城市荒野:另一种文明

Urban Wildness as Another Civilization

自折下树枝、打磨石块作为武器和工具、烧制黏土作为容器起,人类便开始走向背离荒野的文明之路—城市、农田和园林在化石能源和机械力的推动下,不断取代原生的自然,自然的野性被日益驯化。失去野性的人类变得寂寥而萎靡;于是,野性和荒野如今被重新提起。城市荒野既包括荒野景观,也包括保留了野性的、不受人工干预的自然过程和生物。作为一种自然生态系统,它依照自然规律做功,并以其自身逻辑建立起深邃的秩序,是保障城市生态系统健康和可持续性的要素。同时,城市荒野服务于人的审美启智,让人类探索未知的天性得以释放。不论是儿时记忆中的风水林和宅院中的水塘,还是圆明园遗址公园中的废墟,都是笔者难以忘怀的荒野。如今我们所经历的生态文明正是一种崇尚野性的新的文明,而捍卫城市荒野则是人类走向更高层次文明的必经之路。

Ever since humans used branches and polished stones as weapons and tools,and made containers with clay,they had begun to get civilized apart from the wildness.With fossil energy and mechanical technology,cities,farmlands,and gardens have been constantly displacing the nature,and the wildness is disappearing.Human beings lost their instinct of wildness,lonely and dispirited.Nowadays,it is time to call for the return toward wildness.Urban wildness exists both in wildscapes and the human-intervention-free natural process or wild creatures.It is key to sustaining a healthy urban ecosystem as it can work with the laws of nature and the internal deep order as a natural ecosystem.Inspired by the aesthetics of urban wildness,humans explore the unknown world by their instinct.For me,the Fengshui forest and courtyard pond in my childhood and the relics in Yuan-ming Yuan were all unforgettable wildness.Today’s ecological civilization enters a new era that embraces wildness,and defending urban wildness is the only way for humans to move toward a higher level of civilization.