Essay:
Jade Valley Village: Experiment in Architecture, Art, Agriculture and Tourism for an Alternative Urbanism Shirley Surya
论文： 玉山村：建筑、艺术、农业和旅游业的另一种都市化实验 雪莉·苏里亚
A Product and A Process An architect, whose words have often been taken as sage advice, once said something about how an increasingly deregulated and unstable world demands the reinterpretation of architecture by extending the repertoire of architectural thinking into domains the architect has never gone before. The Jade Valley Village project, which on the drawing board includes elements of a time-share resort, winery, gallery and museum, is perhaps mada s.p.a.m’s experimental yet effectual attempt in entering the architect’s uncharted territories of agriculture and tourism. Considering that only half of the project’s masterplan have been built, the Jade Valley Wine Resort & Company, as it is formally called, is more about the exploration and testing of critical issues on the role of architecture in the rural and global economy, than a tectonic study of the built environment. In contrast to projects like Zhejiang University Library or Ningbo Cultural Centre, architecture is less of a lead actor here but rather a tool in recreating and, literally, growing a new economy through the experimentation of “a social construct that builds upon agriculture, wine production, resort tourism and alternative urbanism, turning the landscape itself into an economy that connects and disconnects,” as Ma Qingyun has succinctly put it. With all its semblance to other contemporary-meets-tradition-inrural-land projects and the likes of the Critical Regionalism approach, Jade Valley project’s distinction lies in the architect, who is now its own investor, developer, operator and manager. This article invites looking at the project in its entirety, both as a revolutionary product and an evolutionary process. The Seed for Experimentation There was no grand vision that led to the Jade Valley project, but a seed of opportunity that Ma Qingyun and his team would not otherwise have in an urban setting and a typical practice – to build a house for Ma’s father in rural Lantian. The Father’s House, as it was later called, was on one hand an attempt to “connect” with what was naturally there – historically, traditionally and geographically – at the same time deliberately “disconnected” in how uncanny it turned out to be”. Lantian, being Ma’s father’s home village, eased him and his team into the project. It was also a response to the area’s natural allure – a mist-shrouded site of gentle rolling hillscapes, in hues of yellow, brown and green at the foot of the Qinling mountain range that meets the Bahe river before flattening out into a vast. The river forms the valley and stones of infinite size, color and shape. “To maximize the stone application both in quantity and local construction methodology” was thus Ma’s natural and foremost principle in designing the house. It resulted in using stones collected by local peasants from nearby riverbeds to clad the house façade that blends in with the existing rural setting, earning it praises for its “reverence toward its history and natural beauty” from fine books on modernist homes. But the house can also be said to suffer from too literal a reading if seen only at the level of its physical and domestic manifestation. To Ma, the design process was “developed with mute violence”, not a romantic contemplation of harmony with its context. It was in fact a “doing away of any personal obsession in form and style,” a process reduced to fundamental issues of budget, property 154
产品和过程 有一位言论常被人奉为箴言的建筑师曾经谈及这个愈来愈缺乏管 制而不稳定的世界如何需要建筑师将建筑学思考的方方面面延伸到那 些他们从未涉及的领域，以此对建筑进行再解读。玉山村项目在图面 上是由分时享用的度假胜地、葡萄酒酿造厂、画廊和博物馆等要素组 成的一组建筑群，这或许是马达·思班在进入对于建筑师来说还是未 知的农业与观光领域的一次实际而有效的尝试。鉴于在这个项目建成 的区域只有整体规划的一半，这个被正式称为玉川酒庄旅游度假公司 的项目与其说是一次对建成环境的建构学研究，不如称它为对“建筑 师在乡土和全球化经济中所扮演的角色”这样一个批判性话题的探索 与实验更为合适。与浙江大学图书馆、宁波文化中心这些项目不同， 建筑在这儿更多地不是以主导者的角色出现，而是通过“构筑在农 业、红酒生产业、度假观光业和可选择的都市化之上的社会结构，将 景观本身转变为一种既有关联又相对独立的经济体制”的方式进行再 创造——确切地说，是培育新型经济的工具。 与其他看似相像的现代与传统在乡土地域中碰撞的项目以及相近 的批判性地域主义尝试的区别在于，玉山村项目的建筑师还是项目的 投资人、发展商、经营者和管理者。本文期望整体地看待这个项目— —既作为一项革命性的产品，又是一个进化的过程。
实验的种子 玉山村项目并未建立在什么宏大构思上，只是一个契机使马清运 和他的以都市为背景进行典型创作实践的团队得以接触到这个项目， 那就是为马清运的父亲在蓝田乡下建造一所房子。父亲住宅，正如人 们后来称呼的那样，一方面是尝试与自然元素取得“联系”——从 历史、传统、地理等层面，同时有意地通过建筑所能展现出来的不 同寻常的表象与场地保持“分离”。蓝田，作为马清运父亲的家乡， 使得他和他的团队在这个项目运做中显得游刃有余。父亲住宅是对这 个区域自然吸引力的回应——那个位于秦岭脚下，被黄色、绿色与棕 色组成的色调笼罩着的场地有着平缓起伏、薄雾缭绕的山景，在与灞 河交汇后变得一马平川。这条河塑造了山谷与其中每一块石头永恒的 尺度、颜色与形态。“在数量和当地建造技术层面将石材的运用最大 化”是马清运最初设计这所房子时的首要原则。其结果是使用当地农 民从附近河床收集来的石头作为这所房子的立面材料，以此融入当地 既存背景，并因此为它在有关现代主义住宅的精品书中赢得了“尊重 历史与自然之美”的美誉。但是这所房子也因其在材质和家庭形式上 表现得过于平实而被责难。对于马清运来说，设计过程“伴随着无言 的暴力”，而非一个与环境取得和谐的浪漫规划。事实上“它摒弃了 所有形式与风格上的个人倾向所带来的困扰”，把过程简化到预算、 财产限制、建造能力、材料可能性和居住状况这些基本问题上。所有 这些实际工作回应了对真正中国建筑展开的争论以及马清运在学生时