“建筑表现：如果你不告诉我们在哪里，那么告诉我们可以去哪里”
"Renderers: if you can't show us where we are, show us where we might go"

由专筑网邢子，吴静雅编译

Aaron Betsky表示，无论是在小型客户会议还是在大银幕上，兜售幻想的建筑表现都需要以改善世界的雄心为基础，而不仅仅是对现实的巧作粉饰。

篝火的余烬在河岸旁燃烧，远处的瀑布向我们蜿蜒涌来，而瀑布被那高耸入云的山峰所遮蔽。一只狗，耷拉着舌头，守着一条被拉到岸边的独木舟，对着在河边游水的鸭子。那是秋天；一些树已经变红了——奇怪的是，变红的也包括几棵冷杉。

在这林间景色的中央，有一座玻璃房子，向我们展露出来了四分之三，室内有炉火，也有隐蔽的电灯。一个隐藏在背景中的人，我们认为是现代主义和后现代主义的魔术师——菲利普•约翰逊（Philip Johnson）本人。

Whether for client meetings or the silver screen, architectural renderings that sell fantasy need to be grounded in ambitions for improving the world, rather than sugar-coated versions of reality, says Aaron Betsky.
The last embers of a campfire glow by the shore of a river, meandering towards us from a waterfall overshadowed by mountain peaks rising into the clouds. A dog, its tongue hanging from its mouth, guards a canoe that has been pulled onto the shore against the ducks paddling around the river. It is fall; some of the trees – including, strangely, several of the firs – have turned red.
And there, in the centre of this sylvan scene, is the Glass House, turned towards us in three-quarter view, its interior glowing with its own fire, as well as with hidden electric lights. A figure, which we assume is the magician of both modernism and postmodernism, Philip Johnson himself, lurks in the background.


现在主义建筑的混搭，如勒•柯布西耶的Villa Savoye，以及Thomas Kinkade的画作来自Twitter用户@robyniko／The mash-ups of modernist architecture, like Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, and paintings by Thomas Kinkade are created by Twitter user @robyniko

历史的长河中很少遇到如此奇特的景色，至少在其建筑的支流上没有。这张图片是由匿名推特用户@robyniko发布的四张照片之一。它们基于已故画家托马斯•金凯德（Thomas Kinkade）的作品，后者将＂光之绘者＂（Painter of light）这个名字作为商标，他把自己田园光辉的形式变成了一个在美国各地画廊都有的产业（他的继承人积极保护着这个商标，因此表现者身份不详）。

除了玻璃屋的图片，你还可以在网上找到萨伏伊别墅（Villa Savoye）旁边的马拉雪橇，包括马在内，似乎没有人注意到这一点。范斯沃斯住宅被描绘成了一个郊区的亭子，时而汹涌澎湃的福克斯河被瀑布旁点缀着百合的池塘所取代，而春天的花朵则围绕着一个孤零零的气体灯柱绽放。

弗兰克•盖里（Frank Gehry）自己的房子被从圣塔莫尼卡迁移到了一个多岩石的海岸上，在那里同样的灯柱与夕阳竞争，将建筑物标志性的波纹和镀锌墙板映得通红。

“你可以把这些图片看作是我们当前政治和社会气候的隐喻”

谁说现代主义不能是温暖和模糊的？当然，在这些图片中确实是这样，虽然这种光彩肯定也会造成一些令人不安的感觉。

从现代主义的角度来看，拼贴画破坏了这样的建筑与特定的场地和功能相关联的主张——尽管他们使用了大规模生产的材料以及一般甚至通用的设计规则，同时也体现了根据理性和效率来重塑环境的设计能力。

在这些图像中，自然主宰着一切，现代主义的清晰线条只是他们所定义的家的安全的一层薄薄的面纱。

The river of history has rarely run by such a strange scene, at least not along its architecture tributary. The image is one of four released by anonymous Twitter user @robyniko. They are based on the work of the late painter Thomas Kinkade, who trademarked the moniker "Painter of light", and who turned his formula for evoking pastoral splendour into an industry that at one point included galleries all over the United States (and whose heirs zealously protect his trademarks, hence the renderer's anonymity).
In addition to the Glass House image, you can find online a horse-drawn sleigh sliding by the Villa Savoye, which nobody, including the horse, seems to notice. The Farnsworth House is imagined as a suburban pavilion, the sometimes raging Fox River replaced by a lily-dotted pond fed by a waterfall, while spring flowers bloom around a solitary gas-lite lamppost.
Frank Gehry's own house is relocated from Santa Monica to a rocky shore, where that same lamp post competes with a setting sun to set the structure's signature corrugated and galvanised siding aglow.

“You can see these images as metaphors for our current political and social climate”
Who said that modernism could not be warm and fuzzy? Certainly, it is in these images, although there is, of course, also something quite disturbing about their rosy glow.
From the perspective of modernism, the collages undermine the claim that such structures are – despite their use of mass-produced materials and general or even generic rules for design – tied to a specific site and function, while also epitomising the ability of design to reshape their context according to reason and efficiency.
In these images, nature dominates, and the crisp lines of modernism are only a thin veil over the glow of domestic security they define.


网站Angie's List委托NeoMam工作室表现流行电影和电视剧的场景，如权力的游戏／Website Angie's List commissioned NeoMam Studios to illustrate the architecture of popular movies and TV series, like Game of Thrones

你也可以把这些图像看作是我们当前政治和社会气候的隐喻，乌托邦只是一个卖点，你可以把任何意识形态的陈述——无论是经济学、修辞学还是建筑学——从它的背景中分离出来。

正如罗纳德•威尔逊•里根（Ronald Reagan）半个世纪前所承诺的那样，美国不再是朝阳，而是迟暮，所有希望都已化为温暖的光芒，只留给那些可以返回到郊区堡垒的人。在那里，城市、工厂、难民营和由气候变化驱动的飓风都会被忽视。

如果在这些图像中有太多的现实情景，你甚至可以退得更远一些，退往遥远的银河系结构中。在所有的网站中，Angie's List，这个由女性提供的在线服务资源，已经收录了出现在“星球大战”，“哈利波特”，“权力的游戏”，“漫威宇宙”中的建筑物，让他们画（匿名）观点，并将它们绘制成Banister Fletcher曾教我们建筑史的草图的透视形式。

“建筑表现是我们认为自己的位置和方式”

这些图片引人注目之处在于它们看上去是非常的平庸，尤其是与@robyniko给的那些熟悉图标的异国氛围相比。乔治•卢卡斯（George Lucas）的灵感来自沙漠城市和玛雅寺庙。在漫威神话中洛特纳、卡拉特拉瓦以及小众神的形象的推断。中世纪的遗迹被重新修复成临冬城或君临城。尤其是在工业革命前的英国的花哨版本，哈利波特也曾在那里漫游。

它们并没有把我们带到其他世界，而是让我们回到过去的想象中，或者让我们埋头在旅游杂志中，而不是让我们接触到真正的外国文化。没有了电影展现在我们面前的全景和人物，留给我们的会是一个比我们在银幕或笔记本电脑上想象的要少得多的想象力的骨架。

You can also see these images as metaphors for our current political and social climate, in which utopia is just a selling point and you can divorce any statement of ideology – whether in economics, rhetoric, or architecture – from its context.
It is no longer morning in America, as Ronald Reagan promised half a century ago, but sunset, when all hopes have receded into a warm glow reserved for those who can retreat to their suburban fortresses, where cities, factories, refugee camps and hurricanes powered by climate change are invisible.
If there is too much reality even in these images, you can retreat even further, into the architecture of a galaxy far, far away. Angie's List, of all sites, the online resource for services provided by women, has cataloged (again anonymously) buildings that appear in the Star Wars, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and Marvel Comics universes and had them drawn (again anonymously) in perspectives that recall the sketches Banister Fletcher used to teach us the history of architecture.

“Renderings are where and how we think we are”
What is remarkable about these images is how banal they seem, especially in comparison to the exotic atmosphere @robyniko gives to what should be familiar icons. The desert cities and Mayan temples that were George Lucas's inspiration. The extrapolations of Lautner's, Calatrava's, and lesser gods' forms in the Marvel myths. The medieval ruins resurrected to be Winterfell or King's Landing. And especially the twee versions of England before the industrial revolution where Harry Potter roams.
They do not transport us to other worlds, but give us back an imagined past, or let us dive into the pages of a travel magazine rather than having to expose ourselves to actual foreign cultures. Without the panoramas and characters the movies spread out in front of us, we are left with the skeleton of what appears to be a much more meagre imagination than we thought was playing out on the silver screen or our laptop.


插图画家LuisGómezFeliu的Angie's List绘画也包括星球大战系列中的场景／The Angie's List drawings, by illustrator Luis Gómez Feliu, also include recognisable structures from the Star Wars series

这些幻想的图像最引人注目的地方在于，与我们创造比这些幻想更真实、更奇妙的现实的能力相比，它们是多么的业余。包括那些为电子游戏和动画创造的场景，更不用说像金凯德或画家莱特那样的图集了。

每天，Rhino monkeys和Photoshop软件的奴隶们都在制作着成千上万的办公大楼、公寓甚至整个城市的图片，这些图片都是完美的、可信的，但同时也因为这个原因，这些图片比起逃避现实的场景显得更奇妙。

让它们同时如此诱人又令人恐惧的原因在于，它们反映了我们现有的世界，尽管是以一种畸形的方式，而不是打开一扇窗户，让我们看到我们永远无法居住的其他地方。他们让我们回到了我们原来的位置，但以一种更圆滑、更干净、更优雅的方式。他们是我们认为的我们所在的位置和方式。

“真正令人恐惧的是大多数表现中所没有展示的：我们生活的现实”

真正令人恐惧的不是Angie ' s List和@robyniko的图像，也不是生产效果图或建筑师的办公室，而是我们生活的现实或是普通生活，包括人们所经历的实实在在的场景地点——从无家可归者收容所到拖车公园，从战场到难民营。当我们看到那些的时候，我们只能要么通过艺术滤镜，要么通过抽象的方式来美化这个世界。

你可能会说@robyniko的图片很关键，因为至少有一种隐含的观点或讽刺。但是，如果不知道表现者是谁或者他的理论是什么，就很难说图像传递出了什么信息。

另一些人则在最近的电影《黑豹》（Black Panther）中解读出了一些批评性的观点，但同样让我难以理解的是，为中国设计的一幢名为KPF的摩天大楼，其茅草屋顶也不仅仅是陈词滥调。

@robyniko使用的现代建筑都有其核心理念和雄心壮志。无论成功与否，他们都想重塑现实。一些最好的电影也批评了我们当前的政治和社会状况，尽管Angie's List中没有表示出来。

如果我们放下设计师的雄心壮志，去描绘建筑和电影，会有什么不同呢？这是@robyniko，Angie's List以及所有在暗中苦苦挣扎的人们给你们的挑战：如果你不能告诉我们当下在哪里，那么至少告诉我们可以去哪里，以及建筑是如何帮助我们达到目的。

Aaron Betsky是塔里埃森建筑学院的院长。作为一名艺术、建筑和设计的评论家，贝茨基写了十多本关于这些主题的书，包括即将出版的关于建筑和设计的现代主义的调查。他为网站“超越建筑”（Beyond Buildings 网址：architectmagazine.com）每周两次撰写博客。他曾在耶鲁大学接受过建筑师和人文学科的培训，曾担任辛辛那提艺术博物馆（Cincinnati Art Museum, 2006-2014年）和荷兰建筑学院（Netherlands Architecture Institute, 2001-2006年）的馆长，并在旧金山现代艺术博物馆（San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1995-2001年）担任建筑与设计策展人。2008年，他还参与策划了第十一届威尼斯国际建筑双年展。

What is most remarkable about these and other fantasy images – including the ones that set the scene for video games and anime cartoons, let alone the galleries of Kinkade-like or -lite painters – is how amateurish they are compared to our ability to create realities that are both more realistic and more fantastic than such fantasies.
Every day, Rhino monkeys and Photoshop slaves churn out thousands of images of office buildings, apartments, and even whole cities that are much more seamless and believable, while at the same time fantastic exactly for that reason, than these escapist scenes.
What makes them so seductive and frightening at the same time is that they mirror our existing world, albeit in a deformed manner, rather than opening a window into some other place we know we can never inhabit. They give us back where we are, but in a slicker, cleaned up, and refined manner. They are where and how we think we are.

“Truly frightening is what most renderings don’t show: the reality of our lives”
Truly frightening is what neither the Angie's List and @robyniko images, nor the renderings produced by or for architects' offices, show: the reality of our lives, or of life in general, which includes sights and sites few of those of us who frequent this website will ever experience – from homeless shelters to trailer parks, and from war zones to refugee camps. When we do see those, we regard them either through the filter of art, or in statistical abstractions.
You could argue that @robyniko's images are critical, because there, at least, is an implied perspective or irony. But without knowing who the renderer is or what his theories are, it is difficult to say what the message is.
Others have read critical stances into the sets of such recent movies as Black Panther, but it is equally hard for me to understand how festooning a KPF skyscraper designed for China with a thatched roof is anything more than a cliché.
The modern buildings @robyniko used all had both an idea at their core and an ambition. They wanted to reshape reality, whether they succeeded or not. Some of the best movies have also been critiques of our current political and social conditions, though the ones Angie's List chose are not.
What would be the implications if we drew out architecture's and film's, not to mention designers', ambitions? Here is a challenge to you, @robyniko, Angie's List, and all those renderers slaving away for an alphabet soup of design firms who secretly have other ideas: if you can't show us where we are, here and now, show us where we might go, and how architecture might help us get there.

Aaron Betsky is president of the School of Architecture at Taliesin. A critic of art, architecture, and design, Betsky is the author of over a dozen books on those subjects, including a forthcoming survey of modernism in architecture and design. He writes a twice-weekly blog for architectmagazine.com, Beyond Buildings. Trained as an architect and in the humanities at Yale University, Betsky was previously director of the Cincinnati Art Museum (2006-2014) and the Netherlands Architecture Institute (2001-2006), and Curator of Architecture and Design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1995-2001). In 2008, he also directed the 11th Venice International Biennale of Architecture.