最好的时代

文章来源：俞孔坚，最好的时代[J].景观设计2020.8, No.4, P2-3

首先热烈祝贺《景观设计》第 100 期出版，并感谢其在推动中国景观设计 学界和行业发展中所发挥的重要作用。

2014 年 9 月 7 日，我应“一席”之邀，到上海做了一场《大脚革命》的 演讲，讲述了景观设计师如何破除钢筋水泥、防洪堤坝的禁锢，实现与洪水为友 的美好图景；如何颠覆传统的审美标准，让丰产的稻田、莽荒的野草和生锈的厂 房成就新时代的城市美景；如何通过自然的途径，建设海绵城市，解困城市内 涝；如何让自然做工，通过人工湿地净化污水，用生物途径改良和净化土壤，修 复生态系统；当然也包括如何通过艺术的介入，以最少的干预，实现城市与自然 的和谐共生……于是，有人惊讶起来，景观设计师竟然也能做这些？在这个时 代，专业和职业是需要我们自己去定义的，就像当年美国人开拓西部荒野。

近六年来，这个演讲引起了不小的轰动，有人愤怒、有人欢欣鼓舞。触 动的领域包括城市规划、水利工程、土木工程以及园林绿化等，还波及其他看 似不相关的领域，比如医学、教育等。更鼓舞我的是，“一席”的主办方告诉 我，这一演讲的视频在主流网络平台上已被累计点击 1 亿多次，而其他播放 渠道无从统计。尤其在今年南方洪涝灾害期间，得到了前所未有的关注，仅仅 2020年 7 月 20 日一天就有 850 万余次点击量。请不要误解我，以此为例并无 自夸的意思。在这样一个充满挑战的时代，景观设计师原来可以被全民近十分 之一的人关注。因为他们关心这个时代所面临的问题，期待有新的思想和方法 来应对这个时代。

记得当年在北京大学设立景观设计学科的认证会上，在场的校学术委员们——可以代表中国最高学术水平的数学家、物理学家、化学家、生物学家、 考古学家、历史学家、社会学家、经济学家和政府管理学家等，问了我和李迪 华老师这样一个问题：在北大这样一个研究大学问的国家顶级学堂里，有必要成立这样一个听起来可有可无的学科吗？我当即从座位上站了起来，反问了委 员们一个问题：对于人类这个陆生物种来说，难道还有一个比在大地上研究、 设计和营造自己家园的学科更重要的学科吗？种种误解、望文生义、傲慢和偏 见，最终在人类恋地(Topophilia)和亲生(Biophilia)的情感驱动下，在对人 类物种未来关怀的理性中烟消云散。于是，一个以景观设计学为核心的学院就 这样通过了认证，这是 20 年来在北大成立的唯一一个学院。说这段历史只是想 说，景观设计是一个不可被拒绝的、是一个伟大国家不可或缺的专业和学科。

似乎没有人可以否认，景观设计是人类家园设计和营造的核心学科。这 个“家园”的尺度因关怀对象和认知视野的不同而有所不同，从以个人和家庭 为关怀对象的宅院，到以族群和社群为关怀对象的田园，再到以千百万计的人 群为对象的城市和区域景观，再到以民族和人类种群为对象的国家领地，最后 到以人类物种为关怀对象的全球景观，即地球村。每个从业者可以用不同的视 角、以不同的关注对象来定义自己的专业空间，没有任何优劣之分。作为一个 学科和专业，其领域是所有这些视野的叠加和有机的综合，这是一个可以在方 寸中致微妙，于辽阔中见博大的专业。

为了一个美丽的家园、美丽的国土和人类可持续的地球家园，景观设计学 毫无疑问被赋予了众多的担当和期待。国土生态安全格局、国土空间规划、城 市和区域生态基础设施规划和建设、海绵国土和海绵城市的建设、国土生态修 复尤其是水生态系统的修复、城市家园和新农村的建设，以及我们社区开放空 间和后花园的建设，这一切都需要景观设计师的主导。关键是，作为景观设计 师的人们，是否已经准备好了接受这样的担当？

确实，我们正处在这样一个充满挑战的时代，这也是景观设计师们最好的时代。

The Best of Times

First of all, I would like to send my congratulations on the Issue 100 of Landscape Design.  I  appreciate that  it  promotes the  development  of the  discipline  and profession of Landscape Architecture in China.

On  September  7,  2014,  I was  invited  by Yixi to give a  speech titled  "Big  Foot Revolution"  in  Shanghai .  It was  on  how  landscape  architects  mitigate floods ecologically and  beautifully without concretes or dams; on  how they change people’s  understanding  of  contemporary  urban  aesthetics  by  introducing productive fields, creating vibrate  meadows and grasslands, and  regenerating abandoned  factories;  on  how  they  build  sponge  cities  to  cope  with  urban waterlogging with nature- based solutions; on how they make nature do the work such as filtering sewage through constructed wetlands,  improving soil quality through  biological approaches, and restoring ecosystems;  it was also on  how they rebuild the harmony between city and the nature with minimal interventions by artistic  means,  etc . After the  speech, the  public were  surprised about the wide- ranging  professional  missions of landscape architects . Today, we should define our professions and careers by our own work, just as the trailblazers to the Wild Western America.

In the past six years, the speech has been considered a controversy in the fields of urban  planning, water engineering, civil engineering and greening, even  in medical science and education. What is encouraging, the staff of Yixi told me that the video of my speech had been viewed over  100 million times. Especially when the flood was invading South China this year, it has received an unprecedented attention, with over 8.5  million clicks on July 20, 2020 alone .  I do  not  mean to boast of my achievement; it is just an example to show that,  by  responding to contemporary challenges, landscape architects can arouse an unexpectedly wide attention from the  public — nearly one tenth of the  nation’s  population .  It also mirrors the desire of Chinese  professionals for  new ideas and solutions to deal with the pressing problems nowadays.

It was during the certification of the establishment of Landscape Architecture at  Peking  University,  the  academic  committee  of the  university,  including mathematicians,  physicists,  chemists,  biologists,  archaeologists,  historians, sociologists,  economists  and  government  managers  who  represented  the top academia  in  China,  asked  Professor  Li  Dihua  and  me: why  should  Peking University,  Peking  University, a top  national academic  institute, establish the disciplinary curriculum of Landscape Architecture which seems less important than other sciences? My answer was: is there any discipline more important to human than  Landscape Architecture that studies, design, and  build our  home on the earth? Such misunderstandings, misinterpretations, arrogance, and prejudice were eventually erased by Topophilia and Biophilia, and the rational concern for human future . As a  result, College of Architecture and  Landscape of Peking  University was finally founded, and this was the only college established at Peking University in the past 20 years . This shows that Landscape Architecture is an indispensable profession and discipline to the country’s long-term development.

No one can deny that Landscape Architecture is the core discipline for the design and construction of human homeland. The scale of "homeland" varies according to the demands of target groups and the ideology of landscape architects cognition, from residential buildings for individuals and families, to fields and gardens for ethnic groups and communities, to urban and regional landscapes for millions of residents, to country territories for nations, and finally to global landscapes, i .e . the global village, for the whole human race . Each practitioner can decide their own working scale with different  perspectives and for different target groups, without being judged better or worse. As a discipline and a profession, Landscape Architecture covers all these multilevel views, requiring landscape architects to focus on subtle details sometimes and to think broadly as well.

Landscape Architecture has been assigned to build beautiful homes, productive lands, and a sustainable  planet .  National ecological security  patterns, spatial planning, urban and regional ecological infrastructure planning and establishment, sponge  land  and  sponge  city  construction, territorial  ecological  restoration, especially the  restoration  of water  ecosystems,  urban  settlements,  and  new countryside construction, and the construction of open spaces and community gardens, all of which need to under landscape architects’ guidance. The key point is, whether they are well prepared for such tasks?

To humans, it is the most challenging of times; to landscape architects, it is the best of times