性别神话与思想及城市的复合体——从柏拉图的亚特兰蒂斯到瓦尔特·本雅明的哲学化都市

Gender myth and the mind-city composite:from Plato’s Atlantis to Walter Benjamin’s philosophical urbanism

早在20世纪初期,本雅明就提出一种观点,即思想与人造环境之间的互动促成了具有划时代意义的持久进步。当代研究认为,城市形态中的性别隐喻显然印证了本雅明的这个观点。从早期古迹起,城市中的庞大建筑就代表男性气概,而空旷区域则具有女性气质。思想与人造环境的相互作用始于史前神话,它们与人类身体及天空相关。西方古人在自然与人造环境的联系中感知世界,从中即可洞察到性别的投射。这些认识肇始于柏拉图的亚特兰蒂斯和厄洛斯神话,后来又可能因中国阴阳神话的传入而得以发展。到了地理大发现时代,以上性别观念达到顶峰。彼时,人们对地球圆形说的经验感知也出现了进展。在现代人对地球的早期认识中,南北半球分别被赋予了女性与男性的特质,我们对自然和人造环境的观念继而也带有与生俱来的性别特征。然而,出现在城市形态中的女性面孔,都市的空旷地区成为被严重漠视的人造空间。就设计及规划布局城市中的空地而言,城市形式中的女性寓言应受到赞颂,而非被弃之不顾。

In the early twentieth century Walter Benjamin introduced the idea of epochal and ongoing progression in interaction between mind and the built environment.Since early antiquity,the present study suggests,Benjamin’s notion has been manifest in metaphors of gender in city-form,whereby edifices and urban voids have represented masculinity and femininity,respectively.At the onset of interaction between mind and the built environment are prehistoric myths related to the human body and to the sky.During antiquity gender projection can be detected in western perceptions linking natural and built environments,commencing with Plato’s Atlantis and his Myth of Er,and later as a likely import of the Chinese yin-yang mythology.Culminating with the Age of Discovery,alongside advances in experiential awareness of the Earth’s sphericity,respective feminine and masculine earmarks can be detected in early modem perspicacity of the Earth’s southern and northern hemispheres.Our conceptions of natural and built environments inherently continue to contain gender traits.Yet urban voids,as the feminine face of city-form,have been severely understated in the built environment.Through design and configuration of urban voids,allegories of femininity in city-form ought to be celebrated,not discarded.