Haobo Wei: An Architect Rooted in Southwest China
魏浩波：扎根于西南的建筑师
The 38th interview by Global Design Awards Lab
本文为全球设计奖项研究所第38篇采访
Interview participant: Haobo Wei
对谈人：魏浩波
Haobo Wei is principal architect of West-Line Studio and a recipient of the State Council Special Government Allowance. He has served as an international juror for the World Architecture News (WAN) Awards and the UN Awards, and delivered the inaugural Peter Blundell Jones Memorial Lecture at the University of Sheffield. His honours include the sole Gold Award for Architect of the Year at the 2019 WAN Awards, the sole Gold Award for architecture at the 2018 German Design Awards, the top public-building award at the 2018 LEAF Awards, selection among fifteen internationally distinguished architects in the 2019 Dezeen Awards, and first place in the 2017 ArchDaily China Building of the Year Awards. His works have appeared in Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World, STONE, RED Architecture in Monochrome, Brick Stone Metal Wood, Casabella, Doums, Detail, Arquitectura Viva and Architectural Research. Under his direction, West-Line Studio has received numerous international professional honours for its distinctive working system of “communities of regional ties.”
西线工作室主持建筑师，国务院特殊津贴专家，担任世界建筑新闻奖（WAN）国际评委，UN奖国际评委，英国谢菲尔德大学布伦德尔·琼斯纪念讲席首讲等；曾获2019年世界建筑新闻奖年度建筑师奖唯一金奖、2018年德国国家设计奖唯一建筑金奖、2018年欧洲杰出建筑师奖公共建筑最高奖、2019年入选Dezeen Awards年度十五位国际杰出建筑师、2017年ArchDaily中国建筑年度大奖冠军等奖项；作品收录刊载于《Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World》（牛津大学主编）、《STONE》、《RED Architecture in Monochrome》、《Brick Stone Metal Wood》、《Casabella》、《Doums》、《Detail》、《Arquitectura Viva》、《Architectural Research》等国际专业书籍与期刊；主持的西线工作室因其独特的“地缘共同体”工作系统，荣获众多的国际专业荣誉。
Interview participant: Michael Webb
对谈人：Michael Webb
A critic based in Los Angeles, Michael Webb has published twenty-five books on architecture and design and contributes regularly to leading magazines in the United States, Europe and Asia.
评论家，现居洛杉矶。出版建筑与设计类著作25部，长期供稿于美国、欧洲及亚洲顶级杂志。
West-Line Studio is an architectural practice that has forged its own path and developed vigorously. Founded by Haobo Wei and Jingsong Xie, it is rooted in southwest China rather than in the centres of architectural activity in Beijing, Shanghai or Hangzhou. Its approximately thirty staff work in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province. With more than four million inhabitants, Guiyang combines a vibrant modern cityscape with a rich multicultural heritage.
西线工作室是一家另辟蹊径、发展强劲的建筑事务所，由魏浩波先生与谢劲松女士共同创立。魏浩波选择扎根西南，而非北京、上海或杭州等建筑活动的中心城市。工作室大约有30人，位于贵州省会贵阳市。贵阳有400多万人口，有生机勃勃的现代风光，也兼具深厚的多民族文化底蕴。
Architectural historian Kenneth Frampton used the term “critical regionalism” for a synthesis of modernism and vernacular context. Haobo Wei’s practice demonstrates that this current of thought continues to thrive in an age of globalisation. Increasing numbers of Chinese architects are moving beyond the imitation of traditional styles and Western models; Wei, Wang Shu, Xu Tiantian and Han Wenqiang are prominent examples. His schools, fire and emergency rescue centres, memorials and cultural centres in mountainous Guizhou all integrate local topography, climate, materials and craftsmanship. Each has a distinctive character while sharing common qualities.
建筑史学家肯尼思·弗兰普顿（Kenneth Frampton）将现代主义与乡土文脉的融合术语化为“批判地域性主义”（critical regionalism）。魏浩波的建筑实践证明了这一思潮在全球化时代依然蓬勃发展。越来越多的中国建筑师不再一味模仿传统风格及西方模式，他和王澍、徐甜甜、韩文强等都是其中的杰出代表。他在贵州多山地带建造的学校、消防应急救援中心、纪念馆和文化中心无一不融合当地地形、气候、材料和工艺。每个建筑个性独特又不失共性。
Alongside his deep roots in the vernacular traditions of southwest China, Wei has been influenced by European “organic” modernists such as Hugo Häring, Alvar Aalto, Hans Scharoun and Ralph Erskine. Their organic architecture developed independently of the orthodox modernism of pioneers Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius. Orthodox modernist masters brought architectural innovation into a shared vocabulary of flat roofs, ribbon windows, white stucco, glass walls and open plans, striving for universality regardless of function or location.
除了深深扎根于西南乡土的文化传统，魏浩波还颇受欧洲“有机”现代主义建筑师，如雨果·哈林（Hugo Häring）、阿尔瓦·阿尔托（Alvar Aalto）、汉斯·夏隆（Hans Scharoun）和拉尔夫·厄斯金（Ralph Erskine）的影响。他们所倡导的有机建筑独立于建筑先驱勒·柯布西耶（Le Corbusier）和瓦尔特·格罗皮乌斯（Walter Gropius）的正统现代主义。正统的现代主义大师们将建筑美学创新统一为平顶、带形窗、白灰泥、玻璃墙和开放式布局，竭力追求普适性，不限功能或地理位置。
By contrast, Hugo Häring completed only a handful of buildings. His best-known work is a German farm built in the mid-1920s, yet his writings remain influential: “We wish to examine things and allow them to reveal their appropriate forms, resisting the imposition of form from outside … If we seek a ‘truly’ organic form instead of imposing an unrelated one, we act in accordance with nature.”
相较而言，雨果·哈林的建筑作品屈指可数，他最知名的代表作当属1920年代中期建设的一个德国农场，但其著作却影响至今。“我们希望审视事物并让其呈现出应有的形态，反对从外赋予形态……如果试着去发现‘真正’的有机形态，而非强加一种无关的形态，即做到了顺应自然。”
Architecture in harmony with nature is a recurring theme in Wei’s work. At the Shui Cultural Center in southern Guizhou, distinctive mountain-shaped roofs echo the surrounding karst landforms. Guiyang University Town Fire and Emergency Rescue Center occupies a slope with a thirty-metre difference in level, its white volumes contrasting sharply with local red Danxia stone. Foguangyan Visitor Center in Chishui is also built with local Danxia stone; an axial stair leads into dense woodland, with a red viewing gallery on one side. The ceremonial entrance to Bamboo Sea National Forest Park makes skilful use of bamboo from the site.
建筑和谐融合于自然，是魏浩波作品中反复出现的一个主题。位于贵州南部的水文化中心，屋顶呈现独特的“山”形结构，呼应周围的喀斯特地貌。贵阳大学城消防应急救援中心，坐落在前后高差30米的坡地，白色体量与当地赤红丹霞石形成了鲜明对比。赤水佛光岩游客接待中心采用了当地的丹霞石建造，轴形阶梯通向茂密森林，一侧是红色观景廊；竹海国家森林公园充满仪式感的入口巧妙运用了场地中的竹材。
Bing’an Memorial occupies a traditional timber building near a bend in the river at the centre of an old town. Wei restored the selected house and defined exhibition spaces with closely spaced vertical timber strips. Inserted coloured-glass rooflights create a succession of atmospheres of light, darkness and blood-red intensity. Chetian Cultural Center stands in a Miao village, its sloping roofs formed from local bluestone and rough stone tiles.
丙安纪念馆是一座传统的木构建筑，位于一个古镇的中央地带，靠近河流弯道。魏浩波对选址的老宅进行了修复，通过稠密的竖木条勾勒出展示空间，与嵌入的彩色玻璃天窗制造出一系列“光明、黑暗、浴血的氛围”。车田村文化中心位于一个苗族村寨，斜屋顶由当地青石和粗糙石板瓦构成。
Wei calls these distinctive buildings his “Up to the Mountains and Down to the Villages” series. Each engages its natural landscape or urban fabric and contains unexpected experiences. From the soaring concrete roof structure of the Shui Cultural Center to the intimate scale of Chetian Cultural Center and Bing’an Memorial, simple exteriors conceal spatial dramas. These buildings respond to their climates and have become local landmarks. As the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto observed, “What a building looks like on its opening day is not important; what matters is how it looks thirty years after completion.” Wei has always attended to users, sharing the view of modernist pioneer Eileen Gray: “Only someone who builds for people can rediscover in architecture the pleasure of self-fulfilment.”
魏浩波将这些各有特色的建筑称为“上山下乡”系列。每个建筑均与当地自然景观或城市肌理相融，充满惊喜。从水文化中心的高耸混凝土格状屋顶到车田村文化中心和丙安纪念馆的亲切尺度，朴素的建筑外观下是一系列空间戏剧。这些建筑气候适应性强，已成为当地地标。芬兰建筑师阿尔瓦·阿尔托（Alvar Aalto）曾说：“一座建筑物在揭幕那天的样子并不重要，重要的是它建成三十年之后的样子。”魏浩波始终关注用户，他分享了现代主义先驱艾琳·格雷（Eileen Gray）的观点：“一个只有为人类而建造的人，才能在建筑中重新发现成就自我的乐趣”。
Michael Webb: Alongside its daily design work, West-Line Studio conducts research and develops a theoretical account of its practice. What keeps you engaged in theory despite a demanding design workload?
MW：我注意到西线工作室除了日常的设计工作，还有一部分的研究工作，将自身的实践进行了理论化的总结。是什么让你在繁忙的设计工作之余还坚持着理论研究？
Haobo Wei: The continuity between practice and theory is quite close to the way people ordinarily come to know the world. Practice is full of intuitions and fragments: vivid and sensuous, heavy and dispiriting, or exhilaratingly inventive. It is a sensitive, immediate encounter with the real world. These collections of problems, often coloured by emotion, influence the individuals involved and awaken an almost hunter-like combination of desire and precision. Original theoretical inquiry is an abstract and precious inheritance at the heart of architecture, holding the lifetime reflections of many scholars. Fundamental questions of tectonics; investigations of place, the body and topography; the cultural-anthropological architectural thinking of Semper and Bötticher; the relationship between words and things; and the autonomy of form all offer rich frameworks. They extend the ways in which we can think about and discover the world, opening a crack in an otherwise indistinct whole.
魏浩波：实践与理论的连续实际上是蛮贴合“人”认知世界的基本状态的，实践的过程充满着零零总总的直觉与片段，或活色生香、或抑郁沉重、亦或头脑风暴等等，是敏感而即时的真实世界，这些多少带有情绪质感的问题集，影响着身在其间的个体倾向，更诱发着狩猎般的渴望与精准；独到见地的理论探索则是建筑学科抽象而珍贵的遗产与核心内容，许多学者终其一生的思量饱含其中，关于建构的基本问题、关于“地点”与身体的场所结构与地形学探讨、关于森佩尔、博迪塞的文化人类学的建筑观、关于词与物的关系、关于形式的自主性议题等等丰富的思维框架有助于扩展发现世界方式的思辨模型，将混沌的一片劈开出一道裂缝。
Michael Webb: What role does research play in your design practice?
MW：对你来说，研究的过程对设计实践起到了什么作用？
Haobo Wei: For me, research is a process of comparing ways of thinking, making judgements and discovering differences.
魏浩波：研究于我而言，是一种思维方式的比对、判断、与发现差异化的过程。
Michael Webb: Internationalisation has been a dominant theme since China’s reform and opening-up, but uncritical imitation has sometimes caused a loss of identity. Might your vernacular practice become part of a future Chinese system and tradition of modern architectural theory?
MW：中国改革开放以来的主旋律一直都是国际化，也出现了一些盲目跟风而丧失自我的诟病，您的乡土实践，是否也将成为未来构建中国现代建筑理论系统和传统的一部分？
Haobo Wei: Modern architecture has two traditions. One is international in character, circulating worldwide as a kind of modern myth. The other is organic, growing through an intricate entanglement with particular ways of living. Nordic architectural lineages show this sensitivity to place. International modern architecture possesses a developed theoretical system, with extensive genealogies and hierarchies. Where current research paradigms rely largely on Western systems, following them is understandable: there is much to learn, and a desire for recognition. After all, China’s modern architectural tradition has itself taken root and sprouted on the larger tree of an international context.
魏浩波：现代建筑有两种传统，一种是国际范的传统，风行世界，某种现代神话的表征；一种是有机的传统，同具体的世界方式盘根纠缠地生长，北欧建筑谱系呈现着这样的敏感的在地性；国际现代建筑理论体系丰满，拥有完备的谱系与层级，在当前研究范式主要依赖西方体系的背景下，跟风前行也算常态，毕竟有不少需要学习的地方与被认同的渴望，中国建筑的现代传统毕竟还是在国际背景的大树上生根发芽的吧。
Michael Webb: How do you view attempts within Chinese architecture to develop locally grounded design theory?
MW：你如何看待中国建筑界的对本土化设计理论的探索？
Haobo Wei: At a time when we understand modernism more critically, yet still undertake enormous amounts of construction, we need to question ourselves and seek our own direction beyond established habits. We must rediscover our practical wisdom, an essential ground from which theory grows. This requires some wildness and stubborn persistence. To develop something of our own, we have to begin cultivating another tradition. Building its genealogy takes considerable time and effort, and its roots can only grow within our own civilisation and modes of production. The continuity of Nordic architecture, and its particular understanding of international modernism, are worth reflecting on. For me, at this moment when so many forces intersect and are negotiated, southwest China still retains some room for reflection and cultural manoeuvre. It allows a certain freedom to observe, assess, practise and break through.
魏浩波：其实在这种对现代主义越来越清醒的阶段，同时还抱有那么大的建设量的当下，我们更需要有打破这类常态的自我反问与自我找寻，重新去发现我们的实践智慧，实践智慧是理论长出的重要根基，当然这样做得有些野性与拧劲，要有自己的东西就得开始酝酿一种另样的传统，诚然得更需要费力费时地去建立自己的谱系，谱系的根也只可能长在你的文明体系与生产方式中，北欧建筑一脉相承的谱系以及他们对国际现代主义传统的独特理解其实很值得我们回味……；于我而言，在这样的各种力量交织权衡的时间节点，中国西南恰恰还保留了几许思考的余量与文明的回旋余地，多少能让你野着点性子去观察、去考量、去践行、去突破……
Michael Webb: How does West-Line identify essential structures in vernacular culture and society and bring them into its design thinking?
MW：西线是如何从乡土文化与社会中提炼其本质结构并融入设计理念之中？
Haobo Wei: We have observed two fundamental kinds of mythic mechanism within vernacular community settlements. One is a social mythology organised around survival through reproduction and food. Through metaphor, it imitates and stabilises recurring patterns in nature and society, operating through the community’s system of public places. The other is a spiritual mythology modelled on a diagram of the cosmos. Through analogy between heaven, earth and people, and through metonymy in which a part represents a whole, it operates through the altar. Both become established relationships of signs between people through particular ritual practices. Following this, we can identify mechanisms that shape and stabilise a community model. Through correspondences of form, mythic thought becomes customary ritual practice. Repeated ritual then elevates a particular location into a durable ritual sign. Gradually, a distinctive structure of “ritual–mnemonics,” expressed through the structure of place, takes shape. This is internalised in the dispositions of individuals and helps sustain a community’s social and spiritual inheritance.
魏浩波：我们观察发现乡土共同体聚落潜伏着两类基本类型的神话运作机制：一是以繁殖/饮食为生存骨架的社会型神话，以对自然与社会运作惯性的模拟及固化的“隐喻”方式作用于族群的公共场所系统；二是以宇宙图示为蓝本的精神型神话，以对天地人关系的类推及局部代替整体的“换喻”方式作用于神坛；二者均以特定的仪式实践转化为既定的人物间的记号关系；并以此为指向，揭示影响族群共同体模型成型与成熟的运作机制：即以“同形化”方式，将神话思维转化为约定俗成的仪式实践，并经过仪式实践的反反复复，使具体“地点”升华并凝固为仪式记号；逐步建立以场所结构为特定呈现的特别的“仪式”—“助记符”结构，由此内化族群个体的心态结构，从而保持族群社会与精神遗传的恒定。
Michael Webb: How does this understanding guide design?
MW：这样的提炼将如何指导设计？
Haobo Wei: Following that line of inquiry, we developed West-Line Studio’s working system of a “ritual–mnemonics” structure of place. It seeks another possible way of continuing and developing tradition. The Shui Cultural Center is a representative investigation of a structure linking ritual, mnemonics and functional guidance, based on the bronze drum, the ritual setting and Shui script.
魏浩波：接刚刚说的，紧跟这一线索，梯次推导出西线工作室特有的“仪式—助记符”场所结构的工作系统，试图寻找有别于常规的另一种延绵与发展传统的可能性出路。水文化中心即是以“铜鼓+祭祀场所+水书”为基本的“仪式—助记符—功能指引”场所结构探讨的代表……
Michael Webb: You have described West-Line’s method as “geographical order + community model + spirit of place + composite construction.” How did it emerge?
MW：你曾提到西线工作室的工作方法：地缘秩序+共同体模型+场所精神+复合建造。它是怎样形成的？
Haobo Wei: It is a gradually developing model. A more precise description is “geographically rooted community = geographical order + community model + the tools of a scientific bricoleur.” It concerns relationships with the regional environment, connections to the social structures of subcultures, and ways of thinking through concrete practice. “Geographical order” makes visible the many environmental relationships behind a place—territory, seasonal conditions, region, mountains and rivers, and materials—and their anchorage in established settlements. These relationships become a basic means of inserting architecture into its environment. The “community model” asks how a group’s symbolic structures or organisational mechanisms can be transformed into a structure of place that sustains a particular way of life. The “tools of a scientific bricoleur” bring two complementary directions into play: rational thinking that moves from structure to event, and the group’s “wild thought” that moves from event to structure.
魏浩波：这是一个逐步成长的工作模型，更准确的表达是“地缘共同体=地缘秩序+共同体模型+科学的修补匠工具”，指涉着与地域环境的关系、次文化圈层社会结构的关联性以及具体实践的工作思维：“地缘秩序”尝试将隐藏在地点背后的疆土、物候、地域、山河、材质等多层次的环境关系，与既成聚落间的锚固关系呈现出来，调整为嵌入环境的基本方式；“共同体模型”则探讨族群的“象征性结构”或“组织运作机制”如何转化延绵特定生活方式的“场所结构”；而“科学的修补匠工具”倾向于理性思维的“结构→事件”与源自族群的“事件→结构”的“野性思维”并置相向的工作方法的成组。
Michael Webb: How does this theory guide projects of different types and backgrounds?
MW：在不同类型、不同背景的项目中，这套理论是如何指导你们的工作的？
Haobo Wei: When the framework meets a specific location, group of people, functional organisation and mode of production, different models develop. At Chetian Cultural Center, it takes the form of a village community organised through the mnemonic structure of stone walls. At the Gui’an Fire and Emergency Rescue Center, it becomes a professional community centred on honour. The model emerged as fragments of practical events accumulated. We gradually realised that certain structures were quietly growing among them. Yet the moment we tried to grasp those structures, they appeared again as particular elements and fragments. It is essentially a process of growth from event to structure, and then from structure to event.
魏浩波：这一工作框架与具体“地点”、具体人群、具体功能组织、具体生产方式相逢，会产生多样性的衍生模型；在车田文化中心即以石头墙的“助记结构”的村落共同体方式呈现，在贵安消防应急救援中心则是“荣誉”为核心的专业共同体模式……这套工作模型的成型，其实是随着具体的实践性事件片段群的累计，逐渐意识到其间有某几种结构性的东西在暗暗生长，而一旦你试图去抓住这些结构，它又化身为具体要素片段的显现，基本上是从“事件→结构”，再“结构→事件”的生长过程。
Interview
采访
Michael Webb — American architectural critic and curator; contributing writer to Global Design Awards Lab.
Michael Webb — 美国知名建筑评论人、策展人，全球设计奖项研究所特约撰稿人。
Planning: Zhou Sanxia
Editing: Michael Webb
Images: West-Line Studio
Compiled and published by Global Design Awards Lab
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策划：周三霞
编辑：Michael Webb
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