城市景观规划设计 中英文资料外文翻译文献Title:The Poetics of City and Nature: Toward a New Aesthetic for Urban DesignJournal Issue:Places 61Author:Spirn Anne WhistonPublication Date:10-01-1989Publication Info:Places College of Environmental Design UC BerkeleyCitation:Spirn Anne Whiston. 1989. The Poetics of City and Nature: Toward a NewAesthetic for UrbanDesign. Places 61 82.Keywords:places placemaking architecture environment landscape urban designpublic realm planning design aesthetic poetics Anne Whiston SpirnThe city has been compared to a poem a sculpture a machine. But the cityis more than a textand more than an artistic or technological. It is a placewhere natural forces pulse and millions of people live —thinkingfeelingdreamingdoing. An aesthetic of urban design must thereforebe rooted in the normal processes of nature and of living.I want to describe the dimensions of such an aesthetic. This aestheticencompasses both nature and culture it embodies functionsensory perceptionand symbolic meaning and it embraces both the making of things and placesand the sensing using and contemplating of them. This aesthetic is concernedequally with everyday things and with art: with small things such as fountainsgardens and buildings and with large systems such as those that transportpeople or carry wastes. This aesthetic celebrates motion and changeencompasses dynamic processes rather than static objects and scenes andembraces multiple rather than singular visions. This is not a timelessaesthetic but one that recognizes both the flow of passing time and thesingularity of the moment in time and one that demands both continuity andrevolution.Urban form evolves in timein predictable and unpredictable ways the resultof complex overlapping and interweaving dialogues. These dialogues are allpresent and ongoing some are sensed intuitivelyothers are clearly legible.Together they comprise the context of a place and all those who dwell withinit.This idea of dialogue with its embodiment of time purpose communicationand response os central to this aesthetic.Concomitant with the need for continuity in the urban landscape is the needfor revolution. Despite certain constants of nature and human nature we livein a world unimaginable to societies of the past. Our perceptions of naturethe quality of its orderand the nature of time and space are changing asis our culture provoking the reassessment of old forms and demanding new ones.The vocabulary of forms — buildings streets and parks — that are oftendeferred to as precedents not only reflects a response to cultural processesand values of the time in which those forms were created. Some of these patternsand forms sill express contemporary purposes and values but they areabstractions. What are the forms that express contemporary cosmology thatspeak to us in an age in which photographs of atomic particles and of galaxiesare commonplace in which time and space are not fixed but relative and inwhich w
e are less certain of our place in the universe than we once wereConceiving of new forms that capture the knowledge beliefs purposes andvalues of contemporary society demands that we return to the original sourceof inspiration be it nature or culturerather than the quotation ortransformation of abstractions of the past.TimeChangeand RhythmquotFor the artistquot observed Paul Kleequot dialogue with nature remains aconditiosine que non. The artist is a man himself nature and part of naturein natural space.quot Before humans built towns and cities our habitat wasordered primarily by natures processes. The most intimate rhythms of thehuman body are still conditioned by the natural world outside ourselves: thedaily path of the sun alternating light with dark the monthly phases of themoon tugging the tides and the annual passage of the seasons.In contrast to the repetitive predictability of daily and seasonal change isthe immensity of the geological time scale. From a view of the world thatmeasured the age of the earth in human generations we have come to calculatethe earths age in terms of thousands of millions of years and have developedtheories of the earth itself. The human life span now seems but a blip andthe earth but a small speck in the universe.The perception of time and change is essential to developing a sense of whowe are where we have come form and where we are going as individualssocieties and species. Design that fosters and intensifies the experienceof temporal and spatial scales facilitates both a reflection upon personalchange and identity and a sense of unity with a larger whole. Design thatjuxtaposes and contrasts natures order and human order prompts contemplationof what if means to be human. Design that resonates with a places naturaland cultural rhythms that echoes amplifies clarifies or extends themcontributes to a sense of rootedness in space time.ProcessPatternand FormGreatupright red rocksthrust from the earthrising hundreds of feetstrike the boundary between mountain and plain along the Front Range of theRockies. Red Rocks Amphitheater is set in these foothills its flat stagedwarfed by the red slabs that frame it and the panoramic view out across thecity of Denver Colorado and the Great Plains. The straight lines of theterraced seats cut from sandstone to fit the human body and the tight curveof the road cut to fit the turning car seem fragile next to the rocks awesomescale and magnificent geometry.Denver is a city of high plains Nestled up against these foothills it restson sediments many hundreds of feet deep their fine grains eroded from theslopes of ancient mountains that once rested atop the Rockies their peakshigh above the existing mountains. The red slabs are the ruined roots of thoseancient mountain peaks remnants of rock layers that once arched high overthe Rockies we know today. As the eye follows the angle of their thrust andcompletes that arc one is transported millions of years into the past. Thisis the contex
t of Denver a context in space and time created by the enduringrhythm of natures processes and recorded in patterns in the land. Theamphitheater affords not only a view of the city but also a prospect forreflecting upon time change and the place of man and city in nature.When we neglect natural processes in city design we not only risk theintensification of natural hazards and the degradation of natural resourcesbut also forfeit a sense of connection to a larger whole beyond ourselves.In contrast places such as Red Rocks Amphitheater provoke a vivid experienceof natural processes that permits us to extend our imagination beyond thelimits of human memory into the reaches of geological and astronomical timeand to traverse space from the microscopic to the cosmic. However permanentrock may seem it is ultimately worn smooth by water and reduced finally todust. The power of a raindrop multiplied by the trillions over thousands intoplains. The pattern of lines etched by the water in the sand of a beach echosthe pattern engraved on the earth by rivers over time.These are the patterns that connect. They connect us to scales of space andtime beyond our grasp they connect our bodies and minds to the pulse of thenatural world outside our skin. The branching riverbed cut by flowing waterand the branching tree within which the sap rises are patterns that mirrorthe branching arteries and veins through which our blood courses.Patterns formed by natures processes and their symmetry across scales havelong been appreciated by close observers of the natural world. Recentdevelopments in science afford new insights into the geometry of formgenerated by dynamic processes be they natural or cultural and point to newdirections for design.The forms of mountain ranges riverbanks sand dunes trees and snow crystalsare poised jelled at a moment in time the physical embodiment of dynamicprocesses. Their beauty consists of a peculiar combination of order anddisorder harmoniously arranged and the fact that their forms are atequilibrium at any given moment with the processes that produced them. Suchforms and the phenomenon of their symmetry across scales of time and spacehave recently been described by a new geometryquotfractalquot geometry which oneof its originators Benoit Mandelbrot calls quotthe geometry of naturequot —quotpimplyquotquotpockyquotquottortuousquot and quotintertwined.quot A sensibility steeped inclassical geometry perceivers these forms as too complex to descibe.However as fractals such patterns can be described with simplicity theresult of repetitive processes such as bifurcation and development. Thevariety of forms that stem from the same process os the result of responseto differing conditions of context of to the interaction with otherprocesses.Strange and wonderful forms mirroring those of nature have been created byrepeating a single computer program. Early in the process the resulting formas seen on the computer screen appears chaotic gradually an ord
er unfolds.Such experiments are the subject of a new fieldcoined Chaos by its pioneerswho feel that they are defining a new paradigm. Their subjects are diversetheir objective is to identify the underlying order in seemingly randomfluctuations. Many of those working in field have expressed their aestheticattraction to the mathematics of fractal geometry in contrast to what theyterm the quotEuclidean sensibility.quotThis is a geometry foreign to that of Euclid with its lines and planes circlesand spheres triangles and cones. Euclidean geometry is an abstraction ofreality its beauty lies in smooth clean ideal shapes. It is a geometry basedon the belief that rest not motion is the natural state it describesthree-dimensional space but neglects time. That does not mean that we should avoid using Euclidean geometry in thedesign of landscapes. Indeed such use may heighten our perception of thenatural forms of rivers and trees and the processes that produce themespecially when it is employed as a visual counterpoint that both expressesand contrasts with those forms.In Dinan France a monumental are of poplars takes its inspiration from thesweeping out the irregularities of the river bank. The are represents the ideaof that sweep. Through the abstraction and echo of the horizontal form in thevertical dimension in what is clearly a line inscribed by humans on thelandscape the experience of the rivers meander is intensified. Though setin a tightevenly-spaced row along the banks of the river the individual treesassert their own quirky growth which is seen more clearly in contrast to theregularity of their placement.The interplay of different processes is also a subject of current researchon quotchaos.quot Computer drawings illustrate the patterns that result when severalrhythms such as radio frequencies or planetary orbits come together. Perhapsthis is the contemporary version of the quotmusic of the spheres.quot They resemblea topographic contour mapprompting the realization that land form resultsfrom a similar interplay among multiple forces and processes includinggravity water flow and weather. Cultural processes also engage naturalprocesses on the land the rhythms of food production and transportation forexample interact with the flow of wind and water to mold a landscape. Thepatterns that result vary in response to the specific context of naturalenvironment culture and the idiosyncrasies of individuals.It is nature and culture together as interacting processes that render aplace particular. Natural processes operating over time give rise to theinitial form of the land and comprise the base rhythm to which the culturalprocesses respond introducing new and changing themes weaving an intricatepattern punctuated here and there by high points of nature and art. Everyurban landscape is a symphony of complex harmonies which although they canbe savored at any given momentevolve continually in time in both predictableand unpredictable ways in response natural pro
cesses and changing humanpurposes. It is a symphony in which all the dwellers of the city are composersand players.Making Caring Thinking DwellingThe process of dwellingan irreducible fact of every culture is an aestheticact entailing being and doing a correspondence between nature and culture.Through cultivation and construction individuals and societies forge a placewithin nature that reflects their own identities—their needs values anddream. Making and caring for a place as well as contemplating these laborsand their meanings comprise the aesthetic experience of dwelling.This concept as explored by the philosopher Heidegger has importantimplications for designers and planners of human settlements. A major issuefor designers is how to relinquish control whether to enable others to expressthemselves or to permit natures processes to take their course while stillmaintaining an aesthetically pleasing order. The pleasing quality of theallotment gardens of community gardens that are popular in both European andNorth American cities depends upon a gridded framework of plots. Each gardenplot is a whole in itself an improvisation on similar themes by differentindividuals. Yet all are part of a whole unified by materials structure andthe process of cultivation.In Granada Spain allotment gardens lie within the Alhambra and Generalife.The gardens rest within a highly organized framework of walls and terracesand enliven the scene rather than detract from it. They complement the formalgardens and courtyardswhere vegetables and nut and fruit trees are plantedamong flowers and vines. There is no arbitrary separation in this Moorishgarden between ornamental and productive between pleasurable andpragmaticbetween sacred and secular.It is possible to create urban landscapes that capture a sense of complexityand underlying orderthat express a connection to the natural and culturalhistory of the place and that are adaptable to meet changing needs. Thesolution lies in an understanding of the processes that underlie thesepatterns and there are some principles that can be derived for urbandesign:establish a framework that lends overall structure—not an arbitraryframework but one congruent with the quotdeepquot structure of a place define avocabulary of forms that expresses natural and cultural processes theencourage a symphony of variations in response to the conditions of aparticular locale and the needs of specific people. The result should be adynamic coherent whole that can contine to evolve to meet changing neeedsand desires and that also connects the present with the past.The Fens in Boston is such a place. As originally conceived and constructedin the 1880s and 90s the Fens and its extension in the Riverway wereinnovative models for public open space that integrated engineeringeconomics and aesthetics. The Fens and the Riverway created an integratedsystem of park parkway storm drain flood detention basin and streetcarline that formed the skeleton for the gr
owth of adjacent neighborhoods.Frederick Law Olmsted and his partners designed the Fens as a salt water marshthat would function as a flood control reservoir and that would be acounterpoint to the surrounding city. This marsh was human construct dug outof polluted mudflats but it was designed to appear like a natural salt marsharound which the city had happened to grow. Time and chang process and purposeare expressed by its shape-a bowl with an irregular edge-and the pattern ofplants-bands of grasses and shrubs variably tolerant of fluctuating waterlevels even when riverflow was low its form recalled that it was designedto receive.Olmsteds imitation of nature represents a divergence from the then prevailingpastoral and formal styles both of which were domesticated landscapes andabstractions of nature. The fens and the Riverway in their time representeda new aesthetic for the urban districts which grew up around them ofsufficient scale to.