Alastair Philip Wiper finds "noble failure" at Breuer's Modernist Flaine ski resort

由专筑网Ann，刘庆新编译

照片文章：为什么有一些人很讨厌弗拉尼的建筑？为了探寻其中的缘由，摄影师Alastair Philip Wiper来到了位于法国阿尔卑斯山脉的现代主义风格的滑雪胜地，它由马歇•布劳耶设计，然而通常被形容为“冷漠”的建筑。

在20世纪60年代，Eric 和 Sylvie Boissonnas获得了该片土地的所有权，他们计划把这里打造为一个滑雪胜地，同时使之成为一个卓越的现代主义作品。

委托人邀请了匈牙利建筑师布劳耶来设计滑雪场，此时的布劳耶已经离开从前在包豪斯时期的导师格罗皮乌斯，在纽约经营着一家事务所。布劳耶设计了一系列预制混凝土建筑——在一定程度上，利用材料达到与周围环境的完美融合。

Photo essay: why do some people hate the architecture of Flaine? To find out, photographer Alastair Philip Wiper travelled to the Marcel Breuer-designed Modernist ski resort in the French Alps often referred to as "phlegm".
Flaine was commissioned in 1960 by Eric and Sylvie Boissonnas, who had acquired the site with the idea of creating a skiing destination that would also be a Modernist "masterpiece".
They invited the Hungarian architect, who was running his own firm in New York having split with his former Bauhaus mentor Walter Gropius, to design the resort. Breuer created a series of pre-cast concrete buildings – a material chosen partly to complement the rocks of the surrounding mountains.

这座建筑与自然景观共存，并非与之格格不入。

由于预算超支和工程延期，导致度假村在1969年——也就是布劳耶在纽约设计的惠特尼博物馆建成三年之后——才开始营业，如今惠特尼艺术博物馆旧址被改造成大都会艺术博物馆布劳耶分馆重新开放。

摄影师Wiper表示，混凝土材质的旅馆和公共建筑并不符合游客们对这里的期待，他们更加青睐传统的高山小屋，因此弗拉尼的建筑受到了冷落。

摄影师相信近期大批现代主义与粗野主义的追随者的出现，能够重拾布劳耶的建筑情怀，并在图文中对此进行了解释。

The buildings were placed in a way that was also meant to work with, rather than against, the natural landscape.
Cost overruns and delays meant that the resort didn't open until 1969 – three years after Breuer's Brutalist Whitney Museum building in New York, which recently reopened as The Met Breuer.
According to Wiper, the concrete hotels and public buildings didn't go down well with visitors looking for more traditional Alpine cabins, leading to the neglect of Flaine's structures.
In this photo essay, the photographer explains why he believes that the recent surge of interest in Modernism and Brutalism could help restore Breuer's vision for Flaine.

“多么精彩的场景！我们怎样才能避免对它的破坏呢？” 马歇•布劳耶，弗拉尼的建筑设计师，1960年。

然而通过谷歌搜索，显示了一项事实：大多数人认为这里非常丑陋。

"What a wonderful site! How do we avoid spoiling it?" Marcel Breuer, architect of Flaine, 1960
A quick Google of the purpose-built skiing resort of Flaine reveals one thing above all else: most people think it is extremely ugly.

在20世纪60年代，作为包豪斯现代主义流派备受尊敬并享有声望的拥护者之一，马歇•布劳耶设计的度假胜地（其中的大部分被法国文化部门列入文物保护名录）没有流于世俗，而是充满了现代情怀。

弗拉尼的创始人Eric Boissonnas表示：“我们在1959年的时候计划在法国建造一个有关城市规划和建筑设计的蓝本，比起项目的直接盈利，我们更注重审美品质和对环境的尊重。”

Built in the 1960s by one of the most respected and renowned proponents of Modernist Bauhaus architecture, Marcel Breuer, the resort (much of which is listed as protected by the French Ministry of Culture) had nothing but noble intentions.
"We came up with the idea in 1959 to create, somewhere in France, a prototype for urban planning, architecture and design, the immediate profitability of which would be less important than aesthetic choices and respect for the environment," said Eric Boissonnas, founder of Flaine, in 1994.

作为地球物理工程师，Eric和妻子非常痴迷于建筑设计和现代艺术，而冬季体育运动在当时的法国日趋流行，于是他们决定投身于此。他们组建了一个团队，考察地形并着手开始“一种新的山区生活方式的住宅概念设计”。

关于滑雪度假村，大多人的理想场景是舒适的小屋和篝火

布劳耶因纽约惠特尼博物馆和巴黎联合国教科文组织总部大厦设计而崭露头角，最为人熟知还有瓦西里椅和B32悬挑椅，因此Eric委托马歇•布劳耶来将这个充满理想与雄心的建筑付诸实践，项目开始于1961年。

度假村内无车辆通行，通过自身的颜色和形态呼应着周围山体和环境。“建筑不应随波追流，而应该反映出整体的耐久品质。建筑设计基于实用性，而非对称性，建筑意图、精神与社会责任理应更明确，建造者不能受到传统的束缚，而是自由大胆，是科学的，人类的，非传统的。”布劳耶表示。

A geophysical engineer by trade, Eric and his wife Sylvie became fascinated by architecture, design and Modern art, and decided that they wanted to involve themselves in the burgeoning winter sports industry in France. They built a team, found a location and embarked on a project that they saw as building "a housing concept designed for a new mountain lifestyle".

Most people's idea of a nice skiing holiday involves cosy cabins and log fires
Marcel Breuer, known among other things for designing the former Whitney Museum in New York, the UNESCO Palace in Paris, and most recognisably the Wassily and B32 chairs, was chosen as architect for the ambitious new project and work began in 1961.
The resort was to be car-free, and designed to reflect the surrounding mountains in its use of colour and shape. "Buildings should not be subject to fads, but reflect a general and lasting quality," said Breuer. "Architecture must be based on utility. Irrespective of symmetry, its intentions should be more direct, as well as its moral and social responsibility... The builder should feel free to reject tradition, free to be scientific, human, nontraditional."

度假村在1969年对外开放，在接下来的几年里，获得了一个公共艺术展的支持，进行永久性的户外雕塑展，其中不乏毕加索、维克托•瓦萨雷里、让•杜布菲、卡尔•奈沙赫这样的大师，这绝对会让大部分城市十分羡慕。

那么，问题出在哪里了呢？

Easyjet Traveller杂志看到我之前为另一个二十世纪60年代滑雪场拍摄的概念摄影作品，所以委托我在这一滑雪度假村进行拍摄。我曾听闻弗拉尼，也非常期待看到它的真实相貌——我想弄明白为什么人们不喜欢它。

The resort opened in 1969 and during the following years acquired a public art collection that would be envied by most large cities – permanent outdoor sculptures were installed by the likes of Picasso, Victor Vasarely, Jean Dubuffet and Carl Nesjar.
So, what went wrong?
I was commissioned to photograph the resort by Easyjet Traveller magazine, who had seen the work I had done on another conceptual 1960s purpose-built skiing resort, Avoriaz. I had heard about Flaine before and was eager to see what it was really like – you see, I had a theory about why everybody disliked the architecture so much.

我生于20世纪80年代，父母及长辈们一直不断提到现在的一切都毁于上世纪60年代——城市中心、住宅区、停车场、图书馆、医院——这一切的罪魁祸首就是混凝土和不切合实际的乌托邦式现代主义。

我的父母并不是建筑爱好者，来到弗拉尼的大部分游客也同样不是——很遗憾它被冠以“冷漠”的称号——到了上世纪80年代，现代主义混凝土材质不仅仅是不受欢迎，而且被当做一切事物对立面的一种符号，从而受到城镇规划和城市改建的抵制。

建筑成为了其自身的外壳

它没有效仿大多数人眼中理想的滑雪度假村的状态，也不像打破人与自然平衡状态的那些拥挤不堪的混凝土建筑物们。

Growing up in the 1980s I was constantly reminded by my parents and their contemporaries that everything had been ruined in the 1960s – town centres, housing estates, car parks, libraries, hospitals – and the main culprit was concrete and Modernist ideas about a utopian future gone badly wrong.
My parents are not architecture aficionados, and neither are most of the people that go skiing in Flaine – or "phlegm" as it has unfortunately become known – but by the time the 1980s rolled round, Modernist concrete was not only extremely unfashionable but also almost offensive as a symbol of everything that had been cocked up by town planning and urban redevelopment.

The resort is a shell of its former self
Not to mention the fact that most people's idea of a nice skiing holiday involves cosy cabins and log fires, not being packed like sardines into huge concrete blocks that seem to be the very antithesis of man and nature existing in harmony.

当我渐渐长大，我喜欢上了视觉艺术，于是开始重新审视这些被父辈们厌恶的建筑物，发现其中的大部分我竟然十分喜欢。

不可否认，大部分确实是糟糕的——甚至不幸的取代了一些存在上百年的建筑——但是当我了解到更多的建筑思潮及其缘由时，我理解了并且欣赏它们。

所以我带着开放的心态来考量弗拉尼，感觉它其实并没有那么糟糕，我感受到的，是一种崇高的落寞。

As I got older and became interested in "visual" things, I began to re-evaluate these buildings that my parents generation hated so much and found that there was something I liked about a lot of them.
True, a lot of them are just awful – and tragically replaced buildings that had stood for hundreds of years – but as I learned more about the architectural movement and the intentions behind it, I understood and appreciated it more.
So off to Flaine I went, with an open mind and a feeling that there was going to be something not so bad about this place after all. What I found was a noble failure.

我理解并且赞赏布劳耶为建筑所做的努力，滑雪度假村里有一些完全出自建筑师之手的精彩细节：小教堂、门把手、壁炉、标志、窗户等等，还有令人叹为观止的弗拉尼旅馆——度假村的第一座建筑——从悬崖边缘挑出，简直不可思议，充满戏剧性。

但是现在它已经成为一具空壳——原本的四星级旅馆，历经多年的荒废，现在就像是破旧的青年旅馆。

置身其中的建筑体验影响了我们看待建筑的方式

在试图判断度假村的建筑成败与否的时候，能够明确的一点是它的建筑和气氛并未受到欢迎，在这一点上，距建成不足50年的现在，似乎也没有验证布劳耶的建筑信仰“具有普遍性和持久性的品质”。

I understand and admire what Breuer was trying to achieve, and there are some wonderful details in the resort all designed by the architect himself: the chapel, the door handles, the fireplaces, the signs, the windows and the amazing, cliff-hanging Hotel le Flaine – the first structure to be built – dramatically jutting out over a precipice.
But the resort is a shell of its former self – years of neglect have left the interiors of the buildings, which were designed as four-star hotels, feeling more like the crappest youth hostel you have ever stayed in.

The way that we look at the buildings is affected by our experience of being inside them
One thing that stands out above all else when trying to judge whether the resort was a success or a failure, is that the architecture and the atmosphere it creates is almost universally disliked, and at this point in time – less than 50 years since completion – certainly does not embody the motto of Breuer that the architecture should "reflect a general and lasting quality".

这不是喜爱或厌恶的问题，似乎更多的只是出于讨厌（尽管滑雪在另一方面的名声一直不错）。我不讨厌，也不喜欢，可是我认为它非常有趣。

从外观上审视这些建筑时，我们的态度受到了一些其他因素的影响，比如曾对建筑的接触与了解，或曾身处其中获得的建筑体验，可它们已经荒废已久，已经脱离了布劳耶的初衷，从这一点上看来，如此评价它是不公平的。

现在情况正有所好转，布劳耶的建筑经过翻修开放了一家新的酒店——特尔米纳尔内之 - 托腾酒店，设施非常完备，为沉寂已久的度假村注入了新的活力。现代主义与粗野主义思潮正在复苏，Totem Neige酒店也延续了布劳耶的建筑理念。

It is not a love/hate thing, it seems to be more of just a hate thing (the skiing on the other hand has always had a very good reputation). While I certainly don't hate it, I don't love it either – but it is very interesting.
I think that the way that we look at the buildings from the outside is affected by our experience of interacting with them and being inside them, and they have been so neglected and brought to a state that is so far from Breuer's ideal that it is almost unfair to judge them in this light.
Things are changing, a new hotel has opened in a refurbished Breuer building, the Totem Neige, and it has been done very well, breathing what feels like the first breath of new life into the resort in a long time. Interest in Modernist and Brutalist architecture is undergoing a resurgence, and at the Totem Neige the spirit behind Breuer's version of the resort has been kept.

我们只能希望，在弗拉尼出现更多适宜的酒店建筑：遵循原本的设计理念，使这座本应不同寻常的度假村重获新生，成为一段特定时期一种独特思考方式的典型案例。

One can only hope that more hotels in Flaine follow suit: giving a rebirth to what could be a very unusual resort if it's original concept is adhered to, and a shining example of a certain way of thinking at a certain time.

出处：本文译自www.dezeen.com/，转载请注明出处。