www.fatflatfloat.com
Fan Ling, was born in Shanghai in 1981 and graduated in the Princeton University in USA on 2007. He lives in Beijing, and doing design, review and space art practice currently. He teaches at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. His works and articles are published on various magazine Frame, Abitare, Area, A+U, Domus, 306090, Pidgin, Urban Flux, Architect, Time Architecture, Construction Journal and other famous publications in China and abroad. www.fatflatfloat.com
Ling Fan
The End of Form
范凌
形式的终结 范凌1981年生于上海，2007年毕 业于美国普林斯顿大学。北京设 计师、评论家和设计教师,中央美 术学院建筑学院教师和跨学科设 计研究实践平台“水晶石设计中 心”的设计总监。设计作品和文章 曾发表在《Frame》、《Abitare》 《area》、《建筑师》、《时代 建筑》、《A+U》、《Domus》 《306090》、《Pidgin》、 《Urban Flux》等杂志和刊物上。
Olafur Eliasson的工作关注解构物体性，或者更准确的说是解体 传统对于物质形式的认识。UCCA的“感觉即真实”展览（Eliasson 与中国建筑师马岩松合作）是他的工作在空间层面的延伸。但是在 这个作品中不仅物体和空间被模糊化了，而且艺术家和建筑师工作 的边界也充满了粘连和模糊性。艺术与建筑，视觉和体验，物体和 空间的分野消失了——形式感消失了。 试问，我们应该为形式的终结欢呼还是希望寻找形式的新机 会？ 在此之前，极少主义是否已经开始接近形式的终结？它拒绝任 何形式的阐释（interpretation）。以Steven Holl最新完成的尼尔森 阿特金斯美术馆为例，半透明的建筑体量在内与外之间、形象与内 容之间形成了很微弱的联系。白天，外部的阳光通过半透明U型玻 璃漫射进入室内；晚上，建筑内部的光源漫射照亮室外的公园。而 且，室内是美术馆常用的白盒子空间，也和外部白色半透明的效果 呼应。 过去的一个多世纪中，不胜枚举的“白盒子（White Cube）” 一直是美术馆建筑空间设计的支配性主题，展示空间成方体状， 所有墙面纯粹涂白，地面和天花覆盖以相应的和谐颜色……空间呈 现中性——尽量中性……也许之所以“白盒子”成为展示当代艺术 的最普遍空间，是因为它切断了与外部复杂、多样、矛盾现实的联 系，形成人们想象中最纯粹、最抽象的空间——一种非物质和非存 在的抽象空间，这也正是人们设想艺术所应该存在的维度，一种纯 粹姿态所形成的对于生活或其他的再现。“白盒子”也许是对密斯· 凡·德·罗（Mies van der Rohe）的现代主义箴言“少就是多（Less is More）”的最终极实现——一种极致的空间白板（Tabular Rasa） ，彻底空旷和非物质化。 在这个项目中，白盒子的展览空间更加直接的变成了白盒子的 建筑形象。如此直接的内外关系和内容形象关系拒绝了文丘里（Robert Venturi）的装饰外壳（Decorated Shell）和鸭子（Duck）之间 割裂所带来的任何阐释可能，表达了一种形式、空间和概念三位一 体的极少。但是，通常美术馆并不会在半透明墙前展览展品，Holl 就像变魔术一样把大多数的功能都放置在地下。密斯在柏林也做过 类似的做法，从而获得建筑空间的均质性和建筑结构的明确性。但 是，把建筑、艺术品和“功能”都“埋”在地下的方式也许已经暗 示了建筑形式终结的信号。那么，这些突出在地面的半透明盒子是 什么？ 极少主义始于二十世纪初，试图把物体形式中的各种变量减少 到最小——包括形式的变量、表皮的变量、色彩的变量等。经典的 极少主义物体往往是简单的、柔滑的、单色的。极少主义最喜欢用 的颜色是白色、灰色（混凝土的颜色）和浅绿色（玻璃）、黑色。 黑色和白色界定了光谱的两极。灰色和绿色则界定了另一类光谱的 两极——最本质的实体材料和透明材料。 在极少主义发展的一个世纪中，它并没有容纳更多不确定性， 而是增加了特征的尖锐度。19世纪时尚的“折叠”，被法国当代哲 学家Gilles Deleuze重新引入建筑后，却并没有为建筑提供更多的差 异性，而是形成了极少主义在建筑中的另一个新阶段。在建筑历史 中第一次出现了地板、墙、和屋顶不仅只是同一种颜色了，而且还 是同一个表面。折叠意味着差异的减少，所有面的连续让之间的差 异越来越难以辨认。 折叠表面的使用无处不在，就像所有的建筑师都在探寻如何将 他们的建筑做的更极少。Diller Scofidio + Renfro设计的波士顿当代 艺术中心（ICA）项目中，连续折叠的空间结构上部顶着一个尼尔森 阿特金斯美术馆式的半透明白盒子玻璃体量，两种不同的极少主义 特征被杂糅在同一个建筑中。也许，最经典的折叠建筑是Rem Koolhaas的大都会建筑设计事务所设计的Jussieu大学图书馆项目。所有 的楼板都被折叠成一个连续的路径，整个建筑都变成一层。没有什 么是不同（层）的。这个项目的模型采用的木板弯曲的做法并不常 见于建筑模型，倒是常常用在胶合木的家具设计中。这让人想起了 从现代主义就开始的折叠在极少主义家具中的运用。折叠的方式在 建筑中已经很时髦：UNstudio，BIG，FOA，MVRDV等。
Your rainbow panorama ARoS Århus Kunstmuseum, Denmark Expected completion date: 2010 你的彩虹全景 AroS美术馆, 丹麦 预计完成时间: 2010
Olafur Eliasson’ work has focused on the dematerialization of objecthood, or more accurately, on the deconstructing of the traditional sense of object form. Eliasson’s installation “Feelings As Facts” in Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) is too adhesive and fuzzy to distinguish the work between artists and architects. The distinction of art, architecture, space and experience disappears, or---at least for an architect like me, the architecture and space have lost the sense of form. We should be cheering for the end of form or still hope to find new opportunities for the form? Minimalist Architecture is already close to the end of form. Minimalist objects reject any form of interpretation. Take Steven Holl's latest finished work Nelson Atkins Museum of Art for example, the internal and external, as well as the image and content of the semitransparent volume form a very weak contact. The space light sources form the sun outside during the day while in the night the park is illuminated by the light source inside the building, and moreover the interior commonly used white cube echoes with the external white translucent effect.
Over the past century, the numerous White Cubes have dominated the theme of architectural space design of museums, all the space installed in a cube shape, walls in pure white, and floors and ceilings covered with the correspondingly harmonious colors……presenting a neutral space----as neutral as possible…… maybe it is because "White Cube" cuts off the link with outside complex, diverse and contradictory reality and forms the imaginary, most pure and abstract space that makes "White Cube" the most popular contemporary art exhibition space----a non-materialistic and non-existent abstract space, also the dimension where people think art should exist in, a reproduction of life or other formed by a pure gesture. "White Cube" is perhaps the ultimate realization of Mies van der Rohe’s modernist motto "Less is More" -----a kind of extreme Tabular Rasa, completely open and non-materialistic. In this project, the white-cube exhibition space turns more directly into the white cube of building image. Such direct relations between internal and external space, between image and content, rule out any possibility of interpretation.
However, as museums normally do not exhibit in front of translucent walls, Holl places most of the features under the ground like magic. That the architecture and art are "buried" under the ground has already implied the end of the architectural form, so what are these protruding translucent boxes on the ground? Minimalism originated in the early twentieth century and is trying to strip a variety of object variables down to the most fundamental features----including the variables of form, surface, color and etc. Classic Minimalist objects are often simple, smooth and monochromatic, with white, gray (the color of concrete) and green (the color of glass) as the favorite Minimalism colors. But from a technical point of view, black is no less minimalist at all. Black and white define the bipolar spectrum while gray and green define the poles of another spectrum ---coating, paint or finish. During a centaury of development, continuance and existence, Minimalism did not accommodate more uncertainty, but rather increased the sharpness of features.
日本建筑师矶崎新把折叠和模糊性发挥到了介乎空间装 置和建筑之间边界。他在北京设计的中央美术学院美术馆项 目中，三层展厅是整个建筑的空间密度汇聚之处，收集了整 个空间的张力，地面、墙面和屋顶的边界是模糊的，置于这 个空间内的观者顿时失去了维度，没有转角和面的转换而只有 渐变——从地面渐变成墙面，从墙面渐变成屋顶。这种绵延 （continuum）与再现的形式空间所具有几何维度（Geometric Dimension）无关，也就是说，和从意大利文艺复兴就开始界 定我们视觉习惯的点（point）、线（line）、面（surface）和 体（volume）无关。建筑空间处于建筑形成地面、墙面和屋 顶之前，各个建筑元素在形式和逻辑上都还粘连在一起尚未分 离，具有塑性。其空间质量不是从平面沿Z轴拉伸（extrude） 至三维，而是从一个质点外爆（explode）成一个三维空间， 空间已经产生，但是还未形成新的秩序，这个空间捕捉了这一 临界状态（threshold）以及本身的原始性。在这个阅读中，形 式不是来自于功能、平面、剖面或者建构，而是产生于形式 的“零度”（Zero Degree）。 大多数的极少主义建筑都建于日本和瑞士，大概是因为这 两个国家有全世界最先进的建造技术。极少主义是一种意识和 思想方法，有两位大师让我们十分欣赏——来自于阿尔卑斯山 的Peter Zumthor，和来自于日本的SANAA。作为真正的极少 主义者，他们两者甚至都觉得网站是“多余的”。但是两者也 有区别，Zumthor似乎太过于自我，SANAA则为极少主义提供 了下一个阶段的发展。在更多的白盒子、更多的混凝土盒子、 更多的玻璃盒子之后，他们越来越多的开始使用曲线。他们在 托莱多玻璃艺术博物馆的扩建项目使用了完全新的模式——不 仅模糊了墙和墙之间的关系，而且模糊了玻璃和视觉之间的关 系，使两者关系形成扭曲。 这种扭曲在新的洛桑大学的劳力士学习中心项目中更进一 步。这个项目不仅有曲面的玻璃，而且有曲面的表皮，模糊化 了或者说折叠了所有可能被模糊/折叠的表面。地面折叠着像 一个剧场或者阶梯式的地面，屋顶和地面的折叠一致。曲面玻 璃使建筑开放，但是同样使视线扭曲。几乎所有的空间都被模 糊化和扭曲。 在Jussieu图书馆之后，OMA把极少推到了另一个高度， 他们在Ras Al-Khaimah设计了一个会议中心，就是在沙漠上的 一个球加一个块。极少成为对于象征和标志的一种终极抵抗。 SANAA的完全模糊化，或OMA的完全简单化方式都把极少主 义推到了一个限定的阶段。从个人体验的角度而言，建筑的终 结在于墙、地面和屋顶差异的完全模糊化，任何表面特征的完 全去定义化，和颜色的完全消失。存在于一个地下的、没有颜 色的碗状空间中也许就是极少主义的重点。
The re-introduction of “Folding" fashion in the19th century by the contemporary French philosopher Gilles Deleuze into architecture does not provide more diversity for buildings, but rather, opens up a new architectural phase of Minimalism. For the first time in the architectural history, floor, walls and roof not just have the same color, but also are in the same surface. Folding means the abatement of differences which the continuum of all the surfaces makes it increasingly difficult to identify. Folding surface is applied ubiquitously, as if all the architects are exploring how to make simplicity out of their buildings. The continuously folded spatial structure of Boston Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) designed by Diller Scofidio + Refro Design, has an upper vitreous volume like the translucent white cube in Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, making the two different Minimalist features intermixed in the same building. Perhaps the most classic folding building goes to the libraries of Jussieu University designed by Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). All the floor panels have been folded into a continuous boulevard that winds through the entire building with nothing in a different (surface). The model in this project that uses bending panels is not common in architecture, but quite often used in laminated wood furniture design, which is reminiscent of the introduction of folding which starts from modernism into Minimalist furniture. Fold approach has been very fashionable in architecture: UNstudio, BIG, FOA, MVRDV, etc. Japanese architect Arata Isozaki extends the folding and ambiguity to the boundary between space installation and the architecture. In the Museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing China, the space density of the entire building is convergent to the third floor which collects the entire space tension, with indistinct boundary between the floor, walls and the roof. Audience suddenly losses dimension in this space with no transformation between corners and surfaces, but only the gradual conversion--- from the floor into the wall, and from the wall into the roof.
This continuum has nothing to do with geometric dimensions in the reproduced space of form, that is point, line, surface and volume which has defined our visual habits since the Italian Renaissance. Architectural space exists before the formation of floors, walls and roof when all the architectural elements still stick together in form and logic, not separated, yet plastic. The quality of its space does not extrude from the surface to three dimensions along the Z axis, but rather, explodes from a particle into a threedimensional space. The space has been created, but new order has not yet taken shape, which captures threshold and its primitiveness. In this interpretation, form does not result from the function, surface, section, or construction, but from Zero Degree. Most Minimalist buildings are built in Japan and Switzerland, which can probably be attributed to the world’s most advanced building technology they have. Minimalism is a consciousness and way of thinking and there are two masters in this tradition that we appreciate very much ---- Peter Zumthor from the Alps and SANAA from Japan. As real Minimalist, both of them even feel websites are "superfluous", but they are still different, that is Zumthor seems too much egocentric while SANAA provides Minimalism the next stage of development. After more and more white cubes, concrete cubes and glass cubes, they start using more curves. The model adopted in the expansion project of Toledo Museum of Art is completely new --- not only blurring the relationship between walls, and moreover, between glass and vision to form distortion. This distortion goes further in the new Rolex Learning Center of Lausanne University, which involves curved glass and more importantly curved finishes, blurring or folding all the surfaces that could be obscured or folded. The ground is manipulated to be like a theater or a tiered floor, roof dealt with in the same manner as the floor. Curved glass distorts the line of sight while making the building open. All in all, almost all the space is blur and distorted. After the Jussieu Libraries, OMA steps up Minimalism to another level as in a conference center in Ras Al-Khaimah which is a ball in the desert, plus a block.
如果我们忘记极少主义建筑的教条：建筑应该看上去是白 色的话，身兼艺术家和建筑师两个身份的Olafur Eliasson的作 品“抵抗视觉的状态（The Antispective Situation）”也许离形 式的终结非常近了。这个作品中有对颜色的解构、对表皮的解 构、和对物体的解构——几乎什么都没有剩下。这是一个无尽 头的空间，也许比黑洞式的无尽更甚，因为它无尽但封闭，眩 目但确定。站在看台上的感觉不再宜人，而是恐惧。 2002年，Diller Scofidio + Renfro设计的模糊建筑（Blur Building）实现了终结形式的最坚定一步。在同一年该建筑亦 被购买并被解体。形式的终结已经是一个过去式了。“模糊 建筑”坐落在最极少主义的国度瑞士。建筑身上装的31500 个喷头，从湖水中取水并形成水雾喷出去，整个建筑被水雾包 围，并随风改变着形式。在此，任何的建筑又回归到了其出现 的本源，一种人和周围环境关系的中介。这种关系的回归让我 们重新想到了Eliasson的“两个落日”作品，这不是源自于模 拟，而是源自于建立——不是像楚门世界（Truman Show）那 样的与真实平行的世界，而是一个在我们自己世界中的另一个 世界。认识这个区别很重要，也许现代主义以来的思想都是设 计一个强空间去改变我们周围的环境，而不是和环境互动、交 换。直到八、九十年代我们通过Gilles Deleuze和现象学才认识 了空间元素和周遭的摩擦关系，这从很大程度上打开了空间动 机的复杂性和多样性。所以，我们在这里展开对于极少主义建 筑、空间的阅读，不是介绍极少主义作为一个美学、思潮、流 派，而是把极少主义作为一种动机——在极少的环境下，也许 我们更可见的是体验的产生。 在Diller Scofidio + Renfro的网站上解释道：“进入水雾 中，视觉和听觉的参照系都不再存在了，只存在一片‘白’和 周围喷雾的背景噪音。模糊是反壮观的，通过更强大的技术力 量，反环境中众多争先恐后的物体建筑。模糊是麦克卢汉认为 的低定义的：没有东西可看，但是我们确借助了视觉。” 终极的形式正是形式的终结！
左图：Olafur Eliasson和Gitte Ørskou, 间接的运动, 2001 布雷根茨美术馆, 奥地利, 2001 摄影: Markus Tretter 2001 © 2001 Olafur Eliasson Olafur Eliasson and Gitte Ørskou, The mediated motion, 2001 Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, 2001 Photo: Markus Tretter 2001 © 2001 Olafur Eliasson
Minimalist feature has developed to be an ultimate resistance of symbol and sign. SANAA's completely blur way, or OMA’s completely simplistic way pushes ahead Minimalism to a limit stage. From the perspective of personal experience, the end of buildings lies in the total blur of walls, floors and roof, the full antidefinition of any surface features, and the complete loss of colors. The non-colored bowl space in an underground may be the core of Minimalism. If we leave behind the dogma of Minimalist Architecture that buildings should look white, then, “The Antispective Situation”, a work of the artist and architect Olafur Eliasson probably gets very close to the end of buildings. This works has deconstructed colors, coatings and objects. Nothing is left. This is a endless space, perhaps even more limitless than the black hole, because it is infinite but closed, dazzling but confirmed. It is no longer pleasant standing in the stands, but terrifying. The most determining step during the end of building occurs in the year of 2002 when such building was purchased and disintegrated. The end of building is already a past. The blur-building designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro is located in the most Minimalist land of Switzerland and has water pumped from the lake and sprayed as a fine mist through 31,500 mist nozzles.
Here, any building gets back to the origin of their emergence, an intermediary between people and the environment. Buildings---- impact the surroundings, in addition to people. Back to Eliasson, "Double Sunset" is not derived from the simulation, but from the establishment of ---- another world in our own world, not like the parallel world as in Truman Show. It is important to recognize this distinction, and perhaps the idea since modernism has been to design a strong space to change the environment around us, rather than for environmental interaction and exchange. It was not until 1980s and 1990s that we got to realize the friction relationship between spatial elements and the surroundings through Gilles Deleuze and phenomenology, which largely opens up the complexity and diversity of space motivations. Therefore, our interpretation on Minimalist architecture and space here is not based on Minimalism as aesthetics, a trend or genre, but as a motive --- in rare circumstances, what is more visible to us is the production of experience. The website of Architect points out: "Upon entering the fog mass, visual and acoustic references are erased, leaving only an optical "white-out" and the "white-noise" of pulsing nozzles. Blur is an anti-spectacle. Contrary to immersive environments that strive for high-definition visual fidelity with ever-greater technical virtuosity, Blur is decidedly lowdefinition by McLuhan: there is nothing to see but our dependence on vision itself.” The sun does not stand behind the clouds. It is the ultimate form or the end of form?