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Oscar Niemeyer, who died last week, was a controversial giant. Best known for designing a new capital city for his native Brazil and the UN headquarters in New York, his work resonates across the world.
上周去世的奥斯卡·尼迈耶(Oscar Niemeyer)是一位颇具争议的伟大人物。尼迈耶最著名的作品包括为祖国巴西设计的新首都以及位于纽约的联合国总部，其作品在世界各地引发了巨大反响。
At his best, Niemeyer curved the skyscraper and made height humane. But Brasília, despite its beauty, also serves as an illustration of the dangers of utopian over-planning.
在他的巅峰时期，尼迈耶为摩天大楼营造出了曲线，赋予了高楼大厦人文气息。然而，尽管他设计的巴西利亚风貌优美，却表明了乌托邦式过度规划的所能带来的负面影响。
Beautiful buildings made Niemeyer famous among architects and critics. But by making height more than merely a practical answer to urban problems, Niemeyer’s structures mattered to cities, and have given him an outsized presence among urbanists and aesthetically challenged economists like me.
尼迈耶设计的美丽建筑物使他在建筑师和评论家中享有盛名。但他使高楼超越了应对城市化问题的一种实用手段——他所设计的建筑对于来说城市意义重大，也使他的形象在城市规划者和像我这样审美能力欠缺的经济学家心中显得格外高大。
Skyscrapers are a sensible alternative to the stresses of sprawl. They enable the concentration of talent that generates ideas and prosperity. Building up replaces the car with the elevator as the core tool for transportation, helping to reduce carbon emissions and congestion.
摩天大楼是应对城市扩张压力的一种明智选择。它们能够汇聚英才，进而创造出新思想和经济繁荣。高楼的拔地而起使电梯取代汽车成为首要交通工具，这有助于削减碳排放并改善交通拥堵状况。
Yet tall towers can be ugly. They can also be expensive. And they can seem painfully out of touch with the architectural story of a city’s past. All of these dangers of height are used to argue against the upward building that London and many other cities badly need. Niemeyer’s genius was to diminish these downsides of density.
但高楼大厦或许外观丑陋，造价高昂，也可能显得与一个城市的历史建筑特色严重脱节。所有这些与高度有关的风险都被人用来反对伦敦以及很多其他城市所亟需推进的高楼建设。尼迈耶的天才之处就在于消除这些与建筑密集有关的负面影响。
Never has this been more important than today, as billions of people migrate from the countryside to cities in Asia and Africa. Cities help poor countries to become rich, but city-building on the scale that will be required in countries such as China in the coming decades will be extraordinarily challenging. When people live close to one another, congestion, crime and contagious disease can often result. Yet if mega-cities of the developing world do not build enough, or build only on the urban edge, the result will be that prices are too high, commutes too long, and too few people experience the benefits of urbanism.
随着亚洲和非洲的数十亿人从乡村迁往城市，如今这一点变得尤为重要。城市能够帮助穷国脱贫致富，但未来几十年中，以中国为代表的国家所需进行的的大规模城市建设将面临巨大挑战。当人们比邻而居时，容易滋生交通拥堵、犯罪以及传染病等问题。但假如发展中国家的超大型城市中未能建起足够数量的摩天大楼，或者只在城市边缘进行建设，便会造成物价过高、通勤时间过长，城市化进程的受益群体范围过窄等问题。
To China’s builders, Niemeyer provides an example of a master from the developing world. He built using inexpensive, highly durable materials such as reinforced concrete, which helped make height affordable. He was always engaged in a dialogue between past and present and excelled in connecting the short and the tall. And his buildings tend to seem Brazilian even though they are part of an architectural flow that started with Chicago’s skyscrapers and then coursed through Europe.
来自发展中国家的尼迈耶为中国的建设者们提供了一个大师级的榜样。他采用钢筋混凝土之类的便宜耐用型材料，这有助于将高层房屋的价格维持在一个令人可以接受的水平。他总是在设计中融入当地建筑的历史特色，并擅长使高楼在周围较为低矮的建筑群中显得错落有致。尼迈耶的建筑往往呈现出巴西特色，虽然他所属的建筑流派起源于芝加哥的摩天大楼，并流传至欧洲大陆。
But when we consider the city that success eventually allowed Niemeyer to build, it should also serve as a warning. The modernists were good at designing functional and striking structures, but far weaker at understanding how those structures fit together to form a city.
这些成功最终让他赢得了巴西利亚的设计权。但当我们审视这座城市时，也应认识到它的警示意义。现代主义建筑师擅长设计功能实用、外观出众的建筑物，却不够了解如何让这些建筑物融合在一起，形成一座城市。
Le Corbusier’s own vision of skyscrapers surrounded by grassy spaces seems utterly ignorant of the streetlife that powers urban interactions. Cities are complicated organisms that thrive when they are messy and filled with mixed uses; the jumble enables people to experience the changing mix of urban marvels.
勒柯布西耶(Le Corbusier)设想摩天大楼被绿草如茵的空间所环绕，但这似乎完全忽视了街头生活才是赋予城市互动活力的源泉。城市是复杂的有机体系，它的活力来自于混沌混乱的状态以及功能上的多样性。正是这种混沌使人体验到变化多样的城市奇观。
That means Brasília, Niemeyer’s greatest achievement, is also his most troubled creation. The structures in this artificial capital are impressive, yet few want to walk its barren streets. Politicians leave as soon as possible to return to grittier, but livelier, Brazilian cities.
这意味着巴西利亚既是尼迈耶最伟大的成就，也是他问题最严重的作品。这座人造首都的建筑宏伟壮观，但却几乎没人想在它那毫无生气的街道上漫步。政界人士在结束工作后往往立即离开巴西利亚，回到那些不太美观、却更富有生气的巴西城市。
Much of the problem lies in the city’s basic conception. Separate capital cities limit the political influence of existing urban areas. Brasília diminished former capital Rio de Janeiro’s one-time dominance of Brazilian politics, just as the construction of Washington made sure that neither New York nor Philadelphia would dominate the US. Yet cities thrive by connecting different people and one-industry towns tend to become stale quickly.
巴西利亚的主要问题在于其基本设计理念。单独设立的政治首都限制了现有城市区域的政治影响力。巴西利亚削弱了前首都里约热内卢对于巴西政治一度有过的主导影响力，而华盛顿的建立则确保了美国政治不会被纽约或费城所支配。然而，城市繁荣靠的是将不同的社会群体汇聚起来，功能单一的城市很容易陷入沉闷。
Niemeyer’s defenders, including Ricky Burdett, the urban studies scholar, argue that Niemeyer deserves credit for focusing on infrastructure investment, something that so many developing cities still need to do. Others optimistically argue that Brasília may still become a great city, in a century or so.
包括城市研究学者里基·伯德特(Ricky Burdett)在内的尼迈耶的拥护者们认为，尼迈耶对基础设施投资的重视值得肯定，这一点是很多发展中城市仍需改善的。其他人则乐观地认为，巴西利亚仍有可能成为一座伟大的城市，但需要一个世纪左右的时间。
I hope this is true, but viewed today, Niemeyer’s greatest successes are individual buildings imbued with humanity and charm that fit into already great cities, such as S?o Paulo. His attempt to deliver a new city from scratch met with failure. Let the city-builders of Dubai and China take note.
我希望这能成为现实。但从目前来看，尼迈耶的最成功作品仍是那些充满人文气息与魅力的个体建筑，它们成功地融入了像圣保罗这样的本已非常伟大的城市。但他从零开始建设一座新城的尝试未能成功。迪拜和中国的城市建设者应当从中吸取经验教训。
The writer, a Harvard professor, is author of ‘Triumph of the City’
本文作者为美国哈佛大学教授，著有《城市的胜利》(Triumph of the City)。
Oscar Niemeyer, who died last week, was a controversial giant. Best known for designing a new capital city for his native Brazil and the UN headquarters in New York, his work resonates across the world.
上周去世的奥斯卡·尼迈耶(Oscar Niemeyer)是一位颇具争议的伟大人物。尼迈耶最著名的作品包括为祖国巴西设计的新首都以及位于纽约的联合国总部，其作品在世界各地引发了巨大反响。
At his best, Niemeyer curved the skyscraper and made height humane. But Brasília, despite its beauty, also serves as an illustration of the dangers of utopian over-planning.
在他的巅峰时期，尼迈耶为摩天大楼营造出了曲线，赋予了高楼大厦人文气息。然而，尽管他设计的巴西利亚风貌优美，却表明了乌托邦式过度规划的所能带来的负面影响。
Beautiful buildings made Niemeyer famous among architects and critics. But by making height more than merely a practical answer to urban problems, Niemeyer’s structures mattered to cities, and have given him an outsized presence among urbanists and aesthetically challenged economists like me.
尼迈耶设计的美丽建筑物使他在建筑师和评论家中享有盛名。但他使高楼超越了应对城市化问题的一种实用手段——他所设计的建筑对于来说城市意义重大，也使他的形象在城市规划者和像我这样审美能力欠缺的经济学家心中显得格外高大。
Skyscrapers are a sensible alternative to the stresses of sprawl. They enable the concentration of talent that generates ideas and prosperity. Building up replaces the car with the elevator as the core tool for transportation, helping to reduce carbon emissions and congestion.
摩天大楼是应对城市扩张压力的一种明智选择。它们能够汇聚英才，进而创造出新思想和经济繁荣。高楼的拔地而起使电梯取代汽车成为首要交通工具，这有助于削减碳排放并改善交通拥堵状况。
Yet tall towers can be ugly. They can also be expensive. And they can seem painfully out of touch with the architectural story of a city’s past. All of these dangers of height are used to argue against the upward building that London and many other cities badly need. Niemeyer’s genius was to diminish these downsides of density.
但高楼大厦或许外观丑陋，造价高昂，也可能显得与一个城市的历史建筑特色严重脱节。所有这些与高度有关的风险都被人用来反对伦敦以及很多其他城市所亟需推进的高楼建设。尼迈耶的天才之处就在于消除这些与建筑密集有关的负面影响。
Never has this been more important than today, as billions of people migrate from the countryside to cities in Asia and Africa. Cities help poor countries to become rich, but city-building on the scale that will be required in countries such as China in the coming decades will be extraordinarily challenging. When people live close to one another, congestion, crime and contagious disease can often result. Yet if mega-cities of the developing world do not build enough, or build only on the urban edge, the result will be that prices are too high, commutes too long, and too few people experience the benefits of urbanism.
随着亚洲和非洲的数十亿人从乡村迁往城市，如今这一点变得尤为重要。城市能够帮助穷国脱贫致富，但未来几十年中，以中国为代表的国家所需进行的的大规模城市建设将面临巨大挑战。当人们比邻而居时，容易滋生交通拥堵、犯罪以及传染病等问题。但假如发展中国家的超大型城市中未能建起足够数量的摩天大楼，或者只在城市边缘进行建设，便会造成物价过高、通勤时间过长，城市化进程的受益群体范围过窄等问题。
To China’s builders, Niemeyer provides an example of a master from the developing world. He built using inexpensive, highly durable materials such as reinforced concrete, which helped make height affordable. He was always engaged in a dialogue between past and present and excelled in connecting the short and the tall. And his buildings tend to seem Brazilian even though they are part of an architectural flow that started with Chicago’s skyscrapers and then coursed through Europe.
来自发展中国家的尼迈耶为中国的建设者们提供了一个大师级的榜样。他采用钢筋混凝土之类的便宜耐用型材料，这有助于将高层房屋的价格维持在一个令人可以接受的水平。他总是在设计中融入当地建筑的历史特色，并擅长使高楼在周围较为低矮的建筑群中显得错落有致。尼迈耶的建筑往往呈现出巴西特色，虽然他所属的建筑流派起源于芝加哥的摩天大楼，并流传至欧洲大陆。
But when we consider the city that success eventually allowed Niemeyer to build, it should also serve as a warning. The modernists were good at designing functional and striking structures, but far weaker at understanding how those structures fit together to form a city.
这些成功最终让他赢得了巴西利亚的设计权。但当我们审视这座城市时，也应认识到它的警示意义。现代主义建筑师擅长设计功能实用、外观出众的建筑物，却不够了解如何让这些建筑物融合在一起，形成一座城市。
Le Corbusier’s own vision of skyscrapers surrounded by grassy spaces seems utterly ignorant of the streetlife that powers urban interactions. Cities are complicated organisms that thrive when they are messy and filled with mixed uses; the jumble enables people to experience the changing mix of urban marvels.
勒柯布西耶(Le Corbusier)设想摩天大楼被绿草如茵的空间所环绕，但这似乎完全忽视了街头生活才是赋予城市互动活力的源泉。城市是复杂的有机体系，它的活力来自于混沌混乱的状态以及功能上的多样性。正是这种混沌使人体验到变化多样的城市奇观。
That means Brasília, Niemeyer’s greatest achievement, is also his most troubled creation. The structures in this artificial capital are impressive, yet few want to walk its barren streets. Politicians leave as soon as possible to return to grittier, but livelier, Brazilian cities.
这意味着巴西利亚既是尼迈耶最伟大的成就，也是他问题最严重的作品。这座人造首都的建筑宏伟壮观，但却几乎没人想在它那毫无生气的街道上漫步。政界人士在结束工作后往往立即离开巴西利亚，回到那些不太美观、却更富有生气的巴西城市。
Much of the problem lies in the city’s basic conception. Separate capital cities limit the political influence of existing urban areas. Brasília diminished former capital Rio de Janeiro’s one-time dominance of Brazilian politics, just as the construction of Washington made sure that neither New York nor Philadelphia would dominate the US. Yet cities thrive by connecting different people and one-industry towns tend to become stale quickly.
巴西利亚的主要问题在于其基本设计理念。单独设立的政治首都限制了现有城市区域的政治影响力。巴西利亚削弱了前首都里约热内卢对于巴西政治一度有过的主导影响力，而华盛顿的建立则确保了美国政治不会被纽约或费城所支配。然而，城市繁荣靠的是将不同的社会群体汇聚起来，功能单一的城市很容易陷入沉闷。
Niemeyer’s defenders, including Ricky Burdett, the urban studies scholar, argue that Niemeyer deserves credit for focusing on infrastructure investment, something that so many developing cities still need to do. Others optimistically argue that Brasília may still become a great city, in a century or so.
包括城市研究学者里基·伯德特(Ricky Burdett)在内的尼迈耶的拥护者们认为，尼迈耶对基础设施投资的重视值得肯定，这一点是很多发展中城市仍需改善的。其他人则乐观地认为，巴西利亚仍有可能成为一座伟大的城市，但需要一个世纪左右的时间。
I hope this is true, but viewed today, Niemeyer’s greatest successes are individual buildings imbued with humanity and charm that fit into already great cities, such as S?o Paulo. His attempt to deliver a new city from scratch met with failure. Let the city-builders of Dubai and China take note.
我希望这能成为现实。但从目前来看，尼迈耶的最成功作品仍是那些充满人文气息与魅力的个体建筑，它们成功地融入了像圣保罗这样的本已非常伟大的城市。但他从零开始建设一座新城的尝试未能成功。迪拜和中国的城市建设者应当从中吸取经验教训。
The writer, a Harvard professor, is author of ‘Triumph of the City’
本文作者为美国哈佛大学教授，著有《城市的胜利》(Triumph of the City)。
