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For thousands of years, the most common building materials have been stone, brick and wood.
几千年来，最常见的建筑材料一直是石头、砖块和木材。
They have also been the most charming, ageing beautifully and suggesting a special kind of nobility and strength.
这些建筑材料华丽夺目，颇富沧桑美，传递着一种特殊的高贵和力量感。
When modernist architecture was born in the early 20th century, traditional materials quickly gave way to the three quintessential modern ingredients: concrete, steel and sheet glass.
20世纪初现代主义建筑诞生之时，传统材料很快被三种典型的现代材料所取代:混凝土、钢铁和平板玻璃。
The result has in far too many cases appeared brutal, uncaring and alienating.
这样的结果是：在太多的情况下显得残忍、冷漠和疏远。
The buildings have not aged well either.
这些建筑也不会变得陈旧。
Could modern architects not learn to work with traditional materials while retaining the forms and the spirit of our own times?
现代建筑师可以不学习使用传统材料，但同时又保留我们自己时代的形式和精神吗?
This is the question so beautifully answered by one of the greatest of all modernists, the American architect Louis Kahn.
这个问题得到了最伟大的现代主义者之一，美国建筑师路易斯·康的完美回答。
Kahn was born in Russia in 1901 and emigrated with his parents to the US at the age of 3.
路易斯·康，1901年出生于俄罗斯，3岁时随父母移居美国。
As a young man he studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, but his career truly blossomed in the 1950s after a trip to Rome led him to a new appreciation of the beauty of Roman architecture.
年轻时，他在宾夕法尼亚大学(University of Pennsylvania)学习建筑，但直到20世纪50年代，在一次罗马之旅中，让他对罗马建筑之美有了新的认识。之后他的职业生涯才真正开始开花结果。
Kahn’s major contribution to modern architecture was to include ancient elements in his work without losing the innovation and clarity of modernism.
路易斯·康对现代建筑的主要贡献是在他的作品中包含古代元素，同时又不失现代主义的创新和明净。
He reminded the Modernists that they could be in dialogue with their most illustrious predecessors.
他提醒现代主义者，他们可以与他们最杰出的前辈进行对话。
One symptom of this successful rehabilitation of the old was Kahn’s affection for symmetry, which many modern architects had come to view as authoritarian, unimaginative and conformist.
这次会旧建筑的修复的特点之一是他对对称的喜爱，许多现代建筑师认为对称是专制的、缺乏想象力的和墨守成规的。
Kahn designed the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California as a complex of buildings, identical on either side of a central fountain – a symmetry characteristic of what is known as the Beaux-Arts style.
路易斯·康在加州拉霍亚设计了索尔克学院，作为一个复杂的建筑，中央喷泉的两边完全相同，这是一种被称为Beaux-Arts风格的对称特征。
Kahn was unperturbed by this apparent regression.
路易斯·康对这种明显的倒退并不感到不安。
“If people want to see Beaux-Arts it’s fine with me,” he said.
“如果人们想看美术学院的作品，我很乐意，”他说。
“I’m as interested in good architecture as anybody else.”
“我和其他人一样对优秀的建筑感兴趣。”
Like a city planner for 19th-century Paris or Berlin, Kahn used identical rows of buildings to draw the viewer’s eye to the centre of his design, and out beyond it.
就像19世纪巴黎或柏林的城市规划师一样，路易斯·康使用一排排相同的建筑，将观众的视线吸引到他设计的中心，并超越它。
The fountain that runs through the centre of the Institute aligns with the path of the sun on both the autumnal and vernal equinox.
贯穿学院中心的喷泉在秋分和春分时都与太阳的路径一致。
Kahn used symmetry not as an aesthetic default but with great intentionality, to provide one with a sense of balance, focus, and momentum.
路易斯·康使用对称不是违反美学，而是对美学具有很大的意向性，为人们提供一种平衡、集中和动态的感觉。
Kahn also managed to create a sense of grandeur in his designs rarely seen in modern architecture.
路易斯·康还设法在他的设计中创造了一种现代建筑中罕见的宏伟感。
We might gape at the height of a skyscraper, but it rarely instils the sense of awe that a great cathedral does.
我们可能会对摩天大楼的高度瞠目结舌，但它很少像一座伟大的大教堂那样产生敬畏的感觉。
Kahn managed to reintroduce a feeling of magnificence into modern works.
路易斯·康成功地在现代作品中重新引入了一种华丽的感觉。
In the Yale Centre for British Art, he draws the viewer’s eyes upward to the high windowed ceiling, much as though it were the dome of a church.
在耶鲁大学英国艺术中心，他把观众的眼睛向上吸引到高高的有窗户的天花板上，就像教堂的圆顶一样。
Even the staircases create a sense of lofty space and height.
甚至连楼梯都营造出一种高大的空间感和高度感。
Rather than resorting only to steel, concrete, and glass, Kahn regularly sought out a wide variety of older and more sensory materials.
不是诉诸于钢铁，混凝土和玻璃，路易斯·康经常寻找各种各样的陈旧的和更具有感官效果的材料。
He worked with the best consultants to find new uses for ceramic, copper and especially brick.
他与最优秀的顾问合作，寻找陶瓷、铜，尤其是砖块的新用途。
Kahn liked cleverly to juxtapose older and newer materials – like oak with concrete.
路易斯·康喜欢巧妙地将新旧材料放在一起，比如橡木和混凝土。
We tend to associate oak with tradition – Victorian smoking rooms and solemn libraries – while concrete reminds us of impersonal factories and remote, futuristic buildings.
我们倾向于将橡木与传统联系在一起——维多利亚时代的吸烟室和庄严的图书馆——而混凝土则让我们联想到非人格化的工厂和遥远的未来主义建筑。
But put together, the two mediums demonstrate strikingly different, yet remarkably complementary virtues.
但把这两种材料放在一起，就会显示出截然不同但又具有显著互补的优点。
The wood gives off a feeling of warmth and domesticity while concrete provides a sense of strength and stability.
木材给人一种温暖和家庭生活的感觉，而混凝土给人一种力量和稳定的感觉。
The combination subtly promises a reconciliation between the old and the new and between comfort and security.
这种组合巧妙地保证了新旧、舒适与安全之间的和解。
Kahn was drawn to the idea of making buildings that would feel like monuments – at a time when most modern architects firmly rejected monuments as both authoritarian and sentimental.
路易斯·康被要建造像纪念碑一样的建筑的想法所吸引——当时，大多数现代建筑师都坚决反对纪念碑，认为它既专制又伤感。
In 1938 the architectural critic Lewis Mumford had declared, “if it is a monument it is not modern; if it is modern it cannot be a monument.”
1938年，建筑评论家刘易斯·芒福德曾宣称，“如果它是一座纪念碑，那它就不够现代; 如果它是现代的，它就不能成为一座纪念碑。”
But Kahn rather liked the feeling of authority – and was confident enough in his democratic credentials not to mind borrowing from some of the moves of more dictatorial regimes.
但路易斯·康更喜欢权威的感觉——他对自己的民主资历足够自信，不介意借鉴一些更独裁政权的举措。
After his important trip to Rome, he wrote, “I finally realise that the architecture of Italy will remain as the inspirational source of the works of the future…those who don’t see it that way ought to look again. Our stuff looks tiny compared to it.”
在他重要的罗马之旅之后，他写道:“我终于意识到，意大利的建筑仍将是未来作品的灵感来源……那些不这么认为的人应该重新审视它。” 与之相比，我们的东西显得微不足道。”
His most substantial building was perhaps the National Assembly in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
他最重大的建筑可能是孟加拉国达卡的国民议会。
Though recognisably modern, it also seems in some ways eternal in its massiveness, evoking memories of cathedrals, the great mosques and even the pyramids.
尽管具有明显的现代感，但它的巨大规模在某种程度上似乎也是永恒的，唤起了人们对大教堂、大清真寺甚至金字塔的回忆。
Many of Kahn’s buildings feel luxurious – but this isn’t the luxury of glitz or gold of an oil rich kingdom, rather the luxury of buildings that aspire to still be around in 600 years time; a luxury of eternity.
路易斯·康的许多建筑都给人一种奢华的感觉——但这不是浮华的奢侈，也不是石油王国的黄金，而是那些渴望在600年的时间里仍然存在的建筑的奢华; 永恒的奢侈。
The Kimbell Art Museum in Texas uses travertine marble, white oak and concrete arranged in three 100-foot bays, each fronted by an open, barrel-vaulted portico.
德克萨斯州的金贝尔艺术博物馆(Kimbell Art Museum)采用石灰华大理石、白橡木和混凝土，排列在三个100英尺(约合100米)长的隔间里，每个隔间前面都有一个开敞的桶形拱顶门廊。
It’s possibly the most beautiful building in the world.
它可能是世界上最美丽的建筑。
When Kahn died in 1974, he was the most famous architect in the United States, and he remains deeply influential to this day.
当路易斯·康1974年去世时，他是美国最著名的建筑师，至今仍有深远的影响。
His ultimate importance lay in his ability to transcend dogmatic modernism and return the best elements of traditional architecture to their rightful place in the canon.
他的至关重要性在于他能够超越充满教条主义的现代主义，并将传统建筑的最佳元素回归到经典中的正确位置。
He reminds us that the real goal of buildings isn’t so much to shock, dazzle or confuse – as to be the equals of the venerable buildings we have long loved in the ancient world.
他提醒我们，建筑的真正目的不是让人震惊、眼花缭乱或迷惑，而是要与我们在古代世界长久以来喜爱的那些庄严的建筑相媲美。
