貝聿銘先生與世長辭，享年102歲

2019年5月16日,貝聿銘先生與世長辭，享年102歲。

In the early 2000s, when I. M. Pei was well into his 80s, he went on a tour of the Middle East to bone up on Islamic architecture before designing one of its major monuments. His mission was to erect a museum that did not yet exist in a city that had recently been built from scratch. He selected a site on an island that had to be made and paid homage to a tradition he didn’t know and a religion with which he had no prior relationship. Somehow all that foreignness produced a late-period masterpiece, the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar.

在2000年代早期，當貝聿銘進入他的80歲年代的時候，他在中東旅游，在設(shè)計他的一座主要的“紀念碑”之前，認真研究伊斯蘭建筑。他的使命是，在一個還沒有博物館的城市，建立一個博物館，最近是從頭開始。他選擇了一個島上的場地，這里必須尊重傳統(tǒng)和一個與他沒有事先關(guān)系的宗教。不知何故，外來性產(chǎn)生了貝聿銘一個后期的杰作，在卡塔爾多哈的伊斯蘭藝術(shù)博物館(Museum of Islamic Art )。

Over the course of his career, the aristocrat of American architects, who turns 100 on April 26, has drawn on a dazzling range of influences, from Chinese gardens to ancient Colorado cliff dwellings to the fountain in a Cairo mosque. He blended the austere modernism of the Bauhaus with opulent Beaux-Arts classicism, technological daredevilry with reverence for precedent and a minute study of the past. The best of his creations, like the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., look at once audacious and inevitable. He designed a skyscraper for the Bank of China whose exuberant asymmetry snapped the Hong Kong skyline into focus. Even designs that were never built (an astonishing corkscrew tower intended to rise above the FDR Drive near the Queensboro Bridge) or that wound up bowdlerized (the JFK Presidential Library in Boston) failed with panache.

貝聿銘4月26日滿100歲。這個美國建筑師的“貴族”，在他的職業(yè)生涯中，設(shè)計了許多引人注目的項目——從中國花園到古代的科羅拉多峭壁上的房屋，到開羅清真寺的噴泉。他將豪華的“學院派藝術(shù)”(Beaux-Arts)古典主義和包豪斯建筑學派(Bauhaus)簡樸的現(xiàn)代主義融合起來，在技術(shù)上大膽創(chuàng)新，而又尊重傳統(tǒng)。他創(chuàng)作的最好作品，像華盛頓國家美術(shù)館的東樓(Wing of the National Gallery)，看上去大膽而合理。他在香港設(shè)計了不對稱的中國銀行大廈，給人以深刻的印象。貝聿銘還設(shè)計了一些從未建設(shè)的建筑——例如皇后區(qū)大橋附近的一幢螺旋狀高樓。他還設(shè)計了位于波士頓的肯尼迪總統(tǒng)圖書館(JFK Presidential Library )。

Born a banker’s son in Shanghai, Pei arrived at MIT in 1935 as an engineering student and later attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design. By the time he was done with his studies, the Japanese had gone to war with China and bombed Pearl Harbor. He was not going home anytime soon — not, as it turned out, until 1974. Armored with a light but distinct accent and an air of gentlemanly reserve that would have behooved an English prince, Pei felt at ease around power. He knew how to talk to Jackie Kennedy, Paul Mellon, François Mitterrand, and, early in his career, the hurricanelike New York developer William Zeckendorf.

貝聿銘1917年出生于上海，是一個銀行家的兒子。他1935年來到麻省理工學院作為一個工程專業(yè)的學生，后來進入了哈佛大學設(shè)計學院研究生院。在他完成他的學業(yè)的時候，日本向中國開戰(zhàn)，并且轟炸珍珠港。他很快就不能回家了，直到1974年才回來。貝聿銘很快適應了異國的生活。他知道如何與杰基-肯尼迪(Jackie Kennedy)、保羅-梅隆(Paul Mellon)、弗朗西斯-密特朗(Francois Mitterrand)交談。在他職業(yè)生涯的早期，他遇到了紐約的颶風般的開發(fā)商威廉-齊肯多夫(William Zeckendorf)。

Pei was working as Zeckendorf’s in-house architect in the ’50s, when he designed the affordable-housing complex at Kips Bay Plaza. The immense grids of precast concrete can feel gloomy and even anti-urban in their brooding, repetitive length, but at the time, their muscular minimalism seemed boldly idiosyncratic, a world away from the generic brick boxes of public housing. The project was a triumph of stinginess and practicality, the kind of accomplishment that might have led to a life of frictionless corporate servitude. Even long after he had formed his own firm and been anointed a past master, he still fretted that he might have sacrificed artistry to ingenuity. In 1979, the Times critic Paul Goldberger found him in a reflective mood: “Maybe my early training set me back. Maybe it made me too much of a pragmatist,” he said. He was 62, with three decades and several more masterworks left to round out his career.

貝聿銘在上個世紀50年代，擔任齊肯多夫的內(nèi)部建筑師，當時，他在 基普灣廣場(Kips Bay Plaza)設(shè)計了一批經(jīng)濟適用房。這些巨大的網(wǎng)格預制混凝土可能讓人感到陰郁，其重復的長度甚至是反城市的，但在當時，它們的強壯極簡主義似乎很大膽，一些世界上遠離一般的“磚盒”的公共住房。該項目是一種吝嗇和實用性的勝利，這種成就感，可能會導致無摩擦的團體奴役的生活。即使在他組建了自己的公司并被稱為老練者之后，他仍然擔心他可能會犧牲藝術(shù)性來創(chuàng)造獨創(chuàng)性。1979、時代雜志的評論家保羅-戈德伯格(Paul Goldberger)發(fā)現(xiàn)他陷入一種沉思：“也許我早期的訓練讓我回歸，也許它使我有太多的實用主義。”他當時是62歲，三十年的時間和幾個經(jīng)典作品豐富了他的職業(yè)生涯。

Given Pei’s penchant for elegant solidity, it’s ironic that the project that nearly sank the firm was the Hancock Tower in Boston, a glass edifice so ethereal that clouds seem to glide right through it. Construction of the tower damaged nearby Trinity Church. Then the curtain wall began to crack, and for a while workers patched the broken windows with plywood panels, making the façade look diseased. Finally, an engineer discovered that a strong wind might knock the structure over, and it had to be reinforced with 1,650 extra tons of steel. Pei’s partner Henry Cobb had designed the building, and the tower opened in 1976 to become a Boston landmark, but notoriety clung to the firm.

貝聿銘喜歡優(yōu)雅的堅固建筑，諷刺的是，這個項目幾乎影響了該公司的在波士頓的漢考克大廈(Hancock Tower)項目。這是一幢玻璃建筑。這幢在三一教堂附近的建筑受到損害。當時，幕墻開始裂縫，工人用膠合板修補破碎的窗戶，使外觀看起來很破舊。最后，一位工程師發(fā)現(xiàn)，強風可能會掀翻這幢建筑，它必須用1650多噸鋼筋加固。貝聿銘的合伙人亨利-科布(Henry Cobb)設(shè)計了這座大樓，1976年初，該大樓正式開放，成為波士頓的標志性建筑，但這家公司卻聲名狼藉。

Pei managed to wash away the Hancock taint, partly with the East Wing of the National Gallery, which opened in 1978. A pair of nested triangular forms taper to an edge so sharp that visitors get a frisson from stroking it, using it as a gun sight for photos of the distant Capitol. The white H-shaped façade invites visitors into an atrium that balances clarity and complexity, sliced by bridges, hung with a giant Calder mobile, and topped by a spectacularly luminous glass roof. (The East Wing recently reopened after a sensitive renovation.) In the decade-long process from contract to completion, Pei demonstrated his virtuosity with every tool of his profession, navigating tortuous politics, protecting the design’s integrity, and developing a contemporary architectural language that merged formality with warmth.

貝聿銘設(shè)法洗去了漢考克大廈的帶來的污名，部分原因是他設(shè)計的國家美術(shù)館的東樓(East Wing of the National Gallery)在1978年開幕。一對嵌套的三角形的圓錐邊緣鋒利得讓游客撫摸它得到一個戰(zhàn)栗，它就像一個對著遠處的國會大廈的瞄準器。白色的H型的立面邀請來訪者進入一個中庭，并且有一個非常明亮的玻璃屋頂。在從簽署合同至完成的10年過程中，貝聿銘使用他的各方面的專業(yè)才能，展示了他精湛的技藝，并且妥善處了政治上的問題，保護設(shè)計的完整性，發(fā)展了當代建筑語言，融合了形式與內(nèi)在的思想。

He also indulged his penchant for geometric precision, a love that bloomed in his renovation of the Louvre Museum. When France’s President Mitterrand tapped Pei for the project, the architect faced attacks that ranged from stylistic criticism to outright racism: How could a not-French, not-European — not even fully Western! — quasi-modernist dare to tamper with a great (if neglected) icon of national culture? Pei responded with a design that invoked the geometric purity of the 18th-century French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée and also gave Paris a jolt of modernity as bracing as the Eiffel Tower.

貝聿銘還沉迷于幾何精度的愛好，在盧浮宮博物館的整修中體現(xiàn)出來。當時法國總統(tǒng)密特朗(Mitterrand )同意貝聿銘設(shè)計這個項目，貝聿銘面臨從風格的批評到徹底的種族主義攻擊。一個不是法國人，不是歐洲人，甚至不是完全西方人的建筑師——一個準現(xiàn)代主義者敢于“篡改”一個偉大的國家文化圖標?貝聿銘用借鑒了十八世紀的法國建筑師艾蒂安-路易斯-布雷(Etienne-Louis Boullee)幾何精確風格的設(shè)計回應。他還給巴黎如埃菲爾鐵塔一樣的現(xiàn)代建筑的驚喜。他在U形建筑的中央庭院里新建了一個地下入口，然后用一個水晶金字塔和一三角形水池放在它頂上。

He carved out a new underground entrance in the central court of the U-shaped building, then topped it with a crystal pyramid and a set of triangular pools. The crisp planes embraced by arms of ornate stone, the skin of water reflecting Paris’s turbulent skies, the transparent portal to an underground realm, the stagy staircase that spirals down into the atrium like a long curl of orange peel — all these features now seem so intuitively correct that it’s easy to forget how many experts howled about each one. With the simplest of gestures — albeit one hugely complicated to execute — Pei had transformed a great creaky mess of a museum into a modern palace of blockbuster shows, able to handle multitudes.

這些易脆的平面由裝飾華麗的石頭圍繞，水面反映了巴黎的美麗的天空。透明的入口通向地下。螺旋樓梯下到中庭，像一條長的卷曲橙皮——所有這些設(shè)計特色現(xiàn)在似乎很直觀地正確，使人很快忘記許多專家對每個部分的挑剔。貝聿銘用最簡單的設(shè)計語言(盡管實施建設(shè)非常復雜)，把一個老舊的博物館變成了一個令人驚奇的現(xiàn)代宮殿，接納了成千上萬的參觀者。

He has been called the wrong man for many different jobs. The architect and critic Michael Sorkin recounts calling Pei in 1987 and half-jokingly demanding that he turn over the task of designing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. “What do you know about rock and roll, I. M.?” Sorkin asked. The elder architect politely answered that he knew all about popular music thanks to his son: “T’ing gave me a book!” he explained. That cultivated naïveté has served him well. When the call came from Doha, he responded with the confidence and humility to revisit his education and forge a new style, yet again, in his 80s. A signature, he once said, is a trap. “I don’t envy the architects who have such a strong stylistic stamp that clients would be disappointed if they do not get the same ‘look’ in their projects … I think I have greater freedom.”

他因為許多不同的工作被稱為錯誤的人(wrong man)。建筑師和評論家邁克爾-索爾金(Michael Sorkin)在1987年打電話給貝聿銘，半開玩笑地要求他交出克利夫蘭的“搖滾名人堂”(Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)的設(shè)計任務。邁克爾-索爾金說：“貝聿銘先生，你對搖滾樂了解多少?”年老的建筑師貝聿銘有禮貌地回答，他知道所有的流行音樂，是由于他的兒子。當他從多哈打來電話的時候，他帶著自信和謙遜的態(tài)度，重新審視他的教育，開創(chuàng)了一種新的風格。貝聿銘說：“我不羨慕那些有如此強烈的風格印記的建筑師，如果他們在項目中沒有得到同樣的風格，客戶會感到失望……我認為我有更大的自由。”

He trained that freedom on the Museum of Islamic Art, a bleached mirage like a palace of sugar cubes emerging from the Persian Gulf waters into the hard glare of Doha. Like Candide searching for happiness, Pei went hunting for the “essence” of Islamic architecture. He rejected the Great Mosque at Córdoba, the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and the Ribat fortress in Tunisia and finally found what he was looking for in the pared-down tranquillity of the Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun in Cairo. There, a round dome on a square chamber in a large arcaded court expressed the nested geometries that had danced through his mind for decades. In the museum he finally designed, the purest distillation of Islamic architecture turns out also to yield the perfect synthesis of the Beaux-Arts polygons and stern modernist orthodoxies he had absorbed as a student in the 1940s; of all the solid, rocklike presences and airy atria he had conjured; of all the deluxe surfaces and liquid light he had ever choreographed. On his way to his centennial, I. M. Pei struck out on a quest through exotic lands and finally found himself.

他在伊斯蘭藝術(shù)博物館訓練了這種自由，這是一個白色的海市蜃樓，像一個從波斯灣水域冒出的糖的宮殿，進入多哈的強烈的的光線中。像康迪德(Candide )尋找幸福，貝聿銘找到了伊斯蘭建筑的精髓。他否定了許多伊斯蘭的著名建筑，包括西班牙科爾多瓦的大清真寺(Great Mosque)、大馬士革的倭馬亞大清真寺(Umayyad Mosque)和突尼斯的里巴堡壘(Ribat)，最終在開羅寧靜的伊本-圖倫清真寺找到了他需要的東西。這幢典型而獨特的伊斯蘭建筑的形象，在他的腦海里縈繞了幾十年。他最后設(shè)計的這個博物館，將最純粹的伊斯蘭建筑與現(xiàn)代主義完美地結(jié)合在一起。貝聿銘在通向他的100周歲的漫長路途中，在異國的土地上努力探索，最終找到了自我.