雙語+MP3|美國學生藝術史88 新思維

 
摩天大廈遠看近看都很壯觀。對它們了解越多，就越覺得它們神奇。你要是從來沒見過摩天大廈，我這樣說你就會想到它們有多高了。大廈里的郵件通道必須安裝一些能減緩郵件下滑速度的部件，否則郵件下滑太快，會起火！ 
88 NEW IDEAS新思維
 
HAVE you ever seen a blue house? Blue all over, I mean—blue roof, blue walls, blue chimney. I’ve never seen a house like that, but I’m sure it would be freaky looking. 
Have you ever seen a house all made of steel and glass? Such a house might seem freaky at first, but it would be a different kind of freakiness from the blue house. The blue house could have no good reason for being blue; but a steel and glass house might have a very good reason for being made all of steel and glass. After you became used to it, you might like it very much and find it more healthful to live in than an ordinary house. But the blue house—well, I can’t see what advantage you would get from a blue house, no matter how used to it you became. 
A blue house and a steel and glass house have no ancestors. But most styles in architecture do have ancestors, long lines of ancestors. 
Just as 
the Roman style developed from the Greek and 
the Romanesque style developed from the Roman and 
the Gothic style developed from the Romanesque, 
so most new styles have grown from past styles in architecture. And most buildings put up nowadays make use of the styles that have been found good or beautiful (or both) in the past. 
This modern use of past styles seems quite right as long as the modern buildings have the same uses as the buildings of the past. But many modern buildings have entirely new uses not even imagined by the architects of past styles. And so it seems to some architects that these buildings should be just as free from past styles as the uses of the buildings are. Why design a modern electric power house in Gothic style when there is no connection between a power house and any building built when Gothic architecture was in its glory? Why have Roman columns on a gasoline station when the Romans had never heard of gasoline stations? 
Many architects, therefore, find it better to design their buildings in a manner that they think suited to the modern use of the building. They think it better to have the style of the building show the purpose of the building than to have its use concealed in the forms of the past. This very modern style of architecture is sometimes called functional because it shows the use or function of the building. 
You can see what I mean very well in the history of sky-scrapers. The early sky-scrapers generally had huge Renaissance cornices. Often they had Greek or Roman columns at the main entrance. Later it was thought that the Gothic style was most suitable for sky-scrapers, as in the Woolworth Building in New York City, because of the vertical emphasis in both sky-scraper and Gothic cathedral. But more recent sky-scrapers are designed to look like what they are, steel skeletons covered with a protecting material. 
A good example of such a sky-scraper is the office building of the United Nations which was built after World War II in New York City. It is a tall flat-sided building shaped like a thin closed book standing upright. It looks so thin that you think perhaps a very large pair of book-ends might help keep it from blowing over. But no book-ends are needed for, like all sky-scrapers, this building is anchored deep in the ground by strong steel girders. It is a beautiful building because it is so plain and simple. It has no fancy decorations, no gargoyles, no cornices, no sculptured figures. It has no curved lines; all its lines are straight up-and-down or straight across from side-to-side. The many windows of the United Nations building keep it from being too plain and simple. The windows also make it seem not only well-lighted but light in weight. 
And what a lot of windows this building has! A housewife can wash the dishes after dinner in less than half an hour. It takes a man several hours to wash all the windows in a house. Think what a big job it is to wash all the windows in the United Nations building. It is supposed to have about five acres of windows. 
Even dwellings have been designed to match their present purpose instead of using styles of the past. An American architect named Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the first to design houses in a functional style. He was at first more appreciated in foreign countries than in the United States. One of his best-known buildings is the earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan, which doesn’t resemble any other building you have ever seen. 
In Europe there has grown up a style of architecture that, like the house of glass and steel, has no ancestors. In Holland and Germany this functional style has been very much used for dwellings. They are constructed of steel and glass, brick and concrete, and they seem to use these materials better than any past style could. For instance, they generally have flat roofs instead of sloping roofs, because the use of steel has made the roofs strong enough to stand any weight of snow that might fall upon them. These flat roofs are very convenient for sun porches. 
You might think these very modern houses in Holland would spoil the looks of the quaint old Dutch brick houses with their high, steep roofs. But the new-style houses are generally built in groups. One little functional house in a whole street of old Dutch houses would look out of place. But when all the new houses are grouped together the effect is pleasant. They look tidy and shipshape with their smooth concrete and glass sides. 
In America, dwellings have not generally been built in this style as much as in Europe. The United States has, however, been building more and more factories and warehouses and stores and office buildings in functional styles, and you can see examples in most of our big cities. They are worth keeping your eyes open for, I can tell you, because, as you grow up, such buildings will probably become more and more important. Most of these buildings are air-conditioned so that the windows are never opened and yet the air inside is always the right temperature and much cleaner than the air outside. 
Of course you won’t find much decoration on a functional factory. Such a building has smooth clean-cut lines and a good shape to make it attractive. The later sky-scrapers are the buildings to look at for modern decoration. So also are many of the new public buildings such as libraries and railroad stations. The State Capitol of Nebraska, planned by the famous American architect Bertram, is one of the best-liked new-style buildings. It is entirely unlike buildings of the past and yet no one could call it freakish. In fact, it is almost universally admired. 
A building should be the right building for the place where it stands. A building may be very beautiful and still not be suitable for a certain place. A Greek temple would look out of place among sky-scrapers. A modern glass and steel building would look wrong at a university where all the other buildings were in Gothic style. 
A building also should be designed for its time in history. Each important period in the history of the world has had its own style of buildings quite different from the buildings that came earlier. Gothic style buildings are still being built, but the important buildings of our time will not be Gothic, nor Romanesque, nor Greek in style. They will have their own style, a new style unlike styles of earlier periods. 
And so when you look at a building, especially a new building, you might ask a question or two. Does that building belong to the time when it was built? Is it the right design for the place where it is? You might ask the building these questions. The building won’t answer you in words, of course, but it will give you the answer if you look carefully. Maybe sometime in the future buildings will actually answer your questions in words. It isn’t too hard to imagine a talking building. You press a button on the wall and from an electric speaker in the building might come a voice saying, “I am a building made of steel, glass, and plastics. My architect was John Jones. I was erected in 1992. I don’t want to boast but I think I’m just the right building for this location. I hope you think so too.” 
 
No.88-1　UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS 
GENERAL VIEW SHOWING THE SECRETARIAT BUILDING AND THE GENERAL 
ASSEMBLY BUILDING UNDER CONSTRUCTION 
（聯(lián)合國總部大樓、聯(lián)合國秘書處大樓以及建設中的聯(lián)合國大會主樓一覽） 
Another new idea in architecture is to build houses the way automobiles are built, in a factory. They could be of steel and glass and turned out by the hundreds, all ready to be fastened together and set up to live in. Then houses could be bought for much less money than it takes to-day to buy a house, and probably the houses would be very convenient ones to live in. Perhaps at first they would not be really pretty houses, but that could be remedied as the factories learned to make them better. I hope they won’t be painted blue. 
Another new idea in architecture is the building of comfortable, clean, healthful houses to take the place of the terrible tenements in the slums that all cities have. Such houses must be well and carefully planned and must have play-grounds and gardens and open spaces and sunlight. And of course they must be cheap enough to rent so that poor people can live in them. In a good many countries the governments have helped to build such houses for workmen and their families. Often they are arranged in what are called garden cities. 
These garden cities are very thoughtfully laid out, so that many families can live in them without being crowded. Each little garden city is complete. It has its own stores and schools and churches. Generally the garden cities are on the outskirts of the big cities. 
We have begun to get rid of slums in the United States, but there is still a great deal to do. This is another idea in architecture that you can watch grow as you grow. Some day you yourself perhaps will be helping to get rid of the tenements in the slums and will be building good houses to take the place of bad ones.