Professor Nasrin Seraji
近日，温州肯恩大学建筑与设计学院迎来了一位杰出教授（Distinguished Professor）——Nasrin Seraji。
她曾在普林斯顿大学、哥伦比亚大学等知名大学任教，并于康奈尔大学、香港大学担任建筑学教授和系主任，在ENSA巴黎-马拉凯大学任教十年。目前，她是都柏林大学学院建筑设计专业的教授，在学术界和建筑实践中都有着卓越的成就。
Seraji教授的建筑工作室创作了许多引人注目的作品，从开启她职业生涯的法国首都临时美国中心，到2017年落成的巴黎交通局建筑综合体“Big-heavy-beautiful”都取得了巨大成功。她在巴黎的学生宿舍项目和里尔的建筑学院为她的工作室赢得了两项密斯-凡德罗奖的提名，她的罗密欧与朱丽叶公寓则获得了Équerre d’Argent奖的特别提名。
Seraji教授（AA DIPL FRIBA）曾获得许多荣誉，其中包括艺术与文学勋章（Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres）、国家荣誉勋章（Officier de l’Ordre National du Mérite）、荣誉军团骑士勋章（Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur），并当选为英国皇家建筑师协会的研究员。
她对作为城市主要成分的集体住房倍感兴趣，在她的著作《住房，我们城市的实质，1900-2007年欧洲纪事》中,从历史的角度对集体住房进行了深入的探讨。
此外，她的研究同样涉猎有关城市、其建筑、景观、地理、公共空间、以及经济和治理的问题。最近，她致力于研究 “整合性建筑”——一种同时是基础设施、景观、建筑和公共空间的建筑，简而言之，它是城市的一部分，与在它里外以及四周的空间中充当一个谈判的元素。同时，她也在创作她的新书，书名为 “想象力：建筑教育不是一种职业，但建筑实践也不是！”。
今天，就让我们一起和Seraji教授来一场对话，听听她眼中的建筑学是怎样的一门学问！
Nasrin Seraji, recently appointed Distinguished Professor of Architectural Design and Research at the Michael Graves School of Public Architecture in WKU, has had a distinguished career in both academia and architectural practice.
She has taught in leading schools such as the Architectural Association, Princeton, Columbia; and served as Professor and Chair of Architecture at Cornell University, Director of ENSA Paris-Malaquais for ten years, and Professor and Head of Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. She is currently a Full Professor of Architectural Design at University College Dublin.
Professor Seraji’s architecture studio has produced many notable projects, from the Temporary American Centre in the French capital which started her career to Big-heavy-beautiful, a complex mixed-use building for the Paris transport authority that was inaugurated in 2017. The student housing project in Paris and the School of Architecture in Lille, earned the studio two nominations for the Mies van der Rohe Prize, and the Romeo and Juliette apartments was granted a special mention of the Équerre d’Argent.
Professor Seraji AA DIPL FRIBA has received a number of honours, including the Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres, Officier de l’Ordre National du Mérite, Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, and was elected a fellow at the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Professor Seraji is interested in collective housing as the main ingredient of the city. She has explored this relationship historically in her book, Housing, substance of our cities, a European Chronicle 1900-2007.
She is equally interested in other questions concerning the city, its architecture, its landscape, its geography, its public spaces, and its economy and governance. Most recently, she has been working on what she calls ‘Integrative Architecture’; an architecture that is simultaneously a piece of infrastructure, a landscape, a building, and public space – in short, a piece of the city that acts as a negotiating element amongst all the spaces around it, in it, over it, and under it. She is also working on her book with the provisional title: IT IS ALL ABOUT IMAGINATION: architectural education, is not a vocation but neither is the practice of architecture!!!
01
在21世纪初，
我们应当如何构建与发展一个新的建筑学院？
“How can a new school of architecture be structured and developed in the wake of the 21st century?”
Q 您曾与世界各地的教育机构进行过多次合作，如美国的康奈尔大学、哥伦比亚大学、普林斯顿大学。英国的建筑协会（AA）、维也纳的美术学院、巴黎马拉凯的ENSA、香港大学，目前您也是爱尔兰都柏林大学学院的教授。是什么吸引了您与温州肯恩大学进行合作？
A 正如你所说，我曾与世界各地的建筑学院有过合作，当我第一次在温州肯恩大学讲课时，我面临着这样一个问题：在21世纪初，我们应该如何构建与发展一个新的建筑学院？
莫尼院长和文森主任带我参观了校园，当时的建筑学院大楼还在建设中，站在可以容纳约700名学生的主演讲厅里，我非常兴奋地看到，在欧洲逐渐放弃建筑学作为一门思辨性学科的重要性时，中国对建筑学有着如此大的热情。这时我开始想，或许我可以与这里的师生一起描绘温州肯恩大学建筑学的未来。
不得不说，是杨毅欣副校长（Eric）说服了我，让我与David和Vincent携手在新项目的建设中发挥重要作用。
Q You have been working with various educational institutions, such as Cornell University, Columbia University, and Princeton University in the US. The Architectural Association (AA) in the UK, Academy of fine arts in Vienna, ENSA Paris Malaquais, Hong Kong University, and currently you are Professor of Architectural Design in University College Dublin in Ireland. What interests you to join us?
A As you very precisely mention I have been in the service of architectural education in many schools around the world, when I first lectured at Wenzhou Kean, I was confronted with the question of how can a new school of architecture be structured and developed in the wake of the 21st century?
Dean Mohney and Vincent Peu Duvallon showed me around the campus and the architecture school building was under construction then, we stood in the main lecture amphitheatre that could seat approximately 700 students, and I was very excited to see that there is so much enthusiasm in China for Architecture, at a time when Europe is relinquishing the importance of architecture as an intellectual discipline. This is when I started to think that I could perhaps help to draw the future of WKU Architecture with the faculty and the students.
I must say that provost Yixin Yang (Eric) convinced me that it was important for me to be instrumental in the making of the new school hand in hand with David and Vincent.
02
我试图将建筑理解为文化系统，
以此来消除那些将创意与科研、研究与实践、制作与思考、模拟与数字分开的重重围墙…
“I try to efface the burdened walls that separate creativity from research, research from practice, making from thinking, and analogue from digital … through understanding architecture as cultural systems.”
Q 科研与实践从始至终贯穿着您的在您的教学生涯中，对您来说，同时进行教学、科研与实践意味着什么？建筑教育在其中扮演怎样的角色？
A 实践、科研和教学于根本上是相互关联的。作为一名建筑师，我通过我的学科来探究世界，因此每一个项目都以问题开始。许多建筑师认为，建筑是一门解决问题的学科，我对此提出坚决的挑战。我认为建筑学在实质上应当是一门思辨性的学问。因此，我很难称自己为实践者或学者，因为我同时从事着这两个领域的工作。
作为一名建筑师兼教授，我试图消除那些将创意与科研、研究与实践、制作与思考、模拟与数字分开的重重围墙。我将建筑理解为文化系统，以此平衡这些看似对立的概念。我一直把我的建筑工作室作为一个我们阅读、辩论、思考和测试想法的地方。在我的教学工作室里，我们探讨它们，描绘它们，把它们当作文学与小说来叙述，把它们当作电影画面来序列，把它们当作舞蹈来编排。
Q In parallel with your academic experience, you have also established your research and practice, what does it mean for you to teach, research and practice at the same time? What’s the role of architecture education in your career?
A Practice, research, and teaching are totally inter-related. I am an architect interested in questioning the world through my discipline, therefore every project has always started with a question. Many architects think that architecture is a problem-solving practice, I challenge this strongly. I think architecture is first and foremost an intellectual discipline. As a result, it is difficult for me to call myself a practitioner or an academic. I am fully and simultaneously engaged in both areas.
As an architect-teacher, I try to efface the burdened walls that separate creativity from research, research from practice, making from thinking, and analogue from digital. The answer to how I balance these seemingly opposing concepts through understanding architecture as cultural systems. I have always run my architecture studio as a place where we read, debate, think, and test ideas. In my teaching studios, we discuss ideas, draw them, narrate them as if they are literary graphic novels, sequence them as if they are films, and choreograph them as if they are dance or a performance.
03
科研是建筑教学法的基础，
辩论、评论和展览是批评分析的新形式，出版和传播是制作和生产的最终形式。
“Research as the foundation of architectural pedagogy, debate, reviews, and exhibition as a new form of critical analysis and publication and dissemination as the ultimate form of making and producing.”
Q 作为一名杰出教授和研究型教授，您即将与WKU的合作可能在哪些方面对您的职业目标有所帮助？您如何看待科研对一个学校的重要性，您将以哪些方式参与？
A 与其说是职业目标，我与WKU的合作更像是一个令人兴奋的新项目。一个涉及到研究作为建筑教学法的基础，辩论、评论和展览作为批评分析的新形式，以及出版和传播作为制作和生产的最终形式的项目。
Q As a distinguished professor and research professor, in which way your upcoming collaboration with WKU might be contributory to your career objective? How do you think of the importance of the research to a school, and in which way you might be involved in the process?
A My engagement and collaboration with WKU is not a career objective! It is more like a new exciting project. A project that involves research as the foundation of architectural pedagogy, debate, reviews, and exhibition as a new form of critical analysis and publication and dissemination as the ultimate form of making and producing.
04
我们需要重新思考一切，我们的消耗，我们的活动，
我们的教学条件，我们的存在，新空间性，以及建筑教育与其课程设置。
“We need to rethink everything, our consumption, our movements, our teaching conditions, our presence, new spatialities, and specially architectural education and its curriculum.”
Q 温州肯恩大学正在进行的许多科研项目都是基于对温州城市环境的现场调查，其中最有代表性的是由Vincent带领的项目，这些项目往往是基于大量的实地调研。然而，由于疫情以及其带来的一系列限制，教师和学生在研究和教学方面都很难在现场进行。您认为这是一个问题吗，对此您有什么建议？
A 这场疫情让我们对我们生活的许多方面进行重新审视：时间、全球化、地方治理、经济脆弱性、不平等性、愿景与未来、可负担性和可及性，这一切都是建筑师必须要面对，并且做出相应设计的。我们与世界的关系呈现着二维的状态，而在我们的学科中，第三和第四维是至关重要的。在疫情之前，学校里的一切都围绕着设计工作室进行。在“封校”之后，所有的课程都采用了相同的教学模式。“Zoom”在学生和老师之间创造了一种正交的关系，而工作室创造的是一种空间关系。建筑师擅长将限制转变成机遇，因此我们从所有的限制中学习。在这种情况下，没有什么是不可能的。我们需要重新思考一切，我们的消耗，我们的活动，我们的教学条件，我们的存在，新空间性，以及建筑教育与其课程设置。
Q Many of the ongoing research in WKU is based on on-site investigation of the urban environment in Wenzhou, especially projects carried by Vincent, which is often marked with field research and observation. While the COVID and a series of the following restrictions are making it difficult for faculty and students to be present both for research and teaching. Do you consider it as a problem and what would you suggest to respond to this condition?
A The pandemic has made us question a lot of things in our lives: time, globalization, local governance, economic fragility, inequality, perspective and future, affordability, and accessibility – all things architects have to work with and design for. Our relationship to the world has become two-dimensional whereas in our discipline the third and fourth dimensions are of the essence. Before the pandemic, everything in schools revolved around the design studio. ‘Lock downs’ have imposed the same mode of teaching for all courses. Zoom has created an orthogonal relationship between the students and the teacher, whereas the studio creates a spatial relationship. We can learn from all of these restrictions as architects are the masters of turning constraints into horizons. There is no inevitability in this situation. We need to rethink everything, our consumption, our movements, our teaching conditions, our presence, new spatialities, and specially architectural education and its curriculum.
05
建筑学是一门批判性地
设计、改造和修复世界的学问。
“Architecture is a way to critically design, transform and repair our world.”
Q 在过去的几十年里，您见证着世界各地的建筑教育，实践及其他一切的发展与变迁，您认为是否应该有（或者说已经有一种）新的合作形式形成？作为回应，您认为应该培养什么样的学生？
A 21世纪以一种“团队协作”的新型生态体系为标志，这种体系有着肥沃的土壤，它使得建筑学被理解为一门文化和知识性学科，它从许多学科中汲取营养，并通过抽象的形式（图纸和表现），赋予建筑颠覆性的力量。研究建筑学并不仅仅设计建筑，而是要对所有其他学科持开放和包容的态度。我们研究建筑是为了学习所有的社会经济条件，政治方面的复杂性，以及一系列错综复杂的问题，这些条件对领土、城市、景观、环境，以及我们的社会在空间实体上起着决定性作用。
20世纪是过度发展和过度建设的世纪。21世纪应该是理性和修复的时代。我致力于培养所有好奇于以建筑作为一种批判性设计、改造和修复我们世界的方式的学生。
Q In the past decades, you have witnessed the development of architecture education, practice, and matters beyond all around the world, do you think there should be or there is a new form of collaboration happening? In responding to that what kind of students are you interested to nurture?
A The 21st century is marked by a new form of ecology: “collaboration and teamwork. This ecosystem is very fertile, it can allow for architecture to be understood as a cultural and intellectual discipline that draws from the reality of many disciplines and through abstraction (drawings and representations) has transformative powers. To study architecture is not ‘only’ to design buildings, but to be open and inclusive to all other disciplines. We study architecture to learn the complexities and intricacies of the socio-economic and political aspects of all conditions that have specific spatial and material consequences on territories, cities, landscapes, environments, and our societies.
The 20th century was the century of hyper development and excessive building. The 21st century should be the era of reason and repairing. I am interested in all students that are curious and interested in architecture as a way to critically design, transform and repair our world.
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文字 | Nasrin Seraji
文字编辑 | 黄铁汝
制作 | 项温蔚
审核 | Nasrin Seraji, Vincent Peu Duvallon, 王舒
责编 | 媒体中心
