关于空间，关于死亡

张利/ZHANG Li

关于空间，关于死亡

张利/ZHANG Li

文明史上惟一不变的规律是，每一个个体的注定的归宿都是死亡。生命的时钟分秒不停地催促我们走向这一结局，而人类最有效的抗争方式是建构死亡之后的故事。事实上，建构死亡之后的来世是人类区别于其他物种的主要原因之一。

死亡可能是一个被忌讳的话题，然而面对死亡的态度却是不同文明的本质的分野。这一分野非常重要的表现在于与死亡相关的人造空间，在这里，关于今生与来世的叙事得以赤裸祼地昭示，在这里，人性的尊严得以最为多样化地诠释。

让我们以最孟浪的方式概括建成空间对死亡的态度：敬畏、忽视与拒绝。

毫无疑问，敬畏是人类面对死亡的最初方式。我们在此不必悉数原始部族文化对剧毒爬行动物的图腾崇拜——它们象征着最迅速的死亡——我们只需观察跨越东西方的陵墓建筑的纪念性。在从宋陵的石像生至布雷的牛顿纪念堂的超大尺度的空间叙事中，我们得到的是一种超自然的、超物理生命极限的精神颂歌。在这种故事里，生者对逝者的膜拜以一种一边倒的形式得以呈现：逝者不仅是经验与知识的象征，更是一种居高临下的“我正在看着你”的威严的表达。即使在21世纪的今天，这种出于对死亡未知感的惶恐仍然存在于多数以殡葬为主题的建筑中。被小心意意地经营着的空间序列、被预置情感的物理环境先入为主式地限定了生者在这类空间中的行为。无论是文艺复兴佛罗伦萨的美第奇家族教堂，还是清东陵的3km轴线，都无一例外地传递了这种勿庸质疑的敬畏心理。

然而对死亡的有意忽视也是近代文明史上的一种不可否认的存在。来世即是今世，生命的无休止循环，死亡与出生的连贯是充满自嘲式的幽默感的表达。世俗式的来世描绘、神祇的惯常生活将死亡转变为一种新的开始。市场、烟花柳巷、熟悉的家居为生者营造了一个充满亲切感的来世空间，几乎形成了对死亡的焦虑的一种行之有效的安慰。在20世纪至21世纪的建成空间里，我们不停地目睹以色彩、尺度和光影营造的乐观主义的死亡空间，它们至少在情感上温暖了作为生者的每一个人的心田。

与上述两种情况不同的是，对死亡的拒绝是一个相对当代的概念。在不朽的著作《对死亡的拒绝》中，20世纪的文化人类学者厄内斯特·贝克尔以异乎寻常的洞察力叙述了一个朴素的真理——对死亡的拒绝、对长于物理生命的永恒的追求是艺术与诗学的根源——然而这一切都不能改变一个讽刺性的事实，即贝克尔自己在其著作获得普利策奖两个月之前与世长辞。贝克尔当以欣慰的是，无论是在视觉艺术，还是在建成空间领域，他的论点都得以一而再、再而三地被证实。斯卡帕的布里昂墓园以融汇东西方精神的方式，将对死亡的拒绝推向了极致——死亡不过是一系列精神演化的进程中的一个驿站——这一态度在无数20世纪至21世纪的有关死亡的空间中得到弘扬。

1860年代，尚在青年的勃拉姆斯在谱写《德意志安魂曲》（Ein Deutsches Requiem）时，将自己珍视多年的为其交响曲行板乐章准备的素材写成了第二乐章《灵肉如草木》（Denn alles Fleisch，es ist wie Gras）。在这一借助德语新约的诗篇中，人的肉体存在的稍纵即逝与精神存在的长久令人惊叹地融为一体。而在建成的空间中，这种无尽的光荣又何尝不是一种永恒。

为了人性的尊严，让我们关注涉及死亡的空间，这也是本期《世界建筑》的主题。□

One law that is consistent throughout human civilisation is，everyone will face death as the end. The ticking clock of life never stops urging us to this final moment. The only way of human resistance to it is the construction of the stories of afterlives. Actually， it is this capability of construction that differentiates humans from other creatures.

Death might be a forbidden topic. Yet the attitude towards death forms the principal distinction among civilisations. One representation of this distinction is the built space related to death. It is here that narratives about life and death presents themselves. It is here that human dignity manifests in all kinds of interpretations.

Let's paint it with a broad brush here. Attitudes towards death may well be categorised as the following： fear， disinterest and denial.

Without doubt， feat is the prime attitude towards death from prehistoric times. Needless to mention the totem of venomous reptiles in tribal believes-which represents the most instant deathwe just need to look at the monumentality of tombs across Eastern and Western civilisation. From the mystic sculptures in Song Tombs to Boullee's Newton Cenotagh， the super-natural， grand narrative of death is something that goes beyond beings. In this narrative，the alive pays an unmistakable tribute to the deceased， in a fashion not unfamiliar to the "I'm being watched by those passed away" mentality. Even in the 21st century， the anxiety of the unknown word of death still prevails in funeral buildings. Meticulously choreographed spatial sequence， deliberated prescribed feelings in the built space strictly constraints the behaviours of the alive. Either in the symmetry of Medici Chapel or in the three-kilometre axis of Qing Eastern Tombs， the fear and respect of the deceased is accurately conveyed.

The deliberate disinterest to death is another commonality in all modern history. That there is no difference between here and hereafter， that the transition between life and death is nothing more than a self-mocking cycle is everywhere. The secularisation of the gods turns the termination of lives into cheerful beginnings. The markets， streets and domestic lives of the afterlives creates an intimate sense of death to everyone. It is almost a soothing argument of modern life. In the built spaces of the 20th and 21st century， we constantly witness the optimism of death from the colours， scales and day-lightings.

Perhaps different from the two situations aforementioned， the denial of death is a relative contemporary thing. In his master piece，The Denial of Death， twentieth century cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker states a simple argument that is hard to attack-it is the denial of death that makes art and philosophy of mankindyet it is almost ironic that Becker himself passed away two months before his work was acknowledged by the Pulitzer Prize. Becker may feel reassured that from visual art to architecture， his argument has been proven time and again. As one obvious example， Carlo Scarpa's Brion Cemetery push the Eastern-Western spiritual belief to its extreme， well beyond the imagination of the mortals. Death is just one stop in the ever-evolving cycles of life. This point is frequently repeated in architecture of the 20th and the 21st century.

In the 1860s， the still young Johannes Brahms composed A German Requiem， in which he turns his much cherished material for a symphonic andante to the 2nd movement Denn alles Fleisch， es ist wie Gras. In this movement built upon the German Gospel， the temporality of human flesh and the eternity of human spirit merged into a seamless whole. In the recent built spaces， this seamless whole carries on.

For human dignity， let's pay some attention to the spaces related to death. That is the glorious topic of this edition of World Architecture.□

On Space， On Death

清华大学建筑学院/《世界建筑》

2015-08-10