Photography: © Carol M. Highsmith Library of Congress Collection

Shoring Up Is Hard To Do

由专筑网雷君，刘庆新编译

法恩斯沃斯建筑于1951年完成，在芝加哥州普莱诺西南处五十八英里，一直容易受到洪水的侵袭。它的宁静优雅与周围环境相交融，是由德国建筑师路Ludwig Mies van der Rohe设计的。他设想通过钢柱高跷支架来抵御洪水，用诗意般的设计效果提高室内的品味。

不过流经这条河的水已经减少了很多。第一次房子被淹是在1954年，近年来郊区发展分水岭，将更多的水引流到相邻的狐狸河，抵御了洪水灾害。

由于郊区的发展和气候恶化加剧的严重性以及洪水事件的频率，有两个可能的解决方案可以帮助Mies的Farnsworth住宅摆脱灾害：液压升降系统，在洪水期间将房子抬高（是由它的主人想出的一个解决方案，十一月交房美国国家历史保护信托）；或者，将整个家搬到不易发洪水的地方。（第三选择是将房子填充七英尺，来抬高房子地基。）

但是以上所提都是理想的解决方案。在历史保护的社区，关于面临着不断变化的环境和场地条件而保持建筑的完整性的正确途径常常会有一些有争议的辩论。

最具破坏性的洪水发生在1996年，为期两天的降雨量有17英寸，导致发生历史上严重的洪涝灾害。其中一个家庭的玻璃窗被割破，淤泥进入屋内，石灰地板和被浸湿的由安迪沃霍尔和克拉斯奥尔登堡设计的艺术作品都被破坏。（英国开发商Peter Palumbo是当时的主人，现在房子被作为一个博物馆使用。）

此后，洪水好几次侵袭房屋，最严重的洪水发生在2008年，15英寸的水侵入房屋，隔断了与外界的联系。2013年水文调查委托国家信任和莱特水务工程师进行调查，他们发现周围的地区洪水在每一年的基础上发生了或多或少的变化，是由于春天的融雪和降雨的原因。

保存组织总裁兼首席执行官Bonnie McDonald说，随着气候变化，任何方案都必须考虑保护法“不仅今天的狐狸河，明天的狐狸河也同样如此。去年六月，广泛报道的一则消息，信托可能倾向搬迁的选择，虽然改变了液压千斤顶的选择，搬开了桌子。注意不要直接认可法恩斯沃斯的相关决策，保存任何建筑都会被看作是一个被动的方法。”

她的想法与凯瑟琳马隆相呼应，国民信托的历史遗迹的副总裁，他认同邦妮的观点，认为“早期倡导保护的现代”，鼓励“深度参与”为设计原则，嵌入在组织的最突出的现代居住区这一特性，包括泰德和菲利普约翰逊的玻璃房子。法国的马隆说，“那些时候”对部分人是有影响的，但这也是怀旧的理念，干净美观，这在千禧一代产生共鸣。项目的具体方法是保存原有的平衡重设计意图”和储蓄结构。

环境保护主义者知道保存的代价是什么。液压电梯解决方案是指房子被洪水侵袭时，使水被收集在一个“坑”里，是由1997年密斯的孙子德克罗汉最早提出。他是美国建筑师协会会员，致力于摆脱洪水的侵害，并且一直坚持自己的观点。但其他人认为，这样的做法是不可行的。

Since its completion in 1951, the Farnsworth House, situated 58 miles southwest of Chicago in Plano, Ill., has been susceptible to flooding. Its quiet elegance, delicately placed in communion with its surroundings, was designed by the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and built next to the tempestuous Fox River. Knowing his site, Mies envisioned floodwaters passing underneath the home’s steel-column stilt supports, used to poetic effect to raise the interior.
But the water has not so much passed as it has infiltrated the house. The first time the house flooded was 1954, and in recent years suburban development has sprawled across the site’s watershed and pushed more runoff into the adjacent Fox River, precipitating more flooding.
As suburban development and climate change exacerbate the severity as well as the frequency of these flood events, the fate of Mies’ Farnsworth House is tied to two possible solutions that remove it from harm’s way: a hydraulic lift system that would elevate the house during a flood (a solution that was endorsed by its owner, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in November); or moving the entire home to a nearby, yet less flood prone, location on the site. (A third option, to raise the home on its site by placing it atop nearly 7 feet of infill, has garnered no further discussion.)
None are ideal solutions. And within the historic preservation community, they have inspired an oftentimes contentious battle over the proper approach to maintaining the architectural integrity of the building while grappling with changing environmental and site conditions.
The most damaging flood occurred in 1996, as a historic torrent of 17 inches of rain over a two-day period doused the area. One of the home’s signature plate-glass windows was bashed in by debris, allowing a wave of silt and mud to cake the home’s travertine floors and washing away works of art by Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. (British developer Peter Palumbo owned the home at the time, which is now run as a museum.)
Since then, floodwaters have approached the home on multiple occasions, the most severe flooding occurring in 2008 when 15 inches of water entered the home and prompted its closure to the public. A 2013 hydrological survey commissioned by the National Trust and prepared by Wright Water Engineers, found that flooding of the area around Farnsworth was “expected to happen more or less on an annual basis and may actually occur multiple times in any given year as the river rises and falls periodically in the spring in response to snowmelt and rainfall events.”
Bonnie McDonald, president and CEO of the preservation organization Landmarks Illinois (which relinquished everyday management of the property to the Trust in 2009, but still holds an easement as a result of their partnership with the Trust on the winning bid to procure the home in 2003), says that any solutions employed to preserve Farnsworth must take into account “not only today’s Fox River, but tomorrow’s Fox River,” as a result of increasing climate change. Last June, it was widely reported that the Trust was likely to move forward with the relocation option, although after it endorsed the hydraulic jack option last month, relocation is off the table. Mindful not to speak directly to the pending decisions surrounding Farnsworth, McDonald says, “The approach to [preserving] any building is to look first to a passive approach.”
Her thoughts are echoed by Katherine Malone-France, vice president for historic sites at the National Trust, who—similarly careful not to speak directly of Farnsworth— said the Trust’s “early advocacy for preservation of the modern” encourages a “deep engagement” for the design principles embedded within the organization’s most prominent modern residential properties, including Farnsworth and Philip Johnson’s Glass House. Malone-France, who speaks of a “midcentury moment” happening within the greater public—“It’s partially the Mad Men effect,” she says, “but it is also nostalgia for Boomers, a clean aesthetic that resonates with Millennials”—noted that the Trust takes a “project-specific approach to preservation that balances honoring the original design intent” and saving the structure. (Members of the National Trust staff who work at Farnsworth House declined to comment for this story.)
Some in the preservationist community wonder at what cost the structure will be saved. The hydraulic lift solution—which involves jacking the house out of the flood plain when threatened, allowing water to collect in a “pit” underneath the home—was proposed as early as 1997 by Mies’ grandson Dirk Lohan, FAIA, who performed extensive rehab work on the home after the 1996 flood and remains committed to the idea. For others, such an approach is anathema.

Photographer: Carol M. Highsmith

文奇，美国建筑师协会会员，2015的芝加哥AIA终身成就奖获得者，他反对液压方案。“这些都是有缺陷的解决方案，”文奇说，“设计师做事情必须有依据，不需要把简单的事情复杂化。”

文奇在《芝加哥建筑师》杂志中概述了他对液压解决方案的看法，然后想出一个计划，将房子搬到附近偏东北的一个草地。文奇说，这不仅保存房子的建筑完整性，同时也弥补房子与周边环境的契合，离上世纪60年代修建的公路有200英尺距离；当然了，我们也会衡量调整好房子到公路的距离。

文奇的提议似乎成了推动搬迁的势头的动力，但随着谈话的停顿，一种焦虑感瞬间笼罩了整个房子。亚历克斯AIA合作伙伴，担任法恩斯沃斯的结构工程师一职，Myron Goldsmith发出一封公开信给八月信托来阐述这一系列问题。亚历斯主要反对液压系统，因为这会导致房子和露台分离，它的实施需要新的非原结构支撑。在一次单独的谈话中，他说，“像蒸馏程序一般的法恩斯沃斯，是不容许受到任何干预。家庭的建筑应以其建筑的纯洁性为基础。”

亚历斯也期待着1996年狐狸河流域项目与美国陆军工程兵团的联盟，实施一系列的干预措施，以减轻洪水造成的灾害。在某些程度上，信托表示支持亚历斯的观点，研究水文会参考以前的记录，陆军工程兵团将遵循既定的方案。”

其他人仍然在令人不安的想法中退缩。惠特尼知道性能是最重要的：她从2004年到2012年担任住宅项目的执行董事。

“因为了解建筑的情况和难以形容的精度，这要求设计师必须有经验”她说，“法国人认同任何房子的运动会干扰其设计的绝对性，并想知道可以从什么途径来处理景观，或架设防护结构等问题。”

她在法恩斯沃斯工作时，有一个法国负责开发的工程计划，是由来自代尔夫特大学的学生提出的，将创建一个由两部分组成，钢衬垫结构，当洪水来临时地面可以上升。她说：“当然，如果我们能够设计出一种设备来提升房子的话，我们就可以设计一个装置来防止水进入房子里，把这个装置想象为一个反向的水族馆。”

美国建筑师协会会员菲利斯兰伯特是《美国施格兰密斯建筑》的作者，也许他说的话对密斯项目来说是最权威的声音，他清楚地阐述自己的观点：“别碰房子。”兰伯特承认洪水也许会变得更糟，但相信随着时间的推移，最重要的是调节水上升的高度。

“如果Mies在，我们可以问他怎么做，”他说。“但他不在。我们的责任是尊重房子的原型，对其做到最小程度的伤害。”兰伯特评价Mies“设计的建筑与地形总是很吻合，”引用他早期的作品，从波茨坦、德国瑞尔到西格拉姆大厦、纽约写字楼。兰伯特认为对于Farnsworth住宅的任何改造仅限制在翻新墙壁、替换玻璃，绝不能改变其原来构建架构。

虽然威胁Farnsworth住宅的问题是特殊的地形，但是适当的管理对于形形色色的文化保护项目都具有里程碑意义。邦妮警告说，如果社会变成了我们所无法适应的整体，那么我们将会面临着在气候变迁中失去文化遗产的风险。”

“我们应该尝试使自然、住宅、人类合为一体，”住宅在四年后遭遇第一次洪水时Mies说道。即使在今天，这句话也没有任何讽刺意味，他认为，建筑可以提供一个窗口，从本质上欣赏自然、感受自然。

“通过Farnsworth住宅的玻璃墙观察自然，你会发现比从外表看上去具有更深远的意义，” Mies描述房子的结构：高跷能提升人们的视野，看到水静静地穿过场地。几十年后，住宅的未来就像高跷一样仍然悬而未决，作为建筑师和保护主义者，我们应该努力尊重房子和其周边环境。而信托通过液压举升系统的方案很标新立异，突出了历史保护适应能力，既创新又虔诚。

John Vinci, FAIA, of Vinci | Hamp Architects, winner of the 2015 AIA Chicago Lifetime Achievement Award, was one of the more vocal opponents of the hydraulic proposal. “These are all flawed solutions,” Vinci says, “but architecture has to have its groundings. You don’t turn Mies into Rube Goldberg.”
In an op-ed for Chicago Architect magazine [full disclosure: I served as editor of that magazine from March 2014 to October 2015], Vinci outlined his response to the hydraulic solution by mapping out a plan to move the house to a nearby meadow slightly northeast of the present site. Vinci said that this not only maintains the architectural integrity of the house but also repairs its relationship to the site by situating it some 200 feet further from a highway built in the 1960s; it would place the house roughly the same distance away from the newer highway as it was from the original road.
Vinci’s proposal seemed to be the motivating force behind the momentum for relocation, but with conversation stalled, a sense of anxiety surrounds the house. A partner at Vinci | Hamp, Alex Krikhaar, AIA, who worked as a grad student under the tutelage of Farnsworth’s structural engineer, Myron Goldsmith, sent an open letter to the Trust last August expressing concern over a wide spectrum of issues. Krikhaar’s main objections to the hydraulic system relate to the permanent separation of the house and terrace that its implementation would necessitate, requiring the addition of new non-original structural supports. In a separate conversation, Krikhaar says, “In a work as distilled as Farnsworth, there’s no room for interventions like that. The home’s architecture is based on its architectural purity.”
Krikhaar is also looking forward to a greater alliance with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about their post-1996 flood work on the Fox River Watershed Project, which calls for a series of interventions to alleviate flooding within the watershed. For its part, the Trust, in response to Krikhaar’s concern, stated that their own hydrological studies have referenced previous Army Corps findings, and that “the Army Corps of Engineers will be consulted when a conceptual proposal is selected.”
Others still recoil at any thought of disturbing the house. Whitney French knows the property better than most: She served as the executive director of the Farnsworth House from 2004 until 2012.
“You have to have had the privilege of experience that I had in knowing the house and the indescribable precision to which it was designed,” she says. French believes any movement of the house disturbs its absoluteness, and wonders why other approaches that involve treating the landscape, or erecting protective structures that could stand sentry against the house, aren’t being explored.
During her time at Farnsworth, French oversaw the development of a cursory engineering plan drawn up by students from the University of Delft that would create a two-part, steel-gasketed structure that would rise from the ground during flooding to deflect water. “Certainly if we can engineer a device to raise the house, we can raise a device to prevent water from reaching the house,” she says. “Think of the device as a reverse aquarium.”
Phyllis Lambert, hon. FAIA, the author of Mies in America and Building Seagram, and perhaps the most authoritative voice on Mies’ work, states her preference plainly: “Don’t touch the house.” Lambert acknowledges that flooding will most likely get worse over time but believes, “the most important thing to regulate is the rising of the water.”
“If Mies were around, we could ask him [what to do],” Lambert says. “But he’s not. Our obligation is to do the least damage to the house and respect the site.” Lambert contends that Mies “always made a gesture to properly build in connection to the site,” referencing his early work at the Riehl House in Potsdam, Germany, down to the Seagram Building, the New York office building that Lambert, the daughter of Seagram’s founder Samuel Bronfman, commissioned half a century ago. Lambert believes that any manipulation of Farnsworth that would require deconstruction or the replacement of walls and glass would be akin to “taking your appendix out and putting it back in.”
Although the issues threatening Farnsworth are site-specific, the questions of proper stewardship affecting the landmark resonate for preservationist projects of all stripes on all sites. McDonald, the Landmarks Illinois president, cautions that if the preservationist community as a whole “becomes complete purists where we can no longer adapt, then we run a greater risk of losing our heritage in a changing climate.”
“We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity,” said Mies van der Rohe in 1958, four years after the Farnsworth House’s first flood. Even today, that statement is no great irony—he believed that architecture could provide a window from which nature could be framed and appreciated.
“If you view nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it gains a more profound significance than if viewed from the outside,” Mies van der Rohe went on, describing a structure whose stilt-legs could elevate one’s view of the landscape while, ostensibly, allowing water to quietly pass through the site unencumbered. Decades later, and like the stilts it sits upon, the Farnsworth House’s future remains up in the air, as architects and preservationists work hard to both honor an iconic house and respect its surrounding environment. While the Trust-endorsed hydraulic lift system may seem unconventional, it highlights the capacity of historic preservation to adapt as a resilient practice that can be both innovative and reverent.


出处：本文译自www.architectmagazine.com/，转载请注明出处。