第二十四届“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛原文（英译汉）中国译协《中国翻译》编辑部与江苏人文环境艺术设计研究院联合举办第二十四届“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛，如下系英译汉的竞赛原文：It‟s Time to Rethink …Temporary‟We tend to view architecture as permanent, as aspiring to the status of monum ents. And that kind of architecture has its place. But so does architecture of a different sort.For most of the first decade of the 2000s, architecture was about the statement building. Whether it was a controversial memorial or an impossibly luxurious condo tower, architecture‟s raison d‟être was to make a las ting impression. Arc hitecture has always been synonymous with permanence, but should it be?In the last few years, the opposite may be true. Architectural billings are at an all-time low. Major commissions are few and far between. The architecture th at‟s b een making news is fast and fleeting: pop-up shops, food carts, marketpla ces, performance spaces. And while many manifestations of the genre have ju mped the shark (i.e., a Toys R Us pop-up shop), there is undeniable opportuni ty in the temporary: it is an apt response to a civilization in flux. And like m any prevailing trends —collaborative consumption (a.k.a., “sharing”), communit y gardens, barter and trade —“temporary” is so retro that it‟s become radical. In November, I had the pleasure of moderating Motopia, a panel at University of Southern California‟s School of Architecture, with Robert Kronenburg, an a rchitect, professor at University of Liverpool and portable/temporary/mobile gur u. Author of a shelf full of books on the topic, including “Flexible:Architectu re that Responds to Change,” “Portable Architecture: Design and Technology” and “Houses in Motion: The Genesis,” Kronenburg is a man obsessed.Mobility has an innate potency, Kronenburg believes. Movable environments ar e more dynamic than static ones, so why should architecture be so static? The idea that perhaps all buildings shouldn‟t aspire to permanence represents a hu ge shift for architecture. Without that burden, architects, designers, builders and developers can take advantage of and implement current technologies faster. A rchitecture could be reusable, recyclable and sustainable. Recast in this way, it could better solve seemingly unsolvable problems. And still succeed in creatin g a sense of place.In his presentation, Kronenburg offered examples of how portable, temporary ar chitecture has been used in every aspect of human activity, including health care (from Florence Nightingale‟s redesigned hospitals to the Airstream trailers us ed as mobile medical clinics during the Kennedy Administration), housing (fro m yurts to tents to architect Shigeru Ban‟s post-earthquake paper houses), cultu re and commerce (stage sets and Great Exhibition buildings, centuries-old Bouq inistes along the Seine, mobile food, art and music venues offering everything from the recording of stories to tasty crème brulees.)Kronenburg made a compelling argument that the experimentation inherent in s uch structures challenges preconceived notions about what buildings can and sh ould be. The strategy of temporality, he expl ained, “adapts to unpredictable de mands, provides more for less, and encourages innovation.” And he stressed th at it‟s time for end-users, designers, architects, manufacturers and construction f irms to rethink their attitude toward temporary, portable and mobile architectur e.This is as true for development and city planning as it is for architecture. City -making may have happened all at once at the desks of master planners like Daniel Burnham or Robert Moses, but that‟s really not the way things happen today. No single master plan can anticipate the evolving and varied needs of a n increasingly diverse population or achieve the resiliency, responsiveness and f lexibility that shorter-term, experimental endeavors can. Which is not to say lo ng-term planning doe sn‟t have its place. The two work well hand in hand. Mi ke Lydon, founding principal of The Street Plans Collaborative, argues for inje cting spontaneity into urban development, and sees these temporary intervention s (what he calls “tactical urbanism”) as sh ort-term actions to effect long-term c hange.Though there‟s been tremendous media attention given to quick and cheap proj ects like San Francisco‟s Pavement to Parks and New York‟s “gutter cafes,” L ydon sees something bigger than fodder for the style sectio n. “A lot of these t hings were not just fun and cool,” he says. “It was not just a bottom-up effort. It‟s not D.I.Y. urbanism. It‟s a continuum of ideas, techniques and tactics bei ng employed at all different scales.”“We‟re seeing a lot of these things emerge for three reasons,” Lydon continues.“One, the economy. People have to be more creative about getting things don e. Two, the Internet. Even four or five years ago we couldn‟t share tactics an d techniques via YouTube or Facebook. Something can happen randomly in D allas and now we can hear about it right away. This is feeding into this idea of growth, of bi-coastal competition between New York and San Francisco, say, about who does the cooler, better things. And three, demographic shifts. Urba n neighborho ods are gentrifying, changing. They‟re bringing in people looking t o improve neighborhoods themselves. People are smart and engaged and worki ng a 40-hour week. But they have enough spare time to get involved and this seems like a natural step.”Lydon isn‟t advocating an end to planning but encourages more short-term doi ng, experimenting, testing (which can be a far more satisfying alternative to w aiting for projects to pass). While this may not directly change existing codes or zoning regulations, that‟s O.K. because, as Lydon explains, the practices em ployed “shine a direct light on old ways of thinking, old policies that are in p lace.”The Dallas group Build a Better Block —which quickly leapt from a tiny gra ss-roots collective to an active partner in city endeavors —has demonstrated t hat when you expose weaknesses, change happens. If their temporary interventi ons violate existing codes, Build a Better Block just paints a sign informing p assers-by of that fact. They have altered regulations in this fashio n. Sometimes —not always —bureaucracy gets out of the way and allows for real change to happen.Testing things out can also help developers chart the right course for their proj ects. Says Lydon, “A developer can really learn what‟s working in the neighbo rhood from a marketplace perspective —it could really inform or change their plans. Hopefully they can ingratiate themselves with the neighborhood and bui ld community. There is real potential if the developers are really looking to do that.”And they are. Brooklyn‟s De Kalb Market, for example, was supposed to be i n place for just three years, but became a neighborhood center where there ha dn‟t been much of one before. “People gravitated towards it,” says Lydon. “Pe ople like going there. You run the risk of people lamenting the loss of that. T he developer would be smart to integrate things like the community garden —[giving residents an] opportunity to keep growing food on the site. The radio station could get a permanent space. The beer garden could be ke pt.”San Francisco‟s PROXY project is similar. Retail, restaurants and cultural spac es housed within an artful configuration of shipping containers, designed by En velope Architecture and Design, were given a five-year temporary home on go vernment-owned vac ant lots in the city‟s Hayes Valley neighborhood while dev elopers opted to sit tight during the recession. Affordable housing is promised for the site; the developers will now be able to create it in a neighborhood th at has become increasingly vibrant and pedestrian-friendly.On an even larger scale, the major developer Forest City has been testing thes e ideas of trial and error in the 5M Project in downtown San Francisco. Whil e waiting out the downturn, the folks behind 5M have been beta-testing tenant s and uses at their 5th & Mission location, which was (and still is) home to t he San Francisco Chronicle and now also to organizations like TechShop, the co-working space HubSoma, the art gallery Intersection for the Arts, the tech c ompany Square and a smattering of food carts to feed those hungry, hardworki ng tenants. A few years earlier, Forest City would have been more likely to th row up an office tower with some luxury condos on top and call it a day: ac cording to a company vice president, Alexa Arena, the recession allowed Forest City to spend time “re-imagining places for our emerging economy and what kind of environment helps facilitate that.”In “The Interventionist‟s Toolkit,” the critic Mimi Zeiger wrote that the real su ccess for D.I.Y. urbanist interv entions won‟t be based on any one project but will “happen when we can evaluate the movement based on outreach, economi c impact, community empowerment, entrepreneurship, sustainability and design. We‟re not quite there yet.”She‟s right. And one doesn‟t ha ve to search for examples of temporary project s that not only failed but did so catastrophically (see: Hurricane Katrina trailer s, for example). A huge reason for tactical urbanism‟s appeal relates to politics. As one practitioner put it, “We‟re doing thes e things to combat the slowness of government.”But all of this is more than a response to bureaucracy; at its best it‟s a bold expression of unfettered thinking and creativity … and there‟s certainly not eno ugh of that going around these days. An embrace of the temporary and tactica l may not be perfect, but it could be one of the strongest tools in the arsenal of city-building we‟ve got.第二十三届韩素音青年翻译奖英译汉参考译文The Skyscraper Index: A Foreshadowing of Economic Crisis For politicians and the public at large, skyscrapers—gigantic buildings backed by huge economic power—are a symbol of social progress and economic prosperity. Contrary to this popular belief, some economists argue that the emergence of skyscrapers and those reaching new heights in particular, would more often than not precede economic downturns.“The market goes down as tall buildings go up.” That was the assertion made in 1999 by Andrew Lawrence, a securities analyst at Deutsche Bank. At the Lehman Brothers‟ global economic conference held in B eijing on February 15, 2006, John Llewellyn, Lehman‟s global chief economist, alerted his Chinese clients to the “skyscraper index,” predicting that “if a global crisis strikes, it will probably be in 2007 or 2008.”Despite his accurate prediction for the 2007-08 economic crisis, Llewellyn never envisioned that the century-old financial empire would go up in smoke amid the crisis. Are skyscrapers a crowning glory or a clinging curse for the world economy? And is there indeed a close connection between skyscrapers and economic crises?In 1999, Andrew Lawrence, based on his research, formulated what he called the “skyscraper index,” showing a correlation between the construction of skyscrapers and subsequent economic downturns. In fact, the completion of each newrecord-setting skyscraper is often followed by an economic recession. Since thebeginning of the 20th century, the world has seen four major skyscraper booms, each accompanied by an economic crisis or a round of financial turbulence.In the 1920s, concurrent with overall economic recovery and the strongest rebound ever seen in the stock market, the United States went on a wild residential and commercial building spree. During this period, three record-breaking skyscrapers began to be built in succession. Within the three years from 1929 to 1931, 40 Wall Street, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building were completed in New York. What followed, however, was not a new wave of prosperity, but the Great Depression unprecedented in history. Similarly, after a period of strong and sustained economic boom in the 1960s, known to Americans as the “Golden Age,” construction began on the World Trade Center in New York and the Sears Tower in Chicago. The two new record-setting skyscrapers were completed in 1972 and 1974 respectively. Soon afterwards, the global economy sank heavily into stagflation.The correlation between supertall buildings and economic crises is too close to be coincidental. What is it then that keeps them so closely tied to each other?Firstly, human nature is at play. One of the negative aspects of human nature is blind confidence, which is reflected in the fact that humans look at things in a way that is stubbornly subjective due to their inadequate understanding of the actual world. Indeed, Lawrence himself described his index correlating skyscrapers with economic downturns as an “unhealthy 100-year correlation.” Things of that kind have existed in human society for well over 100 years. Looking back, one may readily find similar events that unfolded during the long span of Chinese history. In the heyday of the Shang Dynasty, King Zhou ordered the construction of Lutai (Stag Gallery) , which aroused great indignation and condemnation among his people. And it was at Lutai that King Zhou ended up burning himself to death. During the most glorious years of the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Qianlong launched large-scale landscaping projects, resulting in the decline of national strength and a humiliating loss of sovereignty.Secondly, profit is a motive. All business activities are profit-driven in nature. An economic boom is often preceded by a cycle of low interest rates, which serves as a precondition for the boom. In the process of economic growth, interest returns are always lower than expected, which creates a succession of interest transmission channels—a chain of vested interest groups (as mentioned earlier). The economic boom, combined with relatively lower interest rates, exerts a direct influence on land prices, business demand and easy access to financial support, a plan is conceived for the construction of yet another record-setting skyscraper.Just as day follows night in a 24-hour period and seasonal variations occur in a year, the economy undergoes a boom-bust cycle, and all commodity prices respond to the forces of supply and demand. As the Chinese saying goes, anything that reaches its s climax returns cyclically to its opposite extreme. A market demand for the construction of skyscrapers emerges from what is called the “golden climate,” which is created by a combination of factors: lower interest rates, business expansion, rising capital prices, and a general mood of excessive optimism among the vast majority of the public. However, such a “golden climate” never lasts long.It is therefore quite common that no sooner is a skyscraper completed than the economy enters a recession and then is thrown into deeper distress by the time the skyscraper is put to use. This best reveals the inseparable correlation between skyscrapers and economic downturns. Indeed, the world‟s tallest buildings often stand as monuments to past prosperity.第二十二届韩素音青年翻译奖英译汉参考译文Simple Happiness of Dwelling in the Back StreetsA secluded life has traditionally been deemed, as it seems, the supreme state of happiness, although such aloofness and retirement breed loneliness as well. Few people in fact end up as genuine recluses, whose contentment does not suffice to construe what happiness is for all.As a common saying goes, while the “lesser hermit” lives in seclusi on in the country, the “greater hermit” does so in the city. Not necessarily in solitude does reside true happiness which can be found in busy streets rather than in the woods.Here in the city lanes the early morning sunshine filters through the carvedold-style latticed windows on the walls and faintly gilds the exquisite potted plants in courtyards. As eggs sizzle in frying pans, the morning begins to fill with rising sounds: the soft voices of children, the chugging rhythm of car engines, the sweet exchange of goodbyes between husbands and wives, as well as the brief greetings among neighbors. Such back streets are busy but not chaotic, lively but not clamorous, plain but not wearisome.Although the green patches at the end of the back streets are not so lushly verdant as those on the mountains, the urban air is permeated with a vitality lacking in the wilderness.Under pale yellow street lamps, each bench embodies diversified feelings—sweetness and happiness, joys and sorrows—all interwoven to slowly ferment in tranquility. No one knows what kind of pleasant surprise may be in store for him around the corner: a uniquely styled and busy cafe? Or a bar emitting jazz music? Or a coffee shop with tall stools and a relaxed atmosphere? Perhaps it is also satisfying just to sit outdoors on a wooden chair under a sunshade, chatting over a cup of tea about daily trifles with new friends.All these elements, tempered and deposited by time, settled finally into a custom, a tacit understanding and a culture.When neighbors and friends come, they share witty jokes about personal trivialities, implicitly understanding each other's eye movements of like astuteness. Family members sit around the dining table, chattering through mouthfuls of food, and no one is bothered by the noise.Those lanes, narrow as they may be, cannot hold back the pervading happiness...But as dense, cold high-rises shoot up in the city, woefully accompanied by traffic congestion and air pollution, people‟s happiness is little by little being erode dand lost. With more dwelling space and privacy, one has his “self” encircled in a solitary world, careful not to infringe on the souls of others, while also seeking not to be infringed upon. However, when one quiets down, the once tiresome hubbub now may evoke warm feelings and nostalgia.To Manhattan with soaring skyscrapers, people prefer Florence with sun-bathed ancient alleys by the towering red dome (1); to Lujiazui with dazzling night lights, people prefer Wanhangdu Road with narrow lanes full of rollicking children. Even as one grows old, it is likely that his dreams would be embellished by the serenity of the grey old houses, the calls of vendors in a soft-toned local dialect, and the small lanes filled with soothing memories.If observed with a perceptive eye, every inch of the walls and corners adorned with moss and ivy becomes a verdurous poem, which, neither elegant nor powerful, represents plain and simple happiness.Perhaps it is not so difficult to define happiness after all. Happiness is an unfurled scroll of poems, describing ordinary alleys under the city skies.No one knows how much simple happiness is seeping through those back streets lit up by the scattered lamps as the night falls...注释(1)即佛罗伦萨的Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (圣母百花大教堂）。
