“喧哗而缺乏清晰度”，美国著名建筑评论家保罗·戈德伯格评价2024年的建筑评论
Architecture criticism in 2024 defined by "shouting and not a lot of clarity" says Paul Goldberger

由专筑网郑京，小R编译

著名建筑评论家保罗·戈德伯格认为，新闻从传统印刷到在线新闻的变革在建筑评论领域引发了一些“混乱”，这既有利也有弊。

保罗·戈德伯格曾获得普利策杰出批评奖，他在20世纪70年代和80年代曾担任《纽约时报》的驻社建筑评论家，当时的建筑正值后现代主义的鼎盛时期。

在谈到近几十年来有关建筑中不断变化的重点时，戈德伯格认为人们更加关注社会责任了。他说：“人们更愿意处理问题，将建筑视为社会不平等的象征，比如近期社会上关于在被称为“亿万富翁街”的曼哈顿街上建造摩天大楼的讨论。”

The transition from print to online journalism has led to "chaos" within architecture criticism that has upsides as well as downsides, author Paul Goldberger tells Dezeen in this exclusive interview.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Goldberger served as the in-house architecture critic for The New York Times in the 1970s and '80s during the zenith of postmodernism.
He spoke to Dezeen about the changing priorities within architecture discourse in recent decades, including a greater focus on social responsibility.
"There is a greater willingness to deal with issues and to deal with architecture as a symbol of social inequity," he said.
As an example, he pointed to the conversation surrounding recently built skyscrapers on the Manhattan street colloquially known as Billionaire's Row.


▲ “亿万富翁街”是人们给中央公园附近一组豪华住宅摩天大楼起的绰号/David Sundberg拍摄
Billionaire's Row is the nickname given to a cluster of luxury residential skyscrapers near Central Park. Photo by David Sundberg

戈德伯格说：“这些57街的超高层大楼，它们在美学上有所不同。哪些建筑更好，哪些建筑次之，哪些作为一个建筑作品来看更成功，这些讨论虽然并非无效，但也不是完整的。

我们必须将其置于这样一个背景下：每一座大楼都是社会不平等的深刻有力象征，这种不平等在这个社会中变得越来越明显。这些建筑物作为物理对象越来越引人注目，我认为这超越了美学上的差异。”

戈德伯格将这种价值观的转变与所谓的“名人建筑”文化联系在一起。在“名人建筑”中，建筑师因其设计的作品而出名。另一个影响价值观的因素是建筑师在设计时加入越来越多对社会和环境问题的考虑。

他引用了自己著作的《建筑为何重要》一书中的一个关于社会责任和建筑的附录作为这种转变的例子，该书于2009年出版，颇具影响力。


人们“夸大”了对网红建筑师的追捧

但是，戈德伯格认为追捧“名人建筑师”和追求社会责任建筑这两件事并非相互排斥的，他警告人们不要将这些术语看作是“绝对”的。

他说:“我们处于一个更加理解社会责任和建筑以及建筑师需要做出不同贡献的时期。我认为我们的文化过于迷恋名人，并将名人建筑师推上了不切实际的高度，而现在我们又可能正在过分贬低他们或试图超越理性地避免他们。”

他认为，建筑师本身追求名人地位的想法被夸大了。

“我认为媒体对‘名人痴迷追求名人建筑师’的说法是有些夸大的，有时这并不完全是建筑师主导的，而更多地是由文化对名人的广泛关注所推动的，”戈德伯格说。

他将名人建筑师的传统追溯到极具影响力的美国建筑师弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特身上，他说：“在建筑史上，最伟大的吹牛之王是弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特，而他碰巧也是有史以来最伟大的建筑师之一。赖特在利用媒体方面很有天赋，他编造了自己的一部分历史。而如今玩这些扯谎游戏的工具在不断发展和变化。它不是一个新的说法，只是呈现工具变了。”


没有人拥有永远的权威

随着新闻业越来越多地转向网络，戈德伯格指出，在其职业生涯中，建筑评论发生了重大变革。

他说，由此产生了声音泛滥，特别是在社交媒体上，导致了建筑话语的一片嘈杂，与20世纪中后期大不相同。

“当时我在《纽约时报》，它在新闻界以及世界上都有一种霸权地位，”戈德伯格回忆道，“当时我们对城市发生的事情持批评态度，《纽约时报》的意见几乎没人不关注。而如今，没有任何单一的事物能引导公共话语，而存在着大量的发声却缺乏清晰性。”

"If you look at the 57th Street supertall towers, while there are aesthetic differences from one to the other – and some are better than others and more successful as works of architecture – that whole discussion, while it's not invalid, is incomplete," Goldberger told Dezeen.
"It has to be set within the context of the fact that every one of them is a powerful symbol of profound social inequalities that are becoming more and more marked in this society," he continued.
"Those buildings are more and more conspicuous as physical objects, and I think that overrides the aesthetic differences."
Goldberger links this shift in values to the waning of so-called starchitecture culture – where individual architects become famous for their work – and the growing consideration of social and environmental issues in architecture.
He cited an addendum in a new edition of his influential 2009 book Why Architecture Matters that delves into social responsibility and architecture as an example of this shift.

Obsession with starchitects "exaggerated"
However, Goldberger believes that starchitecture and socially responsible architecture are not mutually exclusive – warning against considering these terms in "absolutes".
"We are in a period where there's a much greater understanding of social responsibility and the need of architecture and architects to do different things," he said.
"I think our culture was far too much in thrall of celebrity and built up starchitects beyond reason, and now we are probably putting them down or trying to avoid them beyond reason."
He suggests the idea that architects themselves have sought celebrity status has been overstated.
"I think the obsession with starchitects was always somewhat exaggerated – never as all-consuming as the media might have had it – and that was not completely architect-driven so much as driven by the culture's broader focus on celebrity," he said.
Goldberger traces the starchitect tradition back to hugely influential American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
"The greatest bullshit artist in the history of architecture was Frank Lloyd Wright – he also happened to have been one of the greatest architects who has ever lived," said Goldberger.
"[Wright] fabricated parts of his own history – he was very gifted at exploiting the media," he continued.
"The vehicles people have at their disposal to play those games evolve and change. It's not entirely new, it's just that the tools change."

"Nobody has the authority"
Architecture criticism has undergone a major shift during Goldberger's career as journalism has increasingly moved online.
The resulting proliferation of voices, especially on social media, has led to a cacophony of architectural discourse much different to the mid-to-late 20th century, he said.
"I was at The New York Times in the day when it had a kind of hegemony over journalism and also over the world," Goldberger recalled.
"We were critical to what happened in the city. The New York Times would have an opinion about almost anything, and everybody would pay attention."
The transition away from individual critical voices having a major influence has had positive impacts and not-so-positive impacts, he argued.


▲ 戈德伯格承认没有任何一家媒体在建筑领域像《纽约时报》在20世纪80年代那样具有影响力/Ajay Suresh拍摄
Goldberger acknowledged that no individual publication has the same level of influence over architecture that The New York Times had during the 1980s. Photo by Ajay Suresh

“我认为现在没有任何事物能够指导公共话语，”他说，“人们大声喧哗，但并没有太多清晰度。”

“在某种程度上，这是健康的。它创造了一种混乱，它使竞争场地平坦化，几乎任何人都可以参与其中。如果某些传统的新闻机构曾经拥有太多的权威，那现在几乎没有人拥有权威。”

但是，尽管更加民主化的批评环境让历史上那些被较少代表的人们都能够参与其中，戈德伯格对‘社交媒体主导的辩论是否能导致有益对话’感到不确定。

他说：“每个人都乐意试图将球踢向某个方向，但我们并没有真正就规划、建筑和设计等严肃问题进行严肃讨论。最紧迫的问题不是人们建造了什么，而是他们建造已经建造了太多。当下关键问题是土地保护和增长。”

戈德伯格就在土地保护工作中的重要性写作了大量的建筑批评，他认为在这类问题上，众声喧哗和严格的批评之间可以取得平衡。

“就像慢食运动一样，我们需要一个慢阅读运动，”他说，“也许受众会很小，但我认为这些批评是真实而严肃的。当然并非每座建筑都值得这样，很多建筑只值得在浅层次上进行讨论，因为它们不值得超过280个字符。”

“我不想听起来像一个卢德主义者，”他说，“我和大部分人一样，在网上度过很多时间，我并不是在渴望以前那些只有印刷品的日子，而是不希望看到有一天这种文字印刷形式彻底消失。”

"I don't think anything directs the public discourse now," he said. "There's a lot of shouting and not a lot of clarity."
"In some ways that's healthy. It creates a sort of chaos and it levels the playing field – almost anybody can be on it. If certain established organs of journalism had too much authority once, now, kind of nobody has the authority."
But while the more democratised critical landscape has enabled historically under-represented people to participate, Goldberger is uncertain about whether social-media-dominated debate is leading to useful conversations.
"Everybody's happy to try to kick the ball in some direction or another, but we're not really having serious discussions about serious issues in terms of planning and architecture and design," he said.
"The most urgent issue is not what people build, but how much they're building; there's too much. The critical issue is land preservation and growth."
Goldberger has written widely about the importance of criticism in the work of preservation, and believes there can be a balance between a chorus of voices and rigorous critique on these kinds of issues.
"Like the slow food movement, there's absolutely a need for a slow reading movement," he said.
"I know the audience is smaller, but I think [criticism] is real and serious – not every building is worth that, plenty of buildings are just fine to talk about on X, because they're not worth more than 280 characters, but other things are."
"I don't want to sound like a Luddite," he said. "Because, like all of us, I spend a lot of my life online – so I'm not sitting here yearning for the day when print was all there was."
"But I don't want us to be in a day where it doesn't exist at all."


摄影：Michael Lionstar

The main photo is by Michael Lionstar.