謎樣墨西哥

張利/ZHANG Li

作者單位：清華大學(xué)建筑學(xué)院/《世界建筑》

奧克塔維奧·帕斯在他恢弘的作品《孤獨(dú)之迷境》中對墨西哥的民族性給予了詩意的剖析。在自豪與哀惋并存的語言中，他指出，在每一個(gè)墨西哥靈魂的深處都存在一種難以言表的神秘孤獨(dú)。當(dāng)然，對一個(gè)既歡慶又抵觸死亡、既擁抱又拒絕集體紀(jì)念性、既自我歌頌又自我否定的民族來說，這種謎一樣的孤獨(dú)心性是確實(shí)存在的。

墨西哥建筑同樣體現(xiàn)著這種謎樣的心性。

墨西哥建筑是幸福與哀傷的聚合。沒有哪國國民像墨西哥人在亡靈節(jié)上那樣頌揚(yáng)亡故。沒有哪個(gè)國家像墨西哥那樣既以無比明媚的色彩空間記錄所沐浴的（亞）熱帶陽光，又在這種空間記錄中植入徜徉內(nèi)外的焦慮與憂傷。沒有哪個(gè)城市像墨西哥城那樣既以極端的紀(jì)念性尺度，又以極端的水平性延展，來詮釋聚居的超大程度。墨西哥城獨(dú)一無二的現(xiàn)實(shí)主義城市形態(tài)來自并作用于它同樣獨(dú)一無二的人口構(gòu)成，它嘲諷任何一套被理論家建立起來的現(xiàn)代城市化原則——無論這些原則是烏托邦式的，還是廢托邦式的，還是僅僅是實(shí)用主義式的——作為一個(gè)標(biāo)志性的謎題，墨西哥城自身至今仍然等待著當(dāng)代城市研究者來進(jìn)行令人信服的破解。

墨西哥建筑是信仰與韌性的聚合?，F(xiàn)代墨西哥是建立在一個(gè)由令人眼花繚亂的文明興潰、生靈福禍所構(gòu)成的歷史上的，它獨(dú)享著一種在其他地方罕見的現(xiàn)象：在一系列的宗教信仰與社會(huì)形態(tài)更迭中，雖然后面的信仰或體系不停地以戲劇性的變革迭代前面的，但它們似乎在更大的層面上進(jìn)行一種不間斷的對墨西哥文化基底的加深。這里面有阿茲特克人、薩巴特克人、米斯特克人，也有基督教徒；這里面有殖民者、現(xiàn)代主義者、資本投機(jī)者，也有社會(huì)改良者；每一人群的集體信仰都在墨西哥建筑歷史上留下不可忽視的明確足跡——但從來不完全覆蓋其前的，而只是形成足夠強(qiáng)大的振動(dòng)與漣漪， 從而不停地對周知于世的“墨西哥式”建筑語匯進(jìn)行拓展。

墨西哥建筑是對全球性與地域性的聚合。與絕大部分發(fā)展中國家不同，墨西哥從來不簡單地對來自西方國家的建筑明星和他們招牌手法的產(chǎn)品喝彩。當(dāng)一個(gè)作品與其所在的文化基底融會(huì)貫通時(shí)，我們看到墨西哥人發(fā)自內(nèi)心的擁躉——比如佩德羅·拉米雷斯-巴斯克斯的墨西哥國家人類學(xué)博物館得到公眾的廣泛熱愛。當(dāng)一個(gè)作品令人失望地表現(xiàn)出傲慢和輕狂時(shí)，我們看到墨西哥人毫不猶豫的拒絕——比如近期諾曼·福斯特的墨西哥城新機(jī)場工程因其對環(huán)境的無視和可恥的造價(jià)而被新任總統(tǒng)洛佩斯果斷叫停。更重要的是，當(dāng)這個(gè)國家的建筑師長期以來已經(jīng)形成了思考與實(shí)驗(yàn)的傳統(tǒng)，我們還看到了來自整個(gè)墨西哥當(dāng)代建筑師群體的不倦自省的見證。像瓦哈卡會(huì)展中心這樣的建筑是無法用任何簡化的歸類或定性來描述的，它們既誠實(shí)謙恭又歡愉洋溢，既不容質(zhì)疑的傳統(tǒng)又爭先恐后的現(xiàn)代，既在技術(shù)上成熟持守又在工法上激進(jìn)創(chuàng)新。

墨西哥建筑曾經(jīng)是，現(xiàn)在還是，以后也將繼續(xù)是一個(gè)激動(dòng)人心的、同時(shí)錯(cuò)綜盤旋的美學(xué)實(shí)體。沒有什么比路易斯·巴拉甘的話能對這一謎樣的美學(xué)實(shí)體給我們更多的提示了。他在第二屆普利茲克獎(jiǎng)的獲獎(jiǎng)演說上，曾充滿詩意但又略帶憂郁地說道：

“所有的哲人在試圖對‘美’一字的真正意義進(jìn)行定義時(shí)，都將最終面臨無法逾越的障礙。這正是‘美’的不可言表的神秘。而沒有美，人生只是有名無實(shí)的。”

特別感謝ArchDaily 的創(chuàng)始人戴維·巴蘇爾托，他使本期專輯成為可能?！?/p>

In his epic essay The Labyrinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz gave a poetic dissection of the Mexican identity. He argued, not without lament and pride at the same time, that there is a mysterious solitude beneath every Mexican soul. Indeed, to a people who both celebrate and repel death, a country that both embraces and evades collective monumentality, and a nation that celebrates both self-denial and self-esteem, the enigma of that solitude truly holds.

It holds for Mexican architecture as well.

Mexican architecture is a fusion of happiness and sadness.No other nation celebrates death as the Mexicans do on the Day of the Dead. No other nation embraces the (sub)tropical sunshine with such a display of voluptuous urban colour and power yet encoding the spaces in it with such lingering anxiety and powerlessness. No other city like the Mexico City interprets density with both the extremely monumental and the extremely horizontal. Its unique realistic urbanism, coming from and working for its equally unique demography, mocks all the established principles of modern urbanisation, utopian or dystopian or utilitarian, and still remains a puzzle to be deciphered by urbanists around the world.

Mexican architecture is a fusion of faith and resilience.Built upon a dazzling history of rises and falls of civilisations, of booms and catastrophes, modern Mexico enjoys a situation that is seldomly found elsewhere: the iteration of drastically different beliefs and systems working on a replay, constantly increasing the intellectual depth of the cultural backdrop of the nation.The Aztecs, Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Christians; the Colonialists,Modernists, Capitalists, Socialists; each group managed to leave a remarkable ideological footprint along the architecture story of the country, never entirely overtaking the previous one or all the previous ones, just generating enough shake and oscillation,just continuing to broaden the vocabulary of architecture that is known as "Mexican".

Mexican architecture is a fusion of the global and the local. Unlike most developing nations, the Mexican never brag about the glamour of western star architects and metoo-ish materialisations of their signature styles. We see acknowledgement and celebration when a work aligns coherently with the rich cultural substrate upon which it is made, such as the public enthusiasm for Pedro Ramírez-Vásquez's National Museum of Anthropology. We see rejection and condemnation when a work fails out of sheer arrogance and carelessness, such as President López Obrador's decisive overhaul of Norman Foster's environmentally atrocious and shamefully expensive New Airport.Moreover, we see the built testimonies of the infinite reflection of Mexican architects. Buildings like the Oaxaca Convention Centre deny every attempt of simple profiling and labelling.They are honest but joyously expressive. They are distinctively linked to tradition yet radically modern. They are technologically conventional yet tectonically endlessly imaginative.

Mexican architecture was, is, and will continue to be a thrilling enigma of convoluted beauty. No better words can give us more hint than the melancholic, yet poetic lines of Luis Barragán, presented in his acceptance speech of the second Pritzker Prize and still whispering in our ears:

"The invincible difficulty that the philosophers have in defining the meaning of this word, beauty, is unequivocal proof of its ineffable mystery. Human life, deprived of beauty, is not worthy of being called so."

Our special thanks to David Basulto, founding partner of ArchDaily, who has made this special number possible.□