異軌 Time inside the Taipei metro
Riding the wormhole 甘捷曼 Germain Canon
建築師
穿越蟲洞 北捷光陰 文字、繪圖 甘捷曼
▏ 翻譯 游劭寧
所有的建構皆與空間及時間有關係，但捷運 與時間的關係絕對是奇特的：時間是如此主 導，且因為捷運是為了解決城市暫時問題的 暫時解決方法，我們或許可說捷運是時間的 建構 ¬——空間在此視為結果而非目的。
混亂，而不是絕對的形。
變化莫測是城市暫時狀態的主要特徵，在現
代主義典範崩落後，都市規劃者接受變幻莫測為城市
的功能 3。我們期待城市是無法預測的，因為混沌中產
生機會，相遇，或是從無趣及寂寞的逃脫——除非你 是個喜歡在無名大眾中尋找孤單的人。
城市的不預期性
互影響推擠或是還原——最後留下的只有無法預測的
市民，藉由他們的行為及路徑來創造事件，
城市空間也是如此，不斷演變，裡頭的建築建構又拆 除，街道空曠又壅塞，店家營業又休業，不論是人類
但就算變幻莫測調節了許多都市面向，它還是影響交 通：從一點到另一點的旅程的時間及品質很難控制， 壅塞是無可避免。
或是都市的事件，都是互相影響反應的。都市對都市
拿來與德勒茲與瓜達西的塊莖理論相比，「沒有中心，
有任何障礙物，它每兩分鐘裝載卸載，但當群眾填滿
影響，人對人，人對都市，都市對人 , 這樣的關係可以 沒有階級，非符號的系統，沒有將軍，也沒有組織化
的記憶或中央自動系統，僅由狀態的流動來定義 」， 1
根莖理論與「樹」——一個從點衍生出有邏輯的樹狀 結構系統相反。
廣義思考，人們將時間認知為事件間的關係
，像塊莖關係所組成的城市暫時狀態複雜到難以掌控
2
及期望。一座城市就像一件被十隻手塑造的陶土，相
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捷運面對了這個問題。很顯然它是個實體上
避開城市的快速地下系統，除了人們的憂愁， 捷運沒 了捷運大廳，捷運也帶來了城市上頭的不可預知性， 捷運建築必須阻止這傾向並且用迥異的暫時狀態來代 替它。
捷運的永恆
捷運與城市的獨特接觸點就在從人行道旁那
個像是巨大隱藏物之微小末端的捷運出口， 手扶梯
往下，轉換到另個世界，我們改變行為，抓住扶手與
All architectures have a relationship with time as they do with space,
大家等速度的排著隊，接著又排著隊等待那兩聲「逼
but that of the metro is certainly a peculiar one: time is so predominant
台地上指示，在那些步伐中，我們發現自己在過於巨
because it is built as a temporal solution to the temporal problems of the
逼」，然後又再次形成隊伍等待捷運到來，跟隨著月 大但足夠寬敞能容納尖峰時間人們的捷運大廳中競速，
that we could say, if such thing was possible, that the metro is an architecture of time – space being a consequence rather than a purpose –
city above it.
沒有碰撞，沒有壅塞，什麼都沒有：路徑減縮成了一 個有效率且可預測的流動。
當地上的公共空間是給人類活動使用，移動、
溝通、飲食、觀察或是睡眠，我們卻發現捷運大廳如 此的大卻沒有上述活動，讓人休息的椅子與板凳很難
Unpredictability of the city
Citizens, by their actions and paths, produce events, and so does the
city’s space, constantly evolving as buildings are built or teared down,
streets are free or jammed, shops are open or closed. Those events, whether human or urban, influence and react to each other: urban reacts
to urban, human to human, human to urban and urban to human, in
找到，食物飲料都是禁止的。而這些相關的空間在上
a relationship that could be compared to Deuleuze and Guattari’s
能簡化到只有移動及經過，所以捷運是個工具，從不
automaton, defined solely by a circulation of states1”, as opposed to
方城市是多麼重要，在這卻缺席，捷運公共空間的功 是終點。
公共空間功能減少公眾事件也跟著減少，若
沒得購物或沒事做，與陌生人的對話就越少， 除了行 為之外，大眾的組成是被控制的，一張悠遊卡精準的 記錄著人們的出入，捷運票價（2~3 倍於公車票價） 是保證捷運人口均值組成的過濾器。
最後，台北那多樣化的視覺環境，在入口閘
門後被調整到最簡約，多數的捷運站使用一致的乾淨 直白美學，這是講求功能同質性的結果。也許是想要 表達這樣大型建築系統的一致性，這樣的一致性只有
在這 1996 年才有第一條路線相對年輕的捷運系統中才 被允許。捷運標誌成為捷運站中唯一的差異。簡單的 顏色區分及中英文站名，作為捷運與使用者直接的傳 遞者 , 除了確認我們在對的捷運線上，許多文宣、影
片，及播音會告訴我們不能飲食、不能嚼食口香糖、
不能大聲講電話，或是，如何保護自己不被人刺傷。
有些人會從捷運站中期待著上面城市的模樣，
但捷運標誌只會告訴我們街道及建築物的名字，讓我 們自行想像中正紀念堂的宏偉或是士林夜市的吵鬧。 台北捷運是個有參考系統的自主個體：假如捷運秀出
concept of rhizome: it is “acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying
system without a General and without an organizing memory or central
the “tree”, an arborescent system where points originate logically one from the other on a visible structure.
If we consider, in a very broad definition, that human perceive time
as relationship between events2, the temporality of the city, made of
those rhizome-relationships, is too complex to be grasped, anticipated
and controlled. A city is like small piece of clay molded by ten hands, all
bustling over each other, pushing fingers as much as dirt, undoing what
others have done – and in the end there is never any clear shape but that of unpredictable disorder.
Unpredictability is a major characteristic of the city’s temporality
and is now, after the fall of deterministic modernist models, accepted by
urban planners even as part of the city’s functions3: we expect from a
city to be unpredictable because from its disorder emerge opportunities,
encounters, escapes from boredom and solitude – unless you are one of those who likes to find solitude among an anonymous crowd.
But as it regulates most urban aspects unpredictability will also influence the traffic: trips from one place to another are difficult to control in both
duration and quality, and congestion therefore never totally avoidable.
The metro addresses that specific problem. It is obviously a fast,
underground system, which physically avoids the city so that it has no
obstacle but the human fret. It loads and unloads every two minutes. But
as the crowd fills the metro hallways it brings along the unpredictability
from above: the metro architecture has to develop strategies to suppress
this tendency and replace it with a different – and perhaps conflicting – kind of temporality.
Permanence of the metro
The unique contact between the metro and the city is where the
了城市某個影像，它其實並不是在告知我們在哪，而
gate emerges out of the sidewalk, as the tiny extremity of an enormous
發現大湖公園之美」，倘若看見部分台北， 我們則是
in line with the crowd, at a regulated speed. We then stand in line
是告訴我們搭乘那條線可以去的地方。「搭乘文湖線， 看到協助我們選擇出口的小尺度地圖，這是含括 10
分鐘路程的城市尺度。 假使下錯站，時間就會拉長， 而當我們看見整個台北時，它變成白色方塊裏互相交
錯的彩色線條與車站—— 一個不真實卻有力量的表現
hidden object. Going down the escalators, down into the ground from one world to another, we change our behavior. We hold the rail, when passing, beep – beep!, the ticket gate, and in line again when
waiting for the metro, following the marks painted on the platform.
In between those steps we find ourselves speeding in large hallways
that are oversized for our bodies, but wide enough to contain the rush-hour crowd. No collisions, no jamming, no nothing: this is the reduction of paths to an efficient and predictable flow.
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江子翠站
信義安和站
Jiangzicui station
所以捷運不僅很快且藉由縮短路徑、簡化功
能、相遇、視覺及參考，它更是減少了事件及不可預 測性的發生，捷運可靠地非常快速，有著如此有效率
的控制其暫時狀態，的確是之前所提到的時間的建構， 但這時間是什麼組成的？
古亭站
Xinyi Anhe station
一趟捷運旅程：經過全白的捷運站，跟隨著
隊伍與人群，你走進了車廂，車門開了又關， 人們因 為加速往前，減速後倒，車門再次開關，人再次往前 往後，開又關，一趟捷運旅程唯一不同的地方只有這 樣程序的多寡而已。從窗戶看出，看穿了自己的反射 影像，你只會看到管線在黑暗隧道中蜿蜒。車廂裡， 人們的心思在某處，在一個他們談論的，閱讀的，夢 想的抽象空間。
沒有這些不預期性，剩下的事件不僅微不足道且在時
空上也相似的微不足道，但並不是說捷運是可預測的，
Guting station
While above the public space is used for almost every
human activities – moving, communicating, eating, drinking, observing,
sleeping,… – we find the metro hallways all the more large as they
are empty of most of these. Chairs and benches are too rare for us
to stop and rest. Food and drinks are prohibited, and the places
associated with it, so important in the streets above, are absent.
Function of the metro public space is reduced to that of moving, passing by. The metro is the means, never the end.
This reduction of function leads to a reduction of social events: if there is nothing to buy or to do, there is less to talk about with strangers.
Aside from its actions the composition of the crowd is controlled: the
electronic metro card also allows a precise monitoring of our entries/
exits, and the price of the ticket itself (two or three times a bus ride)
supported by the well-guarded gates are powerful filters that will guarantee a certain homogeneity of the metro population.
Finally, the visual environment, so prolific and heterogenic in Taipei,
is reduced to a minimum as soon as the entrance gate. Most stations
share the same white, clean, straightforward aesthetic; a result from
both their functional homogeneity, and perhaps the need to express the coherence of a large architectural ensemble. A coherence which is only
permitted by the relative youth of a network that opened its first line in 1996. Signs therefore serve as the only differentiators between the stations, with a simple primary color code, and English-Chinese names.
They also serve as direct mediators between the metro entity and its
users: aside from making sure we are on the right path, many texts, videos and recordings will ask us not to eat, drink or chew-gum, not to talk to
許多建築類型有著可預測的暫時狀態仍有著有力的意
loudly on the phone, or how protect ourselves if someone tries to stab us.
於一切都被準確的方法在準確的時間被表現出來，當
of paths, functions, social encounters, visual form and references, it
義。舉例來說， 廟宇庇護著禮俗，禮俗的重要性來自
54
So the metro is not only physically fast, but by operating a reduction
中正紀念堂站
東門站
Chang-Kai Check Memorial hall Station
台電大樓站
Dongmen station
Taipower building station
Station plans are provided at the entrance of each metro
station, precisely defining for the user the place and time
of the following events.
牆堵讓我們在無止盡的空間中感到安心，如此計畫好的
reduces the amounts of events, and unpredictability that emerges from
we mentioned earlier. But what is that time made of?
循環事件也讓我們從無止盡的時間中感到同樣安心。 然而，這裡永遠都有著白牆，永遠有手扶梯，
永遠有正常人們，最重要的是，永遠都有一台捷運即將 進站，不需要查時間，或是計劃啟程，捷運旅程是一連 串相似的事件發生在相似未知時間的程序，無法各自
分別差異，永遠都在發生，它們甚至不是自己的事件， 因為沒有事件可以預測，所以捷運的建構是不可預測
的，這是個永久的空間，沒有撕裂或是改變，這是光陰 消逝的時間之建構。
穿越蟲洞
倘若有一天，太空旅遊者想要在宇宙穿越很遠
的距離到另一顆遠方星球，為了在他生命中抵達，他必 須移動得比光速還快 當然移動得比光速還快是不可能
的，所以物理學家想像著「蟲洞」的概念，將兩個宇宙 很遠的點連結的捷徑，讓太空船可以保持速度但仍準時
these events. The metro is fast, and reliably so. With such an efficient
control of its own temporality the metro is indeed the architecture of time Without the unpredictability from above, it seems that all events left
are not only trivial in themselves, but also trivial in their similarity over time and place. It is not simply that the metro is predictable: many types
of architecture have predictable temporalities and are still charged with powerful meaning. Temples, for example, sheltering rituals: it is precisely by being played out in a predictable way at a predictable moment that
rituals take all their importance. As walls secure us from endless space,
programmed cyclic events secure us from the endless of time.
Here however, there is always white walls, always escalators,
always normal people, and most of all, there is always a metro coming.
No need to check a schedule, to program a departure in time. Metro trips are sequences made of similar events that happen at a similarly
undetermined moment. Indistinguishable from each other, happening
anytime, all the time, they are not even themselves events. The
architecture of the metro is not predictable because there is no event left
to predict. It is a space of permanence. Without rupture, or change, it is an architecture of time in which time disappears.
Riding the wormhole
If one day a space traveler wanted to cross the great distances of the
到達，不過最大的副作用就是，因為所有的距離及速度
universe to reach a faraway star he would need, in order to arrive within
旅行者在蟲洞花的幾分鐘，出來後其實已經過了很多
a shortcut linking two distant point of the universe in which spaceships
都一樣，在蟲洞旅行的時間比外面度過時間還短，太空
his lifetime, to travel faster than light. Faster-than-light travel is of course physically impossible, so physicists imagined the concept of a wormhole:
could remain at a normal speed and still arrive on time at destination.
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如此超越時間，他就錯過了小孩生日、他們的生活， 甚或是國家的興滅。
當我們每天離開城市 , 就像是不可預知的塊莖
概念，走到隧道 , 進入一個事件少到，時間難以感知的 永久空間，我們必定覺得像太空旅行者一樣在穿越蟲 洞，我們知道在這隧道外面有數以千計的事件發生，
我們從隱形的公園、交通號誌，還有陌生人下方經過， 當我們出了蟲洞，找回現實城市，它的味道、聲音（或 許開始下雨），我們不禁思考著「我到底錯過了什 麼？」
在《日常生活實踐》書中，作者德瑟多定義
在城市漫步是聲明功能 4, 我們移動到不同地方，有不
同的相遇，我們彌補能夠讓城市付諸那些不可預測故 事行動之程序，雖然我們從來無法了解城市的所有， 即使我們迷路了或是我們從沒到過某些地方，我們了 解城市總是可以填補那些故事，如此一來，城市是連 續的。
但是當穿越蟲洞，我們打斷了從一個地方到
另一個地方的事件順序，我們用捷運上的事件來代替 那些事件；取而代之的是，連結順序的兩端，那平淡 的捷運暫時狀態。我們是用永久的「空」間來連結城 市的兩處。
對捷運族來說，台北不再是個連續無法預測
的組合，它變成了捷運站周圍 10 分鐘可到的區域，每 一個都像依附在捷運站的枝枒，這就是與德勒茲與瓜 達西塊莖理論的相反——有結構，有組織的樹狀圖理
論。我們有時將站名來定義城市區域 , 捷運圖像是城市 尺度及暫時狀態的表現法，「多少站可以抵達呢？」 德勒茲描述了在紐約摩天大廈的全景圖是如何讓人了
解城市複雜度，「將其流動性固定成透通文字 5」在地
底下，我們唯一有的全景圖就是那張捷運地圖：神奇 的地圖，點狀分割，每個點都可以在幾分鐘內到達。
捷運，有著特異暫時狀態的蟲洞，在我們心
中成為組織台北不連續建構裡的最連續的構造，在每 一站的出口中我們找到城市的一小部分：就像是建築 物大廳最底端的那個小房間，一個有力量卻扭曲的建
築物，暫時狀態容許它崩壞再容納著另一個建築物。 ┃
56
But a major side effect would be that, all distances and speeds
remaining equal, the time spend in the wormhole must have been shorter
than the time spend outside of it: the space traveler would spend a few
minutes in the wormhole, but when he’d come out years would have
past. By trumping time he would miss his children’s birthday, or their life, or the rise and fall of entire nations.
As we everyday leave the city, the unpredictable rhizome, to go down
the tunnel, into a space of permanence where events are so few that time
is barely perceptible, part of ourselves must feel like the space traveler
riding the wormhole. We know that outside the tunnel a thousand of events happen; we pass under invisible parks, traffic lights, and people
who don’t know about us, and when we reemerge a while after, finding
back the city, its smells, its sounds (maybe it started raining), we wonder: “what have I missed?”
In Practices of everyday life, De Certeau defines the act of walking in
the city as an enunciative function4: we go from place to place, encounter
to encounter, and we make up the sequences of events that allow the city to act out its unpredictable narratives. Even though we can never
grasp the city in full scale, even though we get lost or we’ve never been to some places, we understand that everywhere the city is able to fill out
those narratives, and by doing so it is continuous.
But when riding the wormhole we interrupt the sequence of events
from one place of the city to another. We substitute most of these events
with those of the metro; we place instead, linking the two extremities of the sequence, the uneventful and empty string that is the metro’s temporality. We link two city places with a permanent void.
For the metro rider, Taipei city is no longer a continuous
unpredictable ensemble: it becomes a number of 10mn walk areas surrounding metro stations, each of them attached to a
metro line like small buds on their branches. This is how the rhizome is replaced by what Deuleuze and Guattari described as its
opposite: the structured, organized, mappable tree.
We use the stations names as common references to define city’s
areas, and the metro map as a representation of the city’s scale and
temporality: “how many stops to get there?”. De Certeau described us how the panoramas on the top of New-York skyscrapers made the complexity of city readable, “immobilizing its mobility into a transparent 5 text ”. Being underground, the only panorama we have here is the metro
map: but it certainly is a magic one, divided in little points, each of them being accessible in a matter of minutes.
So the metro, the wormhole with its alien temporality, becomes in
our minds the only continuous architecture organizing the discontinued architecture of Taipei. At each station exit, we’ll find a little piece of the city: like a small room standing at the end of a building’s hallway.
A building which powerful yet twisted, temporality allowed him to
dismantle then contained another. ┃ 1. 2.
3. 4. 5.
G. DEULEUZE, F. GUATTARI, A thousand plateaus, Continuum, first ed. 1988, p.23
德勒茲 , 瓦達利 , 千高原
R. Le POIDEVIN, "The Experience and Perception of Time", The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <http:// plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/time-experience/>
R.de GROOT, E.A. SILVA, A planner’s encounter with complexity, Ashgate, 2010,
chapter 2.3:“The rise and fall of certainty”革路特 , 希爾亞 ,”規劃者與複雜性的相遇“ M. De CERTEAU, The practices of everyday life, University of California Press, first
ed. 1984, p.93 德瑟多 “日常生活實踐“ Ibid., p.92
Metro lines linking together 10mn
walk areas: the temporality of the city is fragmented and reorganized by the
continuous architecture of the metro.
57