先锋专辑NO.6推出第三期增补！其作者王耀华Yaohua Wang的前三期先锋专辑请点击：第六期（本科毕设），第六期增补一，第六期增补二 。先锋专辑是gooood在创始之初开设的专辑，经过网站的发展，先锋专辑本来的功能已经逐渐开始被别的专辑所取代和细化，故我们决定此文章会是先锋专辑的最后一期。从此先锋专辑不再更新，欢迎大家投稿gooood的其它专辑和日常项目报道。
目前王耀华基于纽约进行建筑以及相关领域的实践。

点击此处查看视频，建议选择超清。

让我们用一个笑话来作为开始，一个人走进一家咖啡厅，坐定之后，问朝他走来的服务生: “可以给我一杯不加牛奶的咖啡 (Coffee without milk) 吗?” 服务生想了想说: “先生不好意思,我们今天没有牛奶了，我可以给您一杯不加奶精的咖啡 (Coffee without cream) 吗?” 我觉得这个不太好笑的笑话中，服务员讲的这句话非常有意思。虽然牛奶或是奶精都是不加在咖啡里的，但是我这里今天没有牛奶，所以我就不能给你一个不加牛奶的咖啡。在这里，你所没有得到的东西，同时也在定义着你得到的东西，或者说是表象背后所隐藏的另外一个纬度。那么建筑如何得到这个超越形式的隐藏纬度呢？

在这里我试图提供一个选项，并通过一个漫画形式的故事来讲述它。这个故事发生在我们国家高度活跃的经济背景与自上而下的政治环境当中，它发生的地点是一个虚构的中国城市，故事中的主角是一个奥运田径体育场。作为一个奥运体育场，它在表面上服务于国家意志力与执行力，但是在背后，却隐藏着一个狡猾的目的。

中国有句古话，叫做人为刀俎，我为鱼肉。不幸的是，在拥有真正权力的人面前，我们建筑师往往是那个鱼肉。所以，当你是鱼的时候，你最好可以狡猾一点，认识到你的处境，然后试图寻找逆袭的机会。

Let’s begin with a joke. A man went into a restaurant, and he asked the waitress; “Can I have a coffee without milk, please.” The waitress answers: “Sorry we don’t have milk today, can I give you a coffee without cream.” For me, this is a very interesting moment. It reveals that what you don’t get is also defining what you get, the hidden dimension behind the appearance. How could architecture gain this hidden dimension, beyond the physical form?

Here I’m trying to offer an option. This option unfolds through a narrative, which get presented in the form of a comic story. This story is a case study situated in China’s hyper-development and top-heavy political climate. It’s a story happened in a fictional Chinese city. The focus of this story is an olympic stadium. As an olympic stadium, this design appears to be serving the need as a building for one time blossom, a national icon, a showing off of national power and the flourishing lead by the central government. But at the same time, it also hides a slippery future. It’s a story about how did an olympic stadium got salvaged. But maybe in the end you will found out, this is more than a simple salvation.

There is an old Chinese phrase. Which means “be fish on somebody’s chopping block”. It is using to describe a passive situation you found yourself in. Unfortunately, in front of the people with real power, we architects often found ourselves in this kind of situation. So when you are just a fish, you better be a little bit slippery. Be aware of your situation, and then find a way to make a comeback.

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Comment By Wes Jones

王耀华在其年轻的建筑设计职业生涯中完成过两个毕业设计作品，其一是在南加州建筑学院（SCI-Arc）完成的本科毕业设计，其二是在哈佛设计学院（GSD）完成的研究生毕业设计。能够作为王耀华第一个毕业设计的导师和第二个毕业设计的见证者，我感到十分的高兴和荣幸。与他的学生生涯中所有其他设计作品都不同，这两个毕业设计遵循着一种相近的模式。

他的其它学生设计以及课外设计项目都在互联网上广受欢迎。从“所见即所得”的意义上来说，这些作品都是“正常的”。当然在耀华的作品当中，人们所见的通常是透漏着技术和复杂性的一种形式上的精雕细琢，以及在这些纯粹的形式复杂性前所感受到的震撼。

但对所有人的学业生涯来说，毕业设计都是，或者至少应该是一个特殊的作品。而我认为这也是他的毕业设计显得如此与众不同的原因。如果说建筑学是关于把人放置到这个世界当中，那么毕业设计就是在讨论这种放置怎样才可行，又或者为什么不可行。正如建筑上的每一个行为都包含了，或者应该包含着一个设计理论，那么每一个设计理论也都体现着对“建筑究竟应该如何”这个问题的回应，再引申一下的话，这个问题就变成了“把人放置到的这个地方是个什么样的世界”。对于耀华来说，他的毕业设计应当作为一次相较而言更胜一筹的宣言与他一贯具有范例水准的其它作品放到一起来看待：毕业设计之于普通项目，正如普通项目之于日常的设计课。而这个“高于”，就表现在建筑的第四维度上。

事实上，这个建筑第四维度的概念曾经被提起过：多数是在讨论如何将时间结合到设计中去的时候提及的。在王耀华的两个毕业设计中，他都通过强调多重主题的创立，来利用这个附加的维度容纳其惊人的创造和制作能力。他不仅能够通过在已被构建完成的历史机制中将设计在时序上展开这一方法在同一区域表达三到四个设计，而且还完成了对这一段历史的解析。实际上，这两个毕业设计项目的叙事表现策略要突出的正是这种与时间相关的设计，而建筑实体更多地在幕后发挥着支持性的作用，只有在作为发生中的故事的背景和图解时才真正可见。当然，故事中的建筑最终升为主角，而与建筑升华了的本质一道，叙事本身也峰回路转，曲尽其妙。

这种叙事为了保持其构架的建筑的复杂程度，无法仅满足于对效果或事件的白描，而是必须更加深入地挖掘以支持更实质性的建筑学科上的讨论。然而，从建筑学的角度来说，这种实质性讨论是困难而少见的。即便在这一作品完成时所在的显要之地，受众群体依然很小，遑论其它地方当下更是难觅建筑学科的踪影。对建筑学问题的把握能力已经变得难以判断，因为能够有资质作出这种判断的人已经太少。

造成这种情况的原因又回到了建筑学的中心职责，那就是把人放置到世界当中。这项任务把世界放在了建筑学科的中心，世界成为了建筑学对自身理解的固有部分，因此外部世界的状况对建筑的可能性有着重大的影响。六七十年代的结构主义实践者们所声称的建筑自主性其实从来就不具有真正的可能性——后结构主义者们给出的理由也同样不成立。建筑与这个世界互动的方式以及建筑的表达能力都是有限的。当建筑达到上述界限而又无法完成其“将人放置在世界中”这项在历史上由被选中的单纯（却完全胜任）的建筑物来完成的任务时，那么无论其是否被选中，建筑持续的相关性，而非重要性，便值得商榷了。

而且事实上，并非因为建筑变得不同，而是因为这个世界以一种让建筑从本质上所不能够占据或者传递的方式发生了改变，以至于上文提到的建筑的界限很可能已经被达到了。显而易见，现在一切都变得不同了——新的世纪，新的高科技还有新的社会行为。最近建筑一直注重于技术层面的改变，然而建筑一直都能够通过构造上的表达来轻易地吸收这种改变。真正让建筑陷入困境的其实是社会心理。这种后现代性的新状况并不太像是大爆炸后的余波，也不是艾森曼所谓的“经历屠杀后的心理创伤”，而是一种普遍的，改良性质的讽刺反语的出现，以便让文化能够应付这一切。比起作为科技上的改变而且仍在酝酿着其真正社会影响的数字化变革，或者比起被许多人同样归咎于科技（而建筑对科技保持着完全足够的“应用”能力）的不断迫近的环境危机，现在的社会形态以及对事物状态的感受更可以归因于一种“一切都普遍沉浸于这种讽刺的腐蚀性溶剂之中”的状态。

建筑事业在本质上是乐观的，所以在其每次的最初选择以及所要求的资源中，建筑不但难以变得具有讽刺性，而且也无力表达有说服力的讽刺。一些文艺复兴时期风格主义的例子以其所谓的建筑讽刺著称，比如朱里诺•罗马诺（Giuliano Romano）的作品，甚至一些米开朗琪罗（Michelangelo）为教皇朱利叶斯（Pope Julius）设计的作品。但这些作品并不包含矛盾，因为他们的“讽刺性”实际上只是与更大的建筑命题（这种命题积极地肯定一种以神为中心的基督教世界的图景）隔绝的在具体的建筑技术方面的小把戏。这些作品中的“讽刺”与其说是经过深思熟虑的，不如说是权宜取巧的，而且只在建筑内部起作用，与建筑和外部世界的连接无关。无论在任何时期，只要将建筑与外部世界有联系的任何方面与其内在的乐观主义结合，都会使建筑成为这种缺乏力度的讽刺的反证。

如果说讽刺性是后现代的条件而直截了当是现代性的条件，那么耀华在毕业设计中展示的精心策划的（隐藏的）演变也许就是最接近能够做到这点的建筑。也就是说，（他的设计是）对建筑上的某种情况的积极论断，而这种情况被有意识地转换乃至“挫败”，从而令人惊讶地演进出了一种更加积极的情况。只有通过让时间参与进来，从而使讽刺的异化特点能够不只是在单一的方案中，而是在多个不同的方案之中或之间发生，才能让这种（假的）建筑讽刺在不违反建筑的最终伦理及其乐观主义天性的情况下成为可能。这种做法也使讽刺的作用和文化的修辞变得可用，例如“漏洞”，“托辞”，夸张，嘲讽，高扬以及低调，都能够被耀华用来推进自己的设计。

具有讽刺性的是，讽刺机制内在的对比性结构正是建筑学科的重要特点。另一个导致建筑的学科讨论缩减的原因是，当不同设计之间缺乏对话时，它们之间（为了促进相关讨论）的相互比较就变得更不切题也更无趣了。在这个讽刺的后现代时期，分裂的文化滋养出了这种文化下产品的分裂：现在有多少个建筑师，就有多少种建筑，而且每个建筑都同样与这个讽刺的世界渐行渐远。如果不是这样，这些建筑本可以提供出一个相联系的组织，让建筑学科能够支持发生在不同建筑之间的讨论。耀华对多重设计的使用，鼓励了在这些方案自身当中发生相互比较——实际上，通过说故事的不同以及作品的意义确定——这种比较是在不同的时间上而非建筑上形成的：功能，结构，规划。因此这些比较带来的潜在学科讨论最多在背景里，等待着有见识而热切的评论家能梳理出来，同时也保留在耀华构建的这个自成体系的时间之中。

建筑学科同样认为对当前设计的评价应该与由过去作品所建立起来的标准相关联。通过促进不同项目在不同时间上的有意义的比较，建筑学科便能够先在某一点上停泊下来，然后再驱动预想的和未来的作品。然而，文化碎片化蔓延到了时间的维度上，遮断了所有对延续性或者稳定演进的过程的兴趣：实际上，这就是一种追求新奇和差异的文化。当现有设计的最高价值只在于其新颖性时，那么基于过去的作品而对当下设计进行的评判就变得毫无目的了。或者说，当设计概念的积极价值被九十年代为政治所驱动的解构作品废除，然后又继续被现今对政治毫不关心的数字化作品所忽略，那么对当下设计基于任何标准的理解同样是毫无目的的。

这足以说明建筑学科受到了多方面的腐蚀。如果在落实对设计的评判并为有意义的展示提供一个框架时不考虑建筑学科本身，那么，对其他文脉／结构感兴趣的设计就必须寻求这些另外的事物。对于耀华的兴趣来说，这正是为何叙事变得如此关键之所在：在这个建筑学科赢弱的时代，叙事提供了一个代替性的组织方法，就像提供了一个能够通过项目讲述的历史来让学科评判过渡的外骨骼支撑系统。耀华的项目虽然对于能够读懂它们的人来说透漏出对建筑学科的深厚领悟，但是又并不过分依赖这种领悟来传达项目所表达的意义。一个更能被普遍理解和广为接受的叙事讨论的“超框架”被用于呈现这个设计作品。叙事具有受众面更广的额外优势，因此成为了一条将其他文化参照引入设计并促进比喻以及讽刺效果的天然渠道。他的作品能够像如今这样使人产生共鸣，这一点是非常关键的。

叙事的结构能够在建筑对这个世界积年累月的愈发疏离之后提供一条重回世界的桥梁。从这一点上说，并不难想象将有越来越多的叙事结构代替之前属于建筑学科的角色。自维克多雨果首次预言建筑的影响力将被会媒体降低以来，每次的科技进步都以建筑为代价扩大了媒体所享受的文化影响力份额，而媒体的主要沟通形式，至少对于更复杂的论述形式——例如建筑——来说，已经变成了叙事。

当雨果指出媒体更大的影响力及其实际上在通讯上所具有的“更轻，更快，更有效”（正如福柯所言）的优越性之时，媒体已经具备了可变换性的附加优势。建筑物总是固定的。这一点曾经被当做是建筑的优势之一，而媒体无时无刻不在变换。然而，耀华的项目中所应用的叙事结构，把这两者之间的距离大大地拉近了，让建筑获得了相同的可变性和时间的灵活性。至少在那些本来就应该出现建筑的场所（例如学校），叙事的使用能够某程度上能让建筑和媒体更接近。当然，并不是建筑真的在运动，而是时间的第四维度，是多个设计方案之间的叙事结构以及可变的“运动”提供了这种灵活性。

就像“第五立面”一样，这个附加维度能够被欣赏，是需要仰仗科技发展的（这个例子里对应的是飞机）。当然在电脑之前，分镜脚本和幻灯片早就存在了，但其累赘复杂却限制了它们对最直接的思想脉络所起到的作用。电脑带来的不仅是动画，还有各种特效，这些特效既促进了一些完全基于时间的效果，比如第二反应，疑惑，惊讶等等，也促发了一种生动可感的与这个世界共鸣的讽刺情绪。在耀华的项目中，设计真正的载体并非只是实际的方案顺序安排，而是在展示它们如何发展的方法里。项目中的小花招，漏洞，机灵，和“柔道”，都与其建立的形式一样的充满娱乐和教育意义。

第一个和最后一个小花招当然代表着这样的一个事实——建筑并不支持这个故事，而是恰恰相反：是故事为建筑提供托辞……这也在最后引出了关于这个托辞是否真正有必要存在的问题。如果建筑本身是优秀的，那么它就不需要这么一个（精巧的）说辞，而且一旦达到其生成的目的，便能够揭示出这个说辞。正如一旦建成，建筑物便没有文字解释，而必须凭借着这个建筑物存在时可见的优劣来接受审美评判。因此这个通过多个视角呈现出深度的建筑项目，理应自己站得住脚。项目所说的故事自身对建筑学科有所贡献，它把项目与所有顺着历史延伸的其它项目都连接了起来。这些项目交织联系在一起，才成就了建筑学科从项目到项目，从一代人到另一代人不断传承的意义。而耀华的设计项目——所有这些展开的故事的每一个实体阶段——在不需更多的支持性叙事结构的情况下，本身就是对学科的贡献，值得重点关注。或者更准确地，应该说更有趣的故事从根本上说是建筑的，而这个故事被嵌入到形式当中，而且直接能从设计中被细心的观察者读懂。

Yaohua Wang has done two theses in his young architectural career, one as an undergrad at SCI-Arc, and one as a post-professional grad student at the GSD. I have had the honor and pleasure of being an advisor on the first and witness to the second. Both theses follow a similar pattern, different from all the rest of his studio projects as a student.

His other student projects, as well as the extracurricular projects popular with internet crawlers, are “normal” in the sense that “what you see is what you get” and of course what you see with Yaohua’s work is usually a formal tour de force, oozing with skill and complexity and overwhelming in its sheer accomplishment.

But in any student’s life the thesis is something special, or at least it should be, and this is the reason I think that his theses stand out in the way that they do. If architecture is about placing us in the world, then the thesis is about how that is or is not possible. Just as every act of architecture embodies a thesis—or should—so every thesis embodies an answer to the question of how architecture should be…and by extension then, what that world is where it is placing us. In Yaohua’s case the thesis then should be seen in the context of his usual exemplary projects, as a statement above and beyond: thesis is to regular projects as regular projects are to the studio brief. It’s a fourth dimension of architecture.

In fact, this notion of a fourth dimension for architecture has been raised before, most often through the incorporation of time in the design. In both of his thesis projects Yaohua uses this added dimension to absorb his prodigious capacity for production by underwriting the creation of multiple schemes. Not only is he able to present three or four designs in the same area by spreading them over time through the mechanism of a constructed history, but he gets to work out that history as well. In fact, it is this temporal design work that is featured by the narrative presentation strategy in these two thesis projects, and the actual architecture takes more of a background supporting position, literally, visible only as the backdrop and illustrations for the unfolding story. Of course, it is a story in which the architecture ends up being a major protagonist, and in keeping with the advanced nature of that architecture, the narrative is not simple or straightforward.

In keeping with the sophistication of the architecture it frames, the narrative cannot be happy with mere description of effects or recounting of events. It must dig deeper and support a more substantive disciplinary discussion. Yet, from the perspective of architecture such a discussion is difficult and rare. The audience is small, even at the exalted venues where this work has been done, and the discipline is not much in evidence these days elsewhere. Competence in managing disciplinary issues is hard to judge since there are so few qualified judges around.

The reasons for this go back to the central responsibility of architecture to place us in our world. This task locates the world at the center of the discipline, intrinsic to architecture’s own self understanding, and so the condition of the world will have a major impact on the possibilities for architecture. The autonomy claimed for architecture by its structuralist practitioners during the sixties and seventies was never really a possibility—and not for the reasons given by the post-structuralists. There are limits to how architecture may interact with the world and what it might be capable of saying. When it reaches these limits and is unable to perform the task of placing us in the world, a task that has throughout history caused it to be chosen over mere (but perfectly adequate) building, architecture’s continued relevance, much less its importance—whether or not it is chosen—is at risk.

And it may well be that in fact these limits have been reached, not because of any difference in the architecture but because the world has changed in a way that architecture is constitutionally unable to occupy or convey. It is self evident that everything is different now—new century, new advanced technologies and new social practices. Recently architecture has focused on the technological differences, but this kind of change has always been easily absorbed by architecture through its tectonic discourse. It is the societal psychology that is stumping architecture. This new condition of post-modernity is not so much the fallout from the bomb nor the anguish over the holocaust, as Eisenman claims, as it is the advent of the global, ameliorative irony that allows the culture to cope with these. More so than the digital revolution, which is a merely technological change still searching for its true social effects, or the looming environmental doom, which many also ascribe to technology (and for which architecture remains perfectly adequate to “capture”), the present shape of society and sense of the way things are is attributable to a universal immersion in the corrosive solvent of irony.

Since architecture is an inherently optimistic enterprise, both in its initial election-each-time and in the resources it demands, it is incapable of being ironic or expressing convincing irony. Those Renaissance Mannerist examples that are famous for their supposed architectural irony, such as the work of Giuliano Romano or even some of Michelangelo’s projects for Pope Julius, are not contradictions, since their “ironic” elements are in fact specific tectonic games isolated from the larger architectural proposition (which positively affirms the god-centered Christian world picture). The “irony” in these projects is tactical rather than strategic, operating only within architecture and making no reference to architecture’s connection with the world. Any aspect of architecture that connects with this larger world picture, during whatever period, engages its inherent optimism and makes architecture proof against the irony that is equally incapable of affirmation.

If irony is to the postmodern condition what simple assertion was to the modern condition, then perhaps the closest architecture can get to this is the (concealed) planned evolution that Yaohua exhibits in his theses. That is to say, the positive assertion of an architectural condition designed to transform or “fail” into a surprisingly more positive condition. It is only through the engagement of time, permitting the dissimulation characteristic of irony to happen across or between multiple schemes, rather than within a single scheme, that this kind of (pseudo) architectural irony is possible without violating architecture’s definitive ethical underpinnings and natural optimism. Such practice also makes available the cultural tropes and affect of irony, such as the “loophole,” the “alibi,” hyperbole, sarcasm, overstatement and understatement, all of which Yaohua is able to use to advance his proposition.

The comparative structure intrinsic to the operation of irony is, ironically, an important feature of the discipline. Another reason for the current diminution of disciplinary discourse is that comparison between projects—in order to advance the discussion—is less relevant or interesting when the projects have nothing to say to one another. The culture of fragmentation in this ironic post-modern era gives rise to a fragmentation of the products of that culture: there are as many architectures now as there are architects, and each is equally estranged from the ironic world that might otherwise provide the connective tissue that would allow the discipline to support a discourse among and between them all. While Yaohua’s use of multiple schemes encourages such comparison between themselves—indeed, it is through the differences that the story is told and the meaning of the work is secured—it casts these comparisons in terms other than architecture: program, structure, planning. Therefore the disciplinary discussion these comparisons might prompt are at best in the background, awaiting the enlightened and eager critic to tease out, and remain within the self-contained world Yaohua has constructed.

The discipline also supports judgment of present work in relation to standards set by past work. By facilitating meaningful comparison of projects across time the discipline is able to anchor and then propel projective, future work. However, the culture of fragmentation extends to the temporal dimension, shredding any interest in continuity or steady evolutionary progress: in fact it is above all a culture of novelty and difference. There is no purpose in judging present work in relation to past work when the highest value is placed on the current work’s newness, or understanding current work in relation to any standards when the positive value of that idea that was revoked in the politically motivated deconstructive work of the nineties and continues to be ignored by the apolitical digital work today.

It suffices to say the discipline is being eroded from many directions. Absent the discipline to ground judgment and provide a framework for meaningful presentation, then, other contexts/structures must be sought by work that is interested in such things. This is where the narrative becomes essential to Yaohua’s interests: in a time of weak architectural discipline the narrative provides a substitute structuring device, a sort of supportive exoskeleton that ferries the disciplinary judgments through the history told for the project. The projects, though rich in disciplinary savvy for those who know how to read them, do not depend on such savvy to get their points across. Instead the more commonly understood and widely accepted meta-frame of narrative discourse is engaged to present the work. The narrative has the additional advantage of greater bandwidth, so it becomes a natural conduit for introducing other cultural references into the work and facilitating the tropes and affect of irony so vital to achieving resonance today.

The narrative structure can provide a bridge back to the world for architecture after years of increasing estrangement. It is not difficult to imagine the narrative structure taking over more and more of the roles formerly reserved for the discipline in this regard. Since Victor Hugo first predicted that architecture’s influence would be reduced by the media, each new advance in technology has enlarged the share of cultural influence enjoyed by the media at architecture’s expense, and the media’s primary form of communication, at least for the more involved forms of discourse—like architecture—has been narrative.

While Hugo was noting the greater reach of the media and the fact that it was “lighter, more rapid, more effective” (as Foucault would put it) in declaring its superiority in communication, the media has had the additional advantage of transformability. Architecture has always been fixed, this was considered one of its greater strengths, while the media is constantly changing. However, the narrative structure, as deployed in Yaohua’s projects, brings the two much closer together, granting architecture the same mutability and temporal agility. At least within those venues where the presentation of architecture is a common occurrence (schools, for instance), the use of narrative evens the score somewhat. Of course, the architecture is not actually moving, it is the fourth dimension of time, courtesy the narrative structure and transformative “movement” between the multiple schemes that provides this agility.

Like for the “fifth façade” it took an advance in technology (the airplane in that case) for this additional dimension to be appreciated. The story board and slide show existed long before the computer of course, but their cumbersomeness limited their effect to the most straightforward sequence of ideas. With the computer came not only animation, but the sort of special effects that encourage the double-take, the doubt, surprise and punchline where timing is everything, and the ironic affect that resonates in this world can be felt. In the case of Yaohua’s projects, it is not only the actual sequence of schemes but the manner in which they are shown to develop that carries the thesis. The sleight of hand, the loophole, the cleverness, the judo, are as entertaining and didactic as the forms they set up.

The first and final sleight of hand of course is the fact that the architecture is not in support of the story, but vice versa: the story provides the architecture with its alibi…which raises the question in the end if the alibi is truly necessary. If the architecture is good, then it shouldn’t need such an (elaborate) alibi, and might shed the alibi once it has served its generative purpose. Just as a building has no text to explain it once its built, and must be appreciated on the merits of what is visible in its presence, so the architectural project, as presented in depth through multiple views, should be able to stand on its own. The story it then tells stands as its own contribution to the discipline, connecting it with all the other projects extending down through history that have made up the braid of meaning that the discipline passes down from project to project and generation to generation. And Yaohua’s projects—each physical phase of these unfolding stories—are emphatically worthy of attention in their own right, as contributions to the discipline, without any continuing need for the supporting narrative structure. Or, more accurately, it could be said that the more interesting story is ultimately architectural, and that story is embedded in the form and can be read by the attentive viewer directly from the design.

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“Coffee without milk, or coffee without cream.”
By Yaohua Wang

让我们用一个笑话来作为开始 (不过也许不是那么好笑，这个笑话拿英文讲出来比中文效果要好的多），一个人走进一家咖啡厅，坐定之后，问朝他走来的服务生: “可以给我一杯不加牛奶的咖啡 (Coffee without milk) 吗?” 服务生想了想说: “先生不好意思,我们今天没有牛奶了，我可以给您一杯不加奶精的咖啡 (Coffee without cream) 吗?” 我觉得这个不好笑的笑话中，服务员讲的这句话非常有意思。虽然牛奶或是奶精都是不加在咖啡里的，但是我这里今天没有牛奶，所以我就不能给你一个不加牛奶的咖啡。这种感觉就像是，你所没有得到的东西，同时也在定义着你得到的东西，或者说是表象背后所隐藏的另外一个纬度。

另外一个类似的笑话。故事发生在前苏联, 或是东欧。社会主义国家轻工业物资贫乏, 街上的商店里基本上都没有货品。有一个人走进一家商店, 问: “请问你们是没有肥皂的肥皂店吗?” 售货员苦笑了一下说: “我们是没有家电的电器店, 没有肥皂的肥皂店在街对面。” 在这里, 虽然商店都是空的, 但是空的肥皂店, 和空的电器店, 还是不一样。没有存在于商店里的东西, 还在定义着商店的属性。

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讲完了这两个笑话, 接下来进入正题, 我们先来看两幅画。第一幅是Piranesi的“帕埃斯图姆神庙内部北向图”, 第二幅是毕加索的“Portrait of Ambroise Vollard”。对我来说，可以把这两幅画看作是在描述同一个主题,那就是人的”综合视觉感知”系统。听起来很悬，实际上很简单，也就是说，当人看到一个人物，并不是简单的看到这个人物在一个时刻的图像，而是把记忆中对于这个人物所有的感知全部综合在一起之后，在大脑中产生一个对于这个人物的理解。从另外一个角度,也可以说这两幅画都是在尝试把时间这个隐藏纬度包含进来。

如果是这样的话，那么毕加索这幅画中的主题，我们就可以理解为，并不是他所画的这个人，而是阅读者的”综合视觉感知”系统。这幅画试图通过将人物的形象碎片化，来模拟这个系统，就好像阅读者在不同时间看到了这个人物的不同部分，可是，这恰恰是这幅画的问题所在。在“综合视觉感知”系统的形成过程中，虽然，是有记忆中处于时间上的很多碎片的作用，但当我们看一个人物，我们始终看到的是这个人物的完整影像。换句话说，通过模拟，这幅画最终只能作为它所想模拟的对象–”综合视觉感知”系统–的一种比喻，而并不能够真正完全达到被模拟对象的实际效果。于是这种模拟方法也就变成了一种浮夸的修辞方法。

相比之下，我觉得，皮拉内西的那幅画和它的主题之间有一种更加有深度的关系。当我们看这幅画时，我们会看到一个罗马神庙废墟，从细节上来讲，前景中有两个平行的柱列垂直于后景的柱列，然后这个神庙被一个沉闷的单一灭点透视方法所描绘了出来。但是，这幅画里正在发生的事情要远比这个表象动态的多。事实上，在这幅本应该只有一个灭点的透视结构中，有两个透视灭点。首先，如图所示，假如这里的两个灭点在方法上是遵循着正确的透视规律的，那么，这就意味着在这两个柱列中，有一个柱列不和背景中的横向柱列垂直。但是很明显, 这和帕埃斯图姆神庙的事实不符。所以，皮拉内西在这幅画中所做的，是通过创造第二个透视灭点这个“谬误”，来使前景中这两个柱列可以被展示的更加清楚。因为，如果这里只有一个遵循着透视规律的灭点，那么结果就是，要么右边的柱列会有一个非常夸张的透视角度，要么左边的柱列就会因为透视角度太小而被遮挡。所以，最后有趣的结果是，在创造这个透视“谬误”的同时，皮拉内西并没有破坏帕埃斯图姆神庙横平竖直的事实，反而，通过这个谬误，他进一步加强了阅读者对于一个横平竖直的神庙的解读。换个角度讲，这也可以被理解为，阅读者在时间中移动，看到了建筑中不同的部分，然后透视灭点被投射在了不同的位置上。所以基于这样的理解, 皮拉内西这幅画真正的主题，也可以被解读为并不是这个具体的神庙，而是背后的“综合视觉感知”系统。但是，与毕加索的画不同的是，我们并不会直接的感受到这个主题。在这里，“综合视觉感知”系统这个主题，作为一个背景而存在，在表面上，这幅画看起来并不像那个系统，同时并不表现那个系统。它的表像和它所应用的系统看起来完全相反，或着说，它静态的表像和它实际中所运用的动态的系统看起来很矛盾。但是恰恰是通过这种矛盾，和非修辞性（比喻性）的表达方式，它得到了一种和人的“综合视觉感知”系统很相近的效果。

表格1所展示的就是这两幅画所代表的对比关系。在表格的两边，双方都在试图表达一个主题，或是思想。但是两者的根本不同在于，其中一个与它所表达的主题有一种相似关系，或者叫相似性方法，结果变成了该主题的象征性比喻。而另外一个与它所表达的内容有一种冲突关系，或者叫冲突方法，它看起来完全和它所表达的主题没有任何关系，但是通过这种冲突和矛盾，它与它所试图表达的主题变得非常的接近。

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当有了这两种方法的对比关系后，现在让我们来用它分析一个建筑案例。这个案例是库哈斯在1994年设计的迈阿密表演艺术中心。这个未建成的项目并不是大家所熟知的OMA作品，但是在我看来，却是一件被建筑学历史忽略很久的大作。迈阿密表演艺术中心所在的场地是当地一个比较贫穷的区域，当地政府试图把场地上居住的穷人赶走，然后建造一座高档的表演艺术中心，并以此来“提升”该区域的品质。面对这样的一个项目，库哈斯做了一件非常聪明的事情，他设计了一个大的平台，然后把两个剧场放在了这个平台上。从表象上看来，这没有任何奇怪的地方，但是，事实上发生的却是，当那些穿着光鲜亮丽的上流社会，走上这个平台的瞬间，他们就变成了被周围底层社会所观赏的演员。通过这样，库哈斯给予这些上流社会的是，在错位的环境中体验到的由财富带来的尴尬和窘迫感，同时也是对政府行为的一种反讽。也许读者会认为我只是在过分解读，但是这里有更多的证据。在剧院的内部，库哈斯在壁纸的选择上也是煞费苦心，他刻意选择了画有人物在注视着观众的壁纸，就像是时时刻刻在提醒着人们，无论是在室内还是室外，这些来看戏的上流社会观众，都是别人眼中的演员。不过在这个项目的介绍当中，库哈斯丝毫没有提到这些，他只按部就班的讲了一些关于如何把两个不同的剧院组合成一个整体的托词。

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对我来说，这个项目是一个非常恰当的冲突关系代表。在这里，如果作品所尝试表达的主题是面对不负责任的资本市场时，建筑如何提供阻力。那么，如果是使用相似性方法，为了达到这个目的，最后也许会是一个政治表达很激进的设计，或是在行为上如何给这些上流社会观众创造阻力，等等。但是，问题是，这些方法太明显了。在现实的社会，经济，政治环境之下，无法实现。所以，与所想表达的主题相似的设计方法，反而是在把设计推向与主题越来越远的方向。不过，库哈斯在这里所使用的是冲突性方法，表象上看，设计没有任何的政治性阻力，承载两个剧院的平台在行为上也非常容易接近。但是恰恰是通过这种表象与实际内容的相反，设计才能更加接近它所想表达的主题。

中国有句古话，叫做人为刀俎，我为鱼肉。不幸的是，在拥有真正权力的人面前，我们建筑师往往是那个鱼肉。所以，当你是鱼的时候，你最好可以狡猾一点，认识到你的处境，然后试图寻找逆袭的机会。

“Coffee without milk, or coffee without cream.”

Let’s begin with a joke. A man went into a restaurant, and he asked the waitress; “Can I have a coffee without milk, please.” The waitress answers: “Sorry we don’t have milk today, can I give you a coffee without cream.” For me, this is a very interesting moment. It reveals that what you don’t get is also defining what you get, the hidden dimension behind the appearance. How could architecture gain this hidden dimension, beyond the physical form?

Here, I will try to explore this by introduce a juxtaposition of two paintings. The one on the left is Piranesi’s “Interior of the Temple of Neptune from the North”; the one on the right is Picasso’s “Portrait of Ambroise Vollard”. For me, this two drawings can be understood to describe a same subject, which is our synthetic perception. When you see an figure, you don’t just simply see an figure, what you do is you are remembering all kind of things about that figure which you already knew, then you putting them together to form an image of that figure in your head.

For me, Picasso’s painting is trying to describe that situation, subject of this painting is not the man, but the synthetic perception, and it trying to show this system through all the fragment of this figure. The problem is that Picasso’s painting, by mimicking that system, ended up merely a symbolic metaphor of that system, but doesn’t really achieve what that system do, and become really rhetorical.

I think there is a much more interesting relationship between Piranesi’s painting and its subject. So if we look at this painting, we will see a temple occupying an orthogonal grid with walls perpendicular to each other, represented by a static single vanishing point perspectival method. But actually it’s much more dynamic than that, it has two vanishing points. If this is a true perspective, then it means that the one of the colonnade has to be diagonal. But we all know that’s not the case in Temple of Neptune. So what Piranesi did here is by creating a second vanishing point, it shows one of those two colonnades more clear, because if there is just one vanishing point, either the colonnade on the left will be covered, or the colonnade on the right will have a very dramatic perspective angle. By doing this, he didn’t ruin the orthogonal condition of a roman temple, and quite oppositely, this enhanced our perception of a orthogonal temple. This also can be understood as the viewer move through time, and see different parts of a building vanish at different points. Thus, for me, same as the Picasso’s painting, the subject of Piranesi’s painting is also not the temple, but the synthetic perception. But we won’t be aware of this subject. Here, the system is in the background, on the surface, this painting doesn’t look like or represent that system, quite oppositely, its appearance is very contradictory with the synthetic perception. But precisely through this contradictory and non rhetorical method, it gains a similar effect as what we get from our real world synthetic perception.

This diagram is showing this juxtaposition. Both two sides trying to represent a subject or ideology. But their fundamental difference is that one has an analogical relationship with its subject, and it end up as the symbolic metaphor of its subject. The other one and its subject has a contradictory relationship. It looks nothing like its subject, but through this contradictory (the hidden dimension), it get really close to that subject.

Let’s take this juxtaposition and analyze an architectural example. This example is Rem Koolhaas’s Miami Performing Art Center (MPAC), 1994. For me, this is a long forgotten masterpiece from OMA. MPAC was supposed to be located in a poor neighborhood of Miami. The Government wanted to drive out the poor local residences and build this fancy art center. What Rem did is quite clever for me: He designed a platform, then put two theaters on top of that platform. On the surface, there is nothing odd about this. But what actually happened is that when all the bourgeoisie dressing up fancy and nice, walking or driving onto this platform, themselves become the actor for the surrounding poor people to view and they will start to experience the embarrassment of richness in a wrong context. You might think I’m just over reading the meaning of this design, but there is more evidence for this. For the interior of the theater, Rem deliberately chose the wall paper which has figures looking down onto the audience, this constantly reminds us that no matter inside or outside of this theater, there are people watching those audience. If we look at the description of this project, Rem mentioned nothing about this. He only talked about a performing art center that combines the two unique programs of a concert hall and an opera house.

This is a perfect example of Contradictory Method for me. In this case, let’s say the subject or the ideology of this design is to provide resistance to irresponsible capital. In the Analogical Method, in order to do this, you will do a design with aggressive political gestures or a form which makes going into the theater hard, and so on. The problem for this is that it’s too obvious, and probably could never get realized in the social context. Thus, the analogue acting as its subject is actually pushing it away from that subject. But what Rem did is a Contradictory Method. On the surface, you won’t see any political resistance, the platform is easy for audience to access and so on. It seems on the opposite side of that subject. But through this contradictory, it is doing something exactly opposite to its appearance, and get really close to that subject.

There is an old Chinese phrase. Which means “be fish on sb’s chopping block”. It is using to describe a passive situation you found yourself in. Unfortunately, in front of the people with real power, we architects often found ourselves in this kind of situation. So when you are just a fish, you better be a little bit slippery. Be aware of your situation, and then find a way to make a comeback.

MORE: 王耀华Yaohua Wang

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