一层 Email：info@landscape.cn
Copyright © 2013-2022 景观中国（www.landscape.cn）版权所有 京ICP备05068035号
京公海网安备 110108000058号
