磚：墻、粘土與樂高

張利/ZHANG Li

磚：墻、粘土與樂高

Bricks: Wall， Clay or Lego

張利/ZHANG Li

在今年奧斯陸建筑三年展的開幕式上，挪威王儲哈康在其致辭中出人意料地借用了三只小豬的故事來引喻建筑對居者的基本呵護：用草和木棍的兩只小豬都很快蓋完了房，但最終都沒能抵御狼的襲擊，只有用磚、蓋得最慢的小豬享受了房屋的保護而存活下來。磚在建筑史上代表材料進步的作用可見一斑。

2016年又是維納博艮磚筑獎的評獎年。雖然在近年的各種獎項或展覽（包括今年的磚筑獎）中我們都能清晰地看到世界經濟不景氣的印記，但維納博艮長期所引起的關于磚在建筑中的作用的討論卻并未因此而減弱。事實上，從不同觀點爭執的程度看，這一討論變得更激烈了。

爭論的焦點是磚在當代建筑中到底是一種什么樣的角色，或者說，建筑師們如何看待磚。有一派建筑師堅守磚的“本分”：具有相當大的抗壓強度、便于操作的砌塊。另一派建筑師則認為在建筑材料技術突飛猛進的今天，磚正逐漸失去其技術優勢，而其美學價值，特別是其溫暖的質感、氣候痕跡所帶來的詩意，是永遠無法被其他材料所取代的。如果說上述兩派在工業化的20世紀就已存在的話，那么還有一派則是自媒體化的21世紀的產物，在這派建筑師的眼里，對磚的“誤用”甚至是“濫用”反倒是視覺獵奇的重要源泉。

第一種觀點把磚看成是結構性的，它的角色定位就是墻。磚墻，從三只小豬的寓言，到改革開放初期的中國農村，到今天不停更新對環保建筑定義的歐洲城市，都一直是可靠、進步和不過時的圍護結構。這種看似保守的觀點事實上隱含著一種在我們今天的建筑界呈短缺狀態的誠實，而其對磚的技術演進的期待也是更多集中在骨料、復合體和砌筑工藝的改進上。鮑姆施拉格·埃貝爾的2226辦公樓獲得今年的維納博艮磚筑獎最重要的獎項傳遞了一個重要的信息，即磚建筑完全可以通過砌體工法本身的更新來實現建筑學意義上的進步。

第二種觀點把磚看成是精神性的，它的角色定位是被建筑模快化了的粘土，連接在有機物與無機物之間的溫床，一種“有生命力的非生命體”。從粘土那里繼承來的品質——多空隙、易滲透、顆粒感——在高溫燒制的過程中被固化，使磚成了記錄時間與自然造化的絕佳媒介。時間性通過磚在建筑界面上的寄存，這存在于斯卡帕、沙里寧、路易·康的經典作品里，也存在于王澍重釋傳統的博物館里，也存在于巴塞羅那Map13建筑事務所的“磚的烏托邦”這樣的當代實驗性作品中。

第三種觀點把磚看成是裝飾性的，而它的角色定位——很不幸——是建筑師的樂高玩具，一種可以用來組合模仿其他事物的三維“像素”。從20世紀的某個時間開始——感謝建筑的“后現代主義”者們在把磚表皮化方面所做的努力——對磚拼接圖案的雜技式的競賽成為一種潮流，而其二維圖像友好性（或者說“上相”）無疑為它在快餐媒體時代的大肆流行提供了保證。如果說熱帶空間的白蟻穴住宅的“網”與熱帶氣候還能扯上關系的話，那么卡艾特工作室的德黑蘭卡里扎克公寓樓則僅剩下“看，我又用磚做到了什么”的視覺奇觀了。

在磚的故事中，也許“樂高”只是曇花一現，而“墻”與“粘土”的爭論則會持續下去。

In his speech on the Oslo Architecture Triennial， the crowned prince of Norway entertained the audience by mentioning the story of three little pigs to while talking about the basic protection provided by buildings: the first two little pigs who built with straw and sticks did not survive the attack of the wolf， the last one who built with bricks. Aside from all the anthropomorphic analogies of the story，the role of bricks as a significant mark of progress in architecture is obvious.

In 2016 we just witnessed another edition of the Wienerberger Brick Award. Although the global economic downturn has taken its toll in awards and exhibition everywhere， the debate of bricks in architecture continues to gain momentum through the Award.

At the centre of the debate， there is the question of what is the role model of bricks in contemporary buildings. There is one school， a more "conventional" one， that insists bricks being the modular units for masonry， which have incredible resistance to pressure. There is another school， almost as "conventional"，stating that with the dramatic development in material technology， bricks are losing their technical advantage but they remain as relevant as before because of their irreplaceable warmth and organic features， embedding them with huge poetic potentials.There is yet another school， a rather recent one， that concentrates in the pixelating character of bricks which feeds the vast demand for visual spectacles popularised by 21st century fast media. To architects belonging to the last school， it is the misuse or even abuse of bricks that generates the wow factors.

The first school regards bricks as structural. Its prototypal model is the wall. A solid brick wall has been the symbol of reliable building envelope for centuries， from the fable of the three little pigs， to the changing rural villages in China， to the new sustainable towns in Europe. This seemingly conservative argument represents a certain type of honesty that has been in short supply in contemporary architecture. From this point view，the development of bricks must take place in the aggregation， hybridisation， and connection of bricks. baumschlager eberle's grand award winning project in this year's Wienerberger Award sends a clear message: progressive architecture can be achieved solely by using bricks.

The second schools regards bricks as spiritual. Its prototypal model is the clay. Clay is a charming material that links the non-organic world and the organic one. Clay itself， as put by some artists，"has a life without being alive". Physical features inherited from clay， such as permeability， porosity and fine-graininess， make bricks the best material to register time and natural processes in buildings. Scarpa， Saarinen and Kahn all have used the brick to register time. WANG Shu also did so in his dramatic re-interpretations of traditional buildings in his museum in Ningbo. Recently， Map13 Barcelona has done it again in their contemporary installation the "Brick-topia".

The third school regard bricks as ornamental. Its prototypal model is， well， Lego-ish. Bricks become the ideal 3D pixels in buildings， ready to feed the highly image-thirsty world. Thanks to the works of architecture postmodernists somewhere in the last century， the excessive use of brick patterns as decoration emerged as a fashion. In this century，helped by the online media and fast imagery， surface brick architecture has becoming more and more popular. Sometime it is easier to argue for these 2D image-friendly buildings， such as the Termitary House by Tropical Space， when there is a climatic reason. Sometime it is difficult， such as the Kahrizak Residential by Caat Studio with its "I can do this with bricks" kind of experiments.

Maybe， in the coming story of bricks， the "Lego" would go soon. But the dichotomy between "wall" and "clay" might continue.

清華大學建筑學院 /《世界建筑》

2016-09-10