17轻盈的城市二

Thin Cities 2.

轻盈的城市2

Now I shall tell of the city of Zenobia, which is wonderful in this fashion: though set on dry terrain地带it stands in high pilings桩结构, and the houses are of bamboo and zinc, with many platforms露台and balconies阳台placed on stilts桩子at various heights, crossing one another, linked by ladders and hanging悬挂式sidewalks, surmounted至于顶端by cone-roofed belvederes望楼, barrels桶storing water, weather vanes风向标, jutting突出的pulleys滑车, and fish poles, and cranes.

现在我要介绍的是珍诺比亚市，它采用的方式非常棒：虽然坐落在干燥地带，但它却建在高桩之上，房屋由竹子和锌片盖成，在不同高度设置了许多相互穿插的露台和阳台，由梯子和悬挑廊道相连，最上面是圆锥形屋顶的望楼，还有贮水桶、风向标、突出的滑车、鱼竿以及吊车。

No one remembers what need or command命令or desire欲望drove Zenobia’s founders to give their city this form, and so there is no telling whether it was satisfied by the city as we see it today, which has perhaps grown through successive连续的superimpositions叠加from the first, now undecipherable难辨认的plan.

没有人记得是什么需求、命令或欲望，驱使珍诺比亚的缔造者将城市打造成这种形式，因此也不知道我们今天看到的这座城市，是否满足了他们的理想，随着不断的扩建，最初的设计已经难以辨认了。

But what is certain is that if you ask an inhabitant of Zenobia to describe his vision of a happy life, it is always a city like Zenobia that he imagines, with its pilings and its suspended stairways, a Zenobia perhaps quite different, a-flutter with banners旗子and ribbons丝带, but always derived by combining结合elements元素of that first model.

但可以肯定的是，如果你让珍诺比亚的居民描述他对幸福生活的憧憬，他想象的总是一座像珍诺比亚一样的城市，有着桩柱和悬挑楼梯，也许会是一个不完全相同的珍诺比亚，有着飘扬的彩旗和丝带，但总是通过结合原始模型的元素而衍生出来的。

This said, it is pointless无意义的、不值得做的trying to decide whether Zenobia is to be classified among happy cities or among the unhappy. It makes no sense to divide cities into these two species, but rather into another two:those that through the years and the changes continue to give their form to desires, and those in which desires either erase擦除the city or are erased by it.

既然如此，没必要将珍诺比亚划归幸福或不幸福的城市。把城市分为这两类是没有意义的，真要区分，可以分为这两类：一类是随着岁月的流逝和变化，不断将欲望赋予形态的城市，另一类是与欲望无法共存的城市，除非抹杀掉欲望，否则只有死。