Published on the occasion of the exhibition Mario Botta November 20,1986-February 10,1987
Department of Architecture and Design
The Museum of Modern Art
如今，人们普遍对这场被视为失败的现代运动感到幻灭。然而，你的工作表明，你仍然相信它的演变。你认为建筑中现代主义传统的精髓是什么？
现代运动的建筑表现相当多样化，在这场运动中，我们发现了从表现主义到有机再到理性主义建筑的各种个性和内容。我们必须牢记这一点，以避免将今天的所有弊病归咎于一代建筑师，他们以巨大的奉献精神工作，并为该领域做出了许多非凡的贡献。
一个基本的共同希望统一了现代运动中的差异；这是希望建筑师可用的新手段–先进技术、新材料、工业化–将为20世纪人类的问题提供更令人满意的答案，并有助于创造更好的生活条件。
建筑师们，就像当时的先锋画家、雕塑家和诗人一样，已经瞥见了这个技术和先进通信的新社会所提供的巨大的未来可能性。然而，人类仍然是参照点。将现代运动的各种体验结合在一起的，是几何形式的抽象元素的使用，理性法则的使用，以及传统装饰和表现元素的去除。在这种新的现代视觉中，在大多数情况下，柱子被剥离了它的表现元素，变成了一个圆柱体，架子从横梁上去掉了。新的构图旨在反映其实现的功能，而不是庆祝不同的建筑元素。这是对技术的信心的一个标志。
你认为现代运动的失败是什么？
现代运动的大师，其中包括阿尔托、勒·柯布西耶、卢斯、门德尔松和特拉格尼，都是非常有能力的建筑师，创造了新的建筑表现形式。正是随后他们的工作和教义的贬低导致了我们今天目睹的贫困。
现代人都相信建筑可以在社会的塑造中发挥重要作用。在我看来，现代运动并没有背叛这种信念，而是运动本身被背叛了。工业社会忽视了最初的目标，迫使人类遵循技术和机械化的规律。从这个意义上说，我们可以指责现代运动未能实现其目标。
最大的失败是在城市规划方面，在现代分区城市的愿景中。事实上，对于人类来说，城市生活空间的组织比将城市划分为不同的功能区在一天中的不同时间使用更为复杂。城市中还必须存在巨大而充足的空间，在这些空间中，历史、记忆、梦想、想象和诗歌可以联系在一起，而不是专门用于严格的功能用途。我认为这是一个伦理问题：使人再次成为空间组织的兴趣中心，而不是简单地将他用作一种装置。归根结底，审美总是反映着支撑它的社会。
Today there is widespread disillusionment with the modem movement, which is seen as a failure. Yet your work indicates that you continue to believe in its evolution. What do you see as the essentials of the modernist tradition in architecture?
The architectural expression of the modem movement was rather diversified, and within the movement we find a great variety of personalities and contents, from expressionist to organic to rationalist architecture. We must keep this in mind to avoid blaming all of today s ills on a generation of architects who worked with great dedication and made many extraordinary contributions to the field.
One fundamental shared hope united the differences within the modem movement; this was the hope that the new means available to architects — advanced techniques, new materials, industrialization — would provide more satisfactory answers to the problems of twentieth-century man and help to create better living conditions.
The architects, like the avant-garde painters, sculptors, and poets of the time, had glimpsed the great future possibilities offered by this new society of technology and advanced communication. Yet man remained the point of reference. What brought experiences so diverse as those of the modem movement together was the use of abstract elements in the form of geometries, rational laws, and the removal of traditional ornament and elements of expression. In this new modem vision, in most cases, the column, stripped of its expressive elements, became a cylinder, and the architrave was removed from the trabeation. The new composition aimed at reflecting the function for which it was realized rather than at celebrating different architectonic elements. This was a sign of the faith in technology.
What do you see as the failure of the modem movement?
The masters of the modem movement, among them Aalto, Le Corbusier, Loos, Mendelsohn, and Terragni, were all architects of great ability who created new forms of architectural expression. It is the subsequent debasement of their work and teachings that has brought about the impoverishment we witness today.
The moderns all shared the belief that architecture could play a major role in the shaping of society. In my opinion, the modem movement did not betray this belief; the movement itself was betrayed. Industrial society lost sight of the original objectives and forced man to conform to the laws of technology and mechanization. In this sense, we can fault the modem movement for failing in its goals.
The greatest failure was in town planning, in the vision of the modem zoned city. In fact, it is necessary for man that the organization of living space in the city be more complex than the division of the city into different functional zones utilized at different times of the day. There must also exist in the city large, ample spaces in which history, memory, dreams, imagination, and poetry can be linked and which are not dedicated to strictly functional uses. I believe this is an ethical problem: to make man again the center of interest in the organization of space and not simply to utilize him as an instmment. In the final analysis, the aesthetic always reflects the society that supports it.
