Bert de Muynck is an architect and writer. Together with Mónica Carri, he is director of MovingCities (www.movingcities.org). Since 2006 they live and work in Beijing.

　　Bert de Muynck是一名建筑师和作家。并担任MovingCities网站(www.movingcities.org)的主管。和Mónica Carri一起，从2006年开始居住并工作在北京。

　　Part 1

　　I have a confession to make. I fell in love with Beijing the moment I entered the city. My love grew with every kilometre I travelled through the city. Beijing has a scale that is simply irresistible for me. In September 2005 I met Beijing for the first time. Ten days before my arrival I had left Moscow by train. I was participating in a conference on the Trans-Siberian train and travelled with a group of forty international academics, artists and researches. For the most of us, this was the first time we went to China and Beijing. I had been to Moscow before, so it wasn't so hard to leave that city behind, although I liked it more during this after summer period, than during the winter. One's love for a city can depend on the season once arrives in a city. The blowing and freezing winter winds that hit Beijing, when the city is naked and when the cold makes your bones shiver, gives another urban atmosphere than the static and warm summer air which makes one sweat and eat out on the street or in air-conditioned restaurants. With every kilometre we drove through Russia I felt a heightened tension and anticipation for a city that I had heard about was admits a huge transformation. For a strange reason I was the only architect participating in the conference and I felt privileged, as my love for a city is closely linked to my capacity to read flows of people, to make sense out of constellations of different buildings, to think about the creation of culture and to understand that a city is as much about how people talk about them than about how they build them. As architects we need to make sure buildings talk to the people, that they talk to their eyes, to their desires, to their feelings about the future. As architects, we give form to a future unknown to us.

　　第一部分

　　好吧我得承认，我一踏上北京这座城市就爱上它了。我对它的爱随着我逐步深入这座城市而与日俱增。北京有着我无法抗拒的力量。我在2005年9月第一次邂逅了北京，就在我坐火车离开莫斯科十天之后。当时我正在一列跨越西伯利亚的火车上参加会议。同行的还有40位学者、艺术家和研究人员。对于我们大多数人来说，这是第一次去中国，北京。我以前去过莫斯科，所以当我把这座城市甩在后面时并不感到十分难受，尽管和冬天比起来，我更喜欢夏末的莫斯科。一个人对一座城市的爱有时候取决于当他踏上这座城市时所处的季节。凛冽的寒风在北京肆虐，冲击着裸露的城市，让你骨头发麻。和这比起来，能使你出汗的温暖的夏风，在露天或开着空调的饭馆里进餐也别有一番城市风味。列车逐渐穿越俄罗斯，我也愈发紧张起来，开始期待着这座以巨大的包容性而闻名的城市。出于一个奇怪的原因，我是参加会议的人中唯一的一名建筑师，这使我感到被赋予了特权，因为我身为建筑师的特殊能力能让我更好地去爱一座城市。这些能力能让我读懂人流，在各异的建筑群中发现理性，对文明的创造进行思考，更让我明白城市意义的在于人们如何讨论它，而不是如何建造它。作为建筑师，我们应确信建筑是会说话的。它们对人的眼睛说，对人的心灵说，对人们对未来的感觉说。作为建筑师，我们给未知的未来描绘出了形状。

　Part 2

　　One important factor to understand one's love for a city, is the way one enters a city. Some people are born and grew up in the city, so the city feels like a natural extension of their own personality. If they change, the city changes. If they become successful, they can be found in the successful parts of the city, if they are depressed, not even the most beautiful building or park can take away that feeling. If people come from far away to live in a foreign city, their love for a city can grow slowly. The city can be discovered and explored through big movements from one part of the city to another, sitting for hours in cabs or subways. Or by sitting inside the same office and enjoying the diversity of people coming through. They can start to love it more, or they can be disappointed. If people only come for a few days to the city than a jetlag can be an important aspect of their love, if they travel between the airport, their hotel, a restaurant and meetings than their love of a city is mostly expressed by the business and/or tourist opportunities the city has to offer. I have always been intrigued by this group of people, whether they are tourists or businessmen, because seldom they can really explain why they love a city when they are in the city, but do profoundly try so when thousands of kilometres away from it. They show pictures of the city to their friends and try to explain, but all they can say is 'you should go there, then you will understand. Experience it for yourself.'

　　第二部分

　　要理解一个人对一座城市的爱，就去观察他来到城市的方式。一些人在城市中出生和长大，所以城市就好像是他们人格的自然延伸。如果人们改变，城市也就跟着改变。如果他们取得成功，那么在城市中成功的角落里将发现他们的身影。如果他们感到挫折，那么即使是最美的建筑和公园也无法让他们释怀。如果人们长途跋涉来到一个陌生的城市定居，那么他们对这座城市的爱只会慢慢积累。当人们从城市的一个角落跋涉到另一个角落，在出租车或地铁上坐上几个小时，当人们坐在办公室里看着不同的人们进进出出时，城市便被慢慢地发掘、暴露出来。人们对城市可能更加热爱，也可能对城市感到失望。如果人们在一个城市只待上几天，那么时差可能是影响他们感觉的一个重要因素。如果他们在机场、宾馆、饭店、会议之间穿梭，那么城市提供给他们的商业和旅游机会将极大影响他们对城市的爱。经常有这样的人对我耍阴谋，无论他们是商人还是游客。因为他们总是故弄玄虚地表达对一座千里之外城市的热爱，却很少能说出具体是为什么。他们向朋友展示城市的照片并试着说明，但他们能说的也只是"你应该去一趟，然后你就知道了。自己去体验一下。"

Part 3

　　I entered the city after a journey through the desert. One day before arriving for the first time in Beijing I spent a whole day moving through the Mongolian desert, a wide open plane of sand with hardly any form of human activity, architecture and occupation in sight. It felt like travelling through emptiness, an emptiness I had never experienced before and this feeling was heightened by the constant trembling of the train on its tracks. In a moving train one feels out of balance, the earth seems to be constantly moving and your mind has only the horizon as a reference, all the others things are constantly in motion. So I travelled through this open desert, the wide open nature, and while still with the tracks connected to Moscow, one could feel the Beijing building breeze flowing in our direction. After this large emptiness, the vastness of Beijing could be no bigger difference. I have been trying to compare this sudden shock with a lot of things, but maybe a sauna would be the best, one heats up and jumps in the freezing water and for a couple of second one floats in a state of in-betweenness, not sure what to feel. With that difference that once living in Beijing, that state of in-betweenness has become an everyday feeling.

　　第三部分

　　穿过了一座沙漠之后才来到城市。来到北京的前一天整天都在穿越蒙古沙漠。那是一个广阔、空旷的大沙盘，视野之内几乎没有人类活动和建筑物。感觉就好像是在穿越虚无，一种我从未体验过的虚无，这种感觉随着火车在铁轨上持续的颤动愈发强烈。在一列运动中的火车上，人们感觉不到平衡，大地在不断地移动，在你的脑中只有地平线是参照物，其他所有的东西都在运动。所以当我穿越这空旷的沙漠，这广阔、空旷的大自然时，脚下还伴随着连接莫斯科的铁轨，能感觉到北京的建筑微风般扑面而来。经过了这宽广的虚无之后，北京的巨大也显得没有多大区别。我一直试着将这种震撼和其他东西进行对比，但可能只有桑拿的感觉能与其相提并论。将身上加热，然后跳入冰冷的水中，在几秒钟之内人漂浮在两种感觉之间，不知道应当感觉冷还是热。带着这种区别一旦居住在北京，这种不上不下的感觉将每天伴随。

Part 4

　　Two years after I came for the first time to Beijing, and one year after I decided to live here, a Dutch architecture magazine asked me to write them 'A Letter from Beijing'. In the end it turned out to be a love letter, one in which I tried to carefully and poetically expresses my fears of and desires for a city. By writing and building we try to find answers to questions we are largely unaware of but are willingly to engage with, are willingly to take risk for, have a desire to invest in. One important aspect of my love for this city, is that I hardly speak the language here. So billboards and announcements in streets, around construction sites, in subways, in the back of cabs,... speak to me in an abstract language. I might be seeing beauty where others see boredom. I compared my feelings with the one the famous Dutch painter Mondrian had when he visited New York's Time Square in the 1940's and wrote: "In 1940, when Mondrian was confronted with the billboards and neon hieroglyphs on Times Square in New York City, he allegedly exclaimed, 'How beautiful! If only I couldn't read English.' I don't read the language here in Beijing, but it is indeed beautiful. If only I didn't know anything about architecture and urbanism."

　　第四部分

　　我初次到北京两年之后，也是我决定定居在此一年之后，一本荷兰建筑杂志邀请我写一篇"北京来信"。到最后写成了一封情书。在信里我努力、仔细且富有诗意地表达着对一座城市的敬畏与期待。通过写作和建设，我们试图找寻一些问题的答案。这些问题在很大程度上还没有充分认识，但我们愿意与之奋战，愿意冒险，为之投入精力。我对这座城市的爱的另一个方面，就是我几乎不会说这儿的语言。所以街上、建筑工地周围、地铁里、出租车后面等地方的公告栏或告示，对我来说就是一种抽象的语言。对其他人来说可能觉得习以为常，而我却能从中发现美。我将我对此的感觉与荷兰著名画家Mondrian在1940年参观纽约时代广场时的感觉进行对比："在1940年，当Mondrian面对纽约时代广场上的广告牌和氖气霓虹灯时，他惊呼'多美啊，还好我不懂英语。'我不懂北京的语言，但它确实很美，只要我不懂建筑和都市生活。"

Part 5

　　I know enough Chinese to understand 'Wo Ai Beijing' and for a strange reason I always feel that the Chinese 'Ai' is close to the English word 'Eye'. And as an architect, writer and director of movingcities, a think-thank that investigates the role of architecture and urbanism in shaping the contemporary city, an important tool of research is 'the eye'. One of the biggest mistakes one can make when experiencing, living and working in a situation of flux that Beijing is, is to think that all of this is made possible through conscious and deliberate decisions that are executed with precision and with an understanding of the future. A logical necessity seems to lie at the core of the development. Construction and destruction intertwine, fuse, reinforce one another, spiral, flip, twist, turn, jump, fall, and release and diffuse labour. The process hastens the breath of the masses, the imagination of the poet. It enlarges the ambitions of the developer, the confusion in the critic's mind. It tempers the enthusiasm of the architect, the life of the individual. It talks to the eyes.

　　第五部分

　　我掌握了足够的中文让我理解"Wo Ai Beijing" 这句话。出于一种奇怪的原因，我总觉得中文的"爱"和英语单词"Eye"很接近。作为一名建筑师、作家和movingcities的主管，一名在为现代城市整形过程中探寻着建筑和都市生活角色的思考者，"eye"是很重要的研究工具。当体验、居住、工作在北京这样时刻变迁的环境下，人们所犯的最大的一个错误就是自认为通过精心的策划、精确的执行、对未来的理解就可以获取一切。在发展的核心当中，似乎存在着一个逻辑上的必然。建造和毁坏，它们两者纠缠、混合、互相加强，盘旋、抖动、扭曲、翻转、跳跃、下降，并且释放和扩散着工作的机遇。这个过程让大众的呼吸变得急促，加速了诗人的想象。它放大了开发者的野心，放大了评论家心中的混乱。它锻造了建筑师的热情，锤炼了个人的生活。它在对我们的眼睛说话。

Part 6

　　Some people love Beijing because of what it used to be, not because of what it is or what it is becoming. As in every love-relation, there is beauty involved in what has been, the adventures you have been through with your loved one, which forms the base for the love of more of these to come. But with a city, the situation is different. Although it seems to be an easy thing to proclaim, 'I love this city for its history', it is more difficult to understand what that in reality means. Love and memory constantly play hide and seek. Memory is too often understood as equal to happiness. It deals with that what is behind us, done, gone so we can control it, give sense to it, highlight what we like, forget what we don't like. Happiness can be built on demand. Training memory equals, as Nietzsche saw it, the beginning of a civilizedmorality. More and more one can witness a tendency, on a global scale, where memory becomes an active and destructive force, a remembrance of time gone, a contemplation of paradises that are lost. Loving the future is always full of risk, as one has to believe in it, as one has to participate in it, contribute to it. Human beings seem to have the strange tendency to connect the past with happiness and the future with failure. Or is that only my impression? Or do I love Beijing because here I feel that the future can be connected with happiness?

　　第六部分

　　一些人喜欢北京是因为它的过去，而不是因为它的现在或正在发生的改变。在每一个爱的纽带中，总有美丽包含其中，有你和你所爱的人所共同经历的冒险。这正是爱或即将来到的更多的爱的基础。但对于城市，状况有所不同。尽管它看上去很容易表达："我爱这座城市的历史"，但要理解在现实中这究竟意味着什么则比较困难。爱和回忆经常玩捉迷藏。回忆经常被人们理解为快乐，它包括了我们的过去，所经历的，所遭遇的，所以我们可以控制它，赋予它意义，突出我们喜欢的，忘记我们不喜欢的。快乐是可以根据需要被创造的。对回忆进行改造，像Nietzsche看到的那样，就相当于文化道德的开始。越来越多的人看到了一种趋势，在全球范围内。回忆已经变成了积极的、具有破坏性的力量，一种对逝去时间的追忆，对失去天堂的追思。热爱未来总是充满了风险，因为你必须要去相信它，必须参与它，为它贡献。人类似乎有种奇怪的习惯，将过去和快乐联系在一起，而将未来和失败联系在一起。这不会仅仅是我自己的感觉吧。难道我热爱北京是因为在这儿我感觉到未来能够和快乐联系在一起？

Part 7

　　In 2002 Pan Shiyi stated that "The present is the future in the making." Today I would like to state that "Reality Is Imagination in the Making."

　　第七部分

　　在2002年，Pan Shiyi说："现在是正在发生的未来"今天，我要说："现实是正在发生的想象。"

　　Part 8

　　Our love for cities is never rational. There is no magic formula explaining our attraction to architecture, construction, destruction, cultures and urbanism. But one important aspect of today's culture of construction is it capacity to creatively draw resources from a mankind on the move. We can bring architects, businessmen, craftsman, investors, construction workers from one place to another, we can build one floor a day, we can add a thousand cars a day to this city, we can literally feel the city moving. We can leave the city for a couple of months, return and see and feel the changes. Underneath this change of the city, there is a progressive current, the current of the Construction Age. The expression 'I love New York' has a lot to do with its history as the expression of a early 20st century belief in the transformative power of architecture, leading to what Rem Koolhaas in 'Delirious New York' explained as a 'culture of congestion'. Today, Beijing doesn't deal solely with reinventing the idea of a culture of congestion, but more with the culture of construction. So where will this culture of the Construction Age lead us to? We should be happy not to know the answer to that question. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be dealing with this question. For a strange reason the destruction of parts of the city has given rise to groups of people that call themselves 'The Friends of Old Beijing'. To my astonishment and amazement this new Construction Age hasn't yet given rise to a group call 'The Friends of New Beijing'. I know, it is more difficult to be a friend of the future but it seems to be that we, as architects, developers, writers, have no other choice. If we have decided to give form to the future, if we decided to work in-between the present and the future, we better love it.

　　第八部分

　　我们对城市的爱从来就不是理性的。没有魔法公式能够解释建筑物、建筑、毁坏、文化和都市生活对我们的吸引力。但今天建筑文化很重要的一个方面就是它能创造性地从不相干的人手中获取资源。我们可以将建筑师、商人、艺术家、投资者、建筑工人从一地带到另一地，可以一天盖一层，也可以一天为这座城市增加上千辆汽车，我们真真切切地感受着城市的变迁。我们可以离开城市几个月，然后再回来感受变化。隐藏在城市变迁的下方的是前进的潮流，建筑时代的潮流。"我爱纽约"这句话有着历史意义。这这句话在20世纪早期使人们相信建筑那多变的力量，最后引向了Rem Koolhaas在"发狂的纽约"中所写到的"拥塞的文化"。今天，北京不仅仅要处理全新的拥塞文化，更要处理建筑文化。这建筑时代的文化会将我们带向何方呢？我们应当为不知道这问题的答案而感到高兴，但这并不意味着我们不应该处理这个问题。出于一个奇怪的原因当拆毁这城市的一部分时出现了一批人并自封为"老北京之友"，令我感到奇怪和不解的是这新的建筑时代并没有造就一批"新北京之友"。我知道，和未来做朋友是困难的，但是对于我们建筑师、开发者、作家来说，似乎别无选择。如果我们打算为未来描绘蓝图，如果我们打算奋斗在现在和未来之间，我们最好爱它。
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