简介

文章从一个西方人的角度，描述了北京城市发展过程的建筑更替，表达了作者对城市古老建筑以及其背后蕴藏的文化记忆的深切关注。


      西方国家花了整整一个世纪来实现城市历史周期性的建筑更替，而在中国这仅仅花了不到十年。中国正是处于这样的一种建设热潮中，而“中国速度”点燃了北京的建筑保护运动。
      在过去的十年里，激增的房地产投资和楼房建设在把北京变成一座现代化大都市的同时，也在摧毁着这座城市古老而独特的街道景观——胡同。一些来自草根阶级的建筑保护运动者已经发出警告：北京胡同四合院里那木梁瓦顶富具文化特色的建筑结构正面临着被高楼大厦钢筋混凝土取代的危险，在不远的将来，人们将再也看不到这些记载了城市古老记忆的特色建筑。
      现在，中国的建筑保护运动者们正努力地去保卫那些剩存下来的古建筑，他们面对着一个新的威胁：旧城改造的中产阶级化(gentrification)。在过去城市建筑更替过程中保存下来为数不多的老四合院，现在成为了这个国家正在兴起的上流社会以及一些富有的外国投资者们身份地位的象征。他们不惜重本地用现代审美眼光精心装点这些古建筑，而这样的做法却使得胡同街道和四合院建筑彻底失去了原有的建筑色彩，他们正在摧毁着一种古老而悠久的生活方式。
      同时，大众对胡同命运的重视间接地导致了社会对其他建筑保护问题的冷漠——很少人会去关注那些五六十年代富有社会主义特色的楼房建筑被破坏的问题。我们面临的历史考验是：旧的建筑景观被如此彻底地改变，在历史回忆与现实生活间我们几乎再也找不到一丝联系。
      胡同的历史可以追述到十三世纪的元朝，蒙古统治者建造了棋盘布局的北京城，人们的公共社会活动在胡同中进行，而私人生活的部分则发生在砖墙后的四合院内，这是当时的城市生活景观。这样的生活方式在新中国成立后的头十年里并没有发生太大的变化，北京城北面的胡同比较富裕，而南面则人口密度要高一些的，也相对的贫穷一些。
      然而到了二十世纪六十年代，北京人口开始了飞速的增长，住房紧缺问题随之而来。原来只住一户人的房子，现在却突然挤进了三四户人家。
      室内空间的拥挤，使新住户们不得不经常将临时的简易厨桌和橱柜塞满整个院子，这使得过去空气清新阳光充足的庭院顿时变成了一个拥挤的养殖场。由于没有基本的排水管道，很快就连较富裕的胡同也彻彻底底地变成了的贫民窟。
      五十年代和六十年代北京城开始向外扩展，包围老北京城区的古代城墙在这轮现代化的建设中被摧毁，而工厂和住宅楼则如雨后春笋般出现在城市中心周围，四五层高的社会主义特色公寓包围了整个城市。
      上个世纪末，随着自由市场改革的进行，中国开始了新一轮的建设潮，一些房地产投资商看到了这城市建筑更替潮中潜在的商机。北京成功获得奥运举办权无疑在加快着这股建设热潮，为了迎接外国游客的到来，北京已经开展了规模巨大的贫民区清拆工程。
      天安门广场南面的前门大街一带曾经是一个贫穷但繁华的社区，过去那里聚集了很多茶馆和剧院，不过现在那些古老的胡同景观已经被商业大楼的冷漠外墙所取代，那些后现代的建筑尽管只落成了几年，看起来却已经是那么的残破不堪。
      这一带唯一仅存的旧建筑是北京的其中一座古城门，那些巨大的石块如今被脚手架和彩带紧紧地围了起来，过去城墙边上那熙熙攘攘的商业街被改造成了八车道大马路，人行天桥则成了过马路的唯一途径。
      城市现代发展对胡同文化以及其背后历史记忆的毁灭性破坏在知识分子中引起了强烈的反响，像Hua Xinmin和记者Wang Jun这样的胡同保护者们开始组织小规模的抗议，并在一些媒体上发表文章表达他们对胡同命运的担忧。后来，他们的声音引来了西方社会的关注，胡同问题变成了国际性的话题。
      在全力筹办和谐奥运的大环境下，北京政府对这样的问题变得极其敏感，迅速地制定了要在城市中建立25个历史建筑保护区的草案。在过去的几年里，除去一些意外的情况，城市建筑的更替速度的确有了明显的减慢。
      不过北京胡同保护的问题不能仅仅归结在对文化漠不关心的政府或者贪婪的开发商身上，这也反映着许多中国人的心态。在七十年代的时候北京城里最令人向往的住宅不是胡同里的四合院，而是政府建设的公寓，因为那是当时社会地位的象征。
      中国的中产阶级对胡同有着根深蒂固的偏见。Yan Weng是一名富有远见的建筑师，他曾经住在前门大街，可是最近却搬进了高楼。他认为“对于像我们这样在毛主席年代长大的人来说，心里最理想的住宅始终是政府的复合公寓。尽管已经过去这么多年了，但这样的心态并没有改变太多”。
      同时他也提到，在经济飞速发展的新中国，贫富差距导致了北京的犯罪率上升问题和居民的城市安全感的缺失。“那个路不拾遗夜不闭户的时代已经过去了。”
      有些面临住房拆迁问题的居民也许会反对兴建新建筑，但这主要是因为政府或者开发商给予的赔偿太低，又或者是他们不愿意离开市中心搬去那些他们负担得起的郊区房子，很少人会真正意识到胡同是这个城市珍贵的建筑遗产。
      如今知识分子和那些富翁们历史认知的提升在解放着另一种极具文化破坏力的购买力。四合院在建筑史上的独特价值使得它们成为了富人们的新追求，外国富翁和中国暴发户买下这些房子，花几百万去翻新装修，他们这些粗鲁的行为夺走了一座古老建筑所具有的灵魂。
      在那个遥远的年代里，两三代人同睡在一个小小的房子里，一起生活在院子和胡同外。那时街上各种小商铺林立，老人们坐在折叠椅上悠闲地着玩扑克，偶尔路过一个骑自行车的小伙，生活如山涧流水般恬静。
      今天一对经济富裕的夫妇和他们的独生子女可以生活在那过去不得不挤满一箩子人的房屋内，他们不必忍受露天厨房或者角落里的公共厕所，现在的住宅为他们提供了一体化的厨房、包括桑拿和SPA的舒适浴室，还有崭新的地下停车库。据说最近中国的一个工业巨头甚至还在地下建了一个游泳池。过去那些曾经充满生活气息的街道，现在却变得如墓地般死寂，就像美国的小城区(American subdivisions)那样，平淡无奇。
      Nanluogu巷位于北京城东北的东城区，是一条四合院和小商铺错综复杂的狭长胡同，不久前当地的开发商将这里买了下来并修复了那些太过破旧的地方，现在胡同里的建筑被出租给销售旅游纪念品的商店。它看起来有点像怪异的中国版SoHo Prince Street：一个充满古旧历史气氛的露天商场。街道的两旁是T-shirt店、咖啡厅和面向游客的餐饮中心，外国旅游客手里拿着旅游指南，漫无目的地行走在街上，全身心浸泡在一种独特的文化气息中。
      胡同不远处的一扇门上贴着手写的四合院旅游广告，一个身材瘦小的老妇人打开门，领你进了院子，一个中年男人（也许是她的儿子）在院子的角落里摆弄着他的自行车。妇人在厨房向你展示一些古老的残旧发黄的相片，一名军官，也许是她的祖父。旁边破旧的餐桌上摆放着一些历史悠久的小玩意(tchotchke)。
      离开四合院时，我不自觉地意识到，那位努力向外人展示自己财富的老妇人，很快就将被迫离开这座已开发商买下的古老建筑。尽管这是她曾经生活了几十年的家。
      在美国的城市里这样的情况经常发生。所有建筑历史学家都知道，贫穷有利于保存古建筑。穷人们缺乏频繁更新住房环境的经济能力，但是如果一个富商搬进了一个破旧的地方，他们所做的第一件事往往是雇佣一大队的修补匠，又或者，拆迁工。经济实力有限的建筑保护主义者们提出一个Faustian式的妥协：只要保护好建筑的基本结构，而无须去在意屋子里到底正发生着怎么样的事情。由于缺少政府的积极介入，打破这种建筑的保存模式几乎毫无可能。
      对于北京，在保护胡同文化的同时，五六十年代共产主义时期建造的各种复合公寓也正得到相应的重视。这些建筑给人的第一眼感觉也许会像其他现代公寓一样普通：长、楼层低矮、建筑物中间是松散地栽着几棵树的庭院。为了避免安装电梯，中国政府将这些楼限制在四五层高，灰砖砌的外墙与传统的沥青屋顶、外挑房檐一起，演绎着一种剥离式的现代美学。
      这些公寓建筑混合了中国的传统特色文化与社会主义公共生活部分的价值观念。那个年代所有城市工人都享受着住房分配，通常公寓里都配备了像诊所和供销社这样的社会服务设施。
      正如四合院明确了居民公共生活与私人空间的划分，现代公寓的中心花园也有着相同的功能，只不过是规模变得更大了而已。在现代公寓里，大部分的房间只是睡房大小，房客们通常共用了一个厨房。
      过去很多人对共用生活设施很反感，他们在自己的房间外架起了灶台和餐桌，这给公寓的走廊添加了一份胡同里头那种拥挤的气氛。这些建筑的价值更多地体现在它们对人们社会生活方式的影响，而不是单纯的建筑学术价值。它们建造于那个城市变革年代，相比那些平淡一致的中产阶级社区(gentrified neighborhoods)，这些古老建筑的存在给旧城区增添了一种强烈的文化气息。
      “一个大的公寓就像一座微型城市”，Yung Ho Chang说。他是一名北京建筑师，最近成为Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工）建筑学院的系主任。“人们生活在学校、餐馆和商场里，但通常你无法知道他们具体在哪里。他们活在一堵堵墙的背后。”
      Chang先生说，经常出现的情况是，破旧的四五层楼高的建筑被拆毁，然后腾出的空地上又会出现新的更高的大楼。“但这些建筑的本质始终是一致的。我们不知道在这些楼房被拆毁的同时，我们还失去了什么”。
      在一个健全的社会里，政府在实施城市建筑更替前，总是会足够耐心地仔细评估每条街道、每栋建筑背后的历史意义与价值。一些有想法的建筑师在尝试去寻求一种新的古建筑保存方案。近来在中国风头正盛的荷兰建筑师Rem Koolhaas认为，选择某个具体建筑物作为代表保护起来这样的保存旧建筑方式是一种扭曲历史的表现。他提出了另一种的设想：在城市中划出一片楔型的空间，里面所有的城市建筑，无论是胡同样式的还是社会主义风格的，都将被永久地保存下来。这样我们得到将是一系列活生生的博物馆，就算周围城市的环境发生了巨大的改变，这里永远定格在历史上的那一刻。
      他的建议听起来更像是一种过于理想的设想而并非实际解决问题的方案，但毫无疑问的是，中国政府应该停下来认真地去思考这样一个问题：在发展的过程中，这个国家到底失去了什么？问题的答案无论是对北京还是整个世界来说，都是意义深远的。
      然而，留给北京的时间已经不多了。

注：
Gentrification —— 旧城改造的中产阶级化，指由于城市发展，低收入社区中涌入大量高收入居民，这导致了当地物价的上涨以及原本社区文化的彻底改变

SoHo —— 纽约曼哈顿的一个区，以富具艺术气息的商业街闻名

tchotchke —— 外来词，源自Yiddish，指琐碎的小东西

Faustian —— Faust是一个德国传奇故事中的人物，他通过与恶魔订下永不满足的协定获得了力量与永生，最后却因为对生活的迟疑而被魔鬼Mephistopheles夺去了生命。Faustian被用来形容那些短期可行但会带来长期隐患的想法和行为。

Lost in the New Beijing: The Old Neighborhood
A man beside his partly demolished home in one of Beijing’s classic hutong neighborhoods. The rapid encroachment of the modern city has preservationists alarmed. More Photos >
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: July 27, 2008
BEIJING


HISTORICAL cycles that took a century to unfold in the West can be compressed into less than a decade in today’s China. And that’s as true of Beijing’s preservation movement as it is of the nation’s ferocious building boom.
The explosion of construction activity that has transformed Beijing into a modern metropolis over the past decade also turned many of its historical neighborhoods — known for their narrow alleyways, or hutongs — into rubble. As grass-roots preservationists began sounding the alarm, the aging wood frames and tile roofs of the ancient courtyard houses that give these neighborhoods their identity were being supplanted so quickly by mighty towers that it was hard to pinpoint where they once stood.
Now, as they labor to protect what remains, Chinese preservationists are facing a new, equally insidious threat: gentrification. The few ancient courtyard houses that survived destruction have become coveted status symbols for the country’s growing upper class and for wealthy foreign investors. As more and more money is poured into elaborate renovations, the phenomenon is not only draining these neighborhoods of their character but also threatening to erase an entire way of life.
Meanwhile the intense focus on the fate of the hutongs has eclipsed an equally pressing preservation issue, the demolition of Socialist-style housing from the 1950s and ’60s. The imminent threat is historical censorship: a vision of the past that is so thoroughly edited that it will soon have little relation to the truth.
The hutong neighborhoods date to the 13th century, when Beijing’s chessboard grid was created by the Mongol founders of the Yuan dynasty. The layout of the neighborhoods, with public life spilling into the hutong alleyways and private life hidden behind brick walls in the courtyard houses, remained largely unchanged in the first decade or so after the Communist takeover in 1949. The wealthy hutong neighborhoods were mostly to the north, and the denser, poorer neighborhoods were south of the Forbidden City.
Starting in the 1960s, however, as Beijing’s population soared, a housing shortage developed. Suddenly three or four extended families were often packed into a courtyard house that had once been occupied by a single family.
Starved for space, the new residents often filled the courtyards with makeshift kitchens and sheds, transforming what had been airy, light-filled spaces into a suffocating warren of rooms. Few had basic plumbing, and soon even the wealthier hutongs had deteriorated into slums.
Meanwhile, as the city expanded outward in the 1950s and ’60s, the ancient stone walls that encircled old Beijing were demolished as part of a sweeping modernization. Factories and housing compounds began sprouting in the ancient center. A new ring of housing, the four- and five-story, Socialist-style apartment compounds, began to envelop the city.
The current wave of demolitions was under way by the early 1990s as free-market changes gained momentum, and real estate speculators saw potential profit in redevelopment. It accelerated after Beijing’s bid to play host to the Olympics was accepted in 2001 and the city began a substantial slum-clearance program to prepare for foreign visitors.
In the Qianmen area, for example, a once poor but thriving neighborhood south of Tiananmen Square that was home to many of the city’s teahouses and theaters, hutongs have been replaced by shopping malls and office blocks with ugly postmodern facades that already look dilapidated, although many are only a few years old.
Here all that remains of the past is one of the old Beijing city gates, its mountainous stone form encased in scaffolding and surrounded by ribbons of elevated freeways. The bustling commercial strip that once traced the path of the wall has been widened into an eight-lane boulevard that can be crossed only by pedestrian bridges.
The demolition of the hutong neighborhoods and the cultural memory they embodied caused an outcry among the city’s intelligentsia. Advocates like Hua Xinmin and the journalist Wang Jun began organizing small protests and writing articles that eventually attracted Western attention and grew into an international cause.

[ 本帖最后由 smus 于 2008-7-29 18:24 编辑 ]

Growing more sensitive to such criticism in the buildup to the Olympic Games, the government drafted a conservation plan designating 25 protected historic zones in the city center. Despite some violations the pace of the demolitions seems to have slowed significantly over the last few years.
But the hutongs’ fate cannot be attributed solely to an indifferent government or ruthless developers; the demolitions also reflect the new aspirations of many Chinese. By the 1970s the most coveted housing in Beijing was not courtyard dwellings in hutong districts but gated government-built compounds, which were a sign of social status.

So ingrained is the bias against hutong living among middle-class people that Yan Weng, a forward-looking architect who once lived in the Qianmen neighborhood, told me that he had recently moved into a high-rise. “For those of us who grew up in Mao’s China, the government complexes were always the ideal,” he said. “And that has not changed much.”

What is more, he said, the widening gap between rich and poor in the frenzied economy of the new China has brought a rise in crime and a growing sense of insecurity in Beijing. “I wouldn’t feel very safe today in a community without gates,” Mr. Yan said.

And among residents whose neighborhoods face demolition, the chief objections are a lack of compensation from the government or developers and having to move far from the city center to find an affordable place to live. Few see the hutong areas as treasured historical landmarks.

Meanwhile the growing historical awareness among intellectuals and the wealthy has unleashed a different set of destructive capitalist forces. The courtyard houses’ sudden architectural cachet has made them coveted status symbols for people with seemingly unlimited resources. As affluent foreigners and China’s new rich buy the houses, they are embarking on multimillion-dollar renovations that are robbing the neighborhoods of their souls.

When two or three generations were packed into a single house, family life spilled out into the courtyards and narrow alleyways. Streets were lined with tiny shops and food stands; elderly people sat on folding chairs playing card games as bicycles streamed by.

Today a well-off couple may live with a single well-behaved child in a courtyard home that once housed more than a dozen people. Instead of cooking outdoors or walking to the corner to use a toilet, the nuclear family installs a state-of-the-art kitchen and bathroom with sauna and spa and parks a car in a new underground garage. One Chinese magnate recently added an underground pool. Streets that once teemed with life are as silent as churchyards — and as banal as some American subdivisions.

The results are striking in places like Nanluogu Xiang, a narrow hutong neighborhood in the Dongcheng district northeast of the Forbidden City. Once a thriving neighborhood of mismatched courtyard houses and shopfronts, it was purchased by a local developer who renovated its most decrepit dwellings and rented its storefronts out to tourist shops. Today it looks eerily like a Chinese version of Prince Street in SoHo: an open-air mall dressed up in historical facades. The street is lined with T-shirt shops, coffee shops and cafes catering to tourists. Foreigners walk aimlessly up and down the street, guidebooks in hand, soaking up the phony cultural atmosphere.

Just a few steps down an alleyway, a handwritten sign on a door advertises a tour of a traditional courtyard house. Knock, and a petite old woman opens the door and leads you into the courtyard, where a middle-aged man, perhaps her son, is repairing a bicycle in a corner workshop. Then she takes you into the kitchen, where she proudly shows you some brittle old photographs of her grandfather, an army officer. An assortment of tchotchkes are arranged on a battered kitchen table.

As you leave, you can’t help thinking that the old woman, who is trying gamely to tap into the wealth being generated around her, will be forced out before long when a developer sets his sights on the house.

[ 本帖最后由 smus 于 2008-7-29 18:21 编辑 ]

It is a familiar pattern in American cities. The sad truth, as any architectural historian knows, is that poverty is often good for preservation; poor people lack the resources to tear down and rebuild houses every generation. Once an affluent homeowner moves into a faded landmark, the first thing he or she does is bring in an army of restorers — or bulldozers. Preservationists, who tend to have limited economic clout, strike a Faustian bargain: better to save the basic architecture and let others worry about what goes on inside. Breaking the pattern without aggressive government intervention seems almost impossible.

Meanwhile the destruction of a variety of Communist-era housing complexes from the 1950s and ’60s has been well under the radar. At first glance these structures might be considered typical of Modernist housing anywhere: long, low apartment blocks arranged around a communal courtyard decorated with a scattering of trees. To avoid the cost of installing elevators, the Chinese government limited most of the structures to four or five stories. Their gray brick exteriors often combine a stripped-down Modernist aesthetic with a few traditional details like a pitched roof with curved overhanging eaves.

Yet these apartment buildings reflect a fascinating mix of traditional Chinese social patterns and Communist ideas about communal living. In those days all urban workers were assigned to work units that provided housing. Often the housing block offered social services like clinics and organized communal food purchases.

As with the courtyard houses, there was a rich hierarchy of public and private zones. The central garden served the same function as the courtyard, at much larger scale. Inside, most private rooms were no larger than a smallish bedroom, so that tenants would be encouraged to mix with others in the communal kitchens.

Over the years plenty of tenants rebelled against the communal arrangements. Many set up tables and hot plates just outside their private rooms, giving the corridors some of the messy feel of the crowded old hutongs. The importance of these structures, then, has more to do with their social texture than with their formal value as architecture. Built at the edges of the historical city, they imbue the old neighborhoods with a richness and texture that have become powerful counterpoints to the dull, pretty uniformity of the gentrified neighborhoods.

“The largest ones are really micro-cities,” said Yung Ho Chang, a Beijing architect who recently became the dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s architecture school. “People who live there have their own schools, restaurants and supermarkets. But you often don’t know they are there. They are behind these big walls.”

What typically occurs, Mr. Chang said, is that the old four- and five-story buildings are demolished to make way for flashier high-rises. “The basic configuration remains the same,” he said. “Because they are so hidden, we don’t even know what has been demolished.”

In a saner world, of course, the powers that be would have the patience to appraise this history layer by layer, street by street, building by building, one voice at a time, before plowing forward. Short of that, some thoughtful architects have sought to invent new ways of thinking about preservation. The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, who seems to be everywhere in China these days, has argued that designating specific buildings as landmarks creates a distorted version of history. Rather he has proposed carving out a protected wedge through the city in which all of the city’s historical layers, from hutongs on through the Communist-style projects, would be permanently preserved. The result would be a sort of living museum, a place fixed in time even as tumultuous changes unfold around it.

His suggestion seems more like a provocation than a serious prescription. Yet it is clear that the Chinese government needs to take a deep breath and ponder what it is sacrificing from the nation’s recent and ancient past. It could develop a sweeping strategy that could serve as a model not only for Beijing, but also for the rest of the world.

Time, it seems, is the one thing Beijing hasn’t got.