美国名建筑设计师克雷格·哈特曼访谈

　　Q: As a religious architecture, what specific part did you pay most of your attention to when doing the design? What was you goal when you were thinking about building such a cathedral (Cathedral of Christ the Light/the Oakland Cathedral)?

　　 问：对于一座宗教建筑，您在设计的时候最关注的具体部分是什么？在您考虑建造这样一座大教堂（基督之光大教堂，又名奥克兰大教堂）的时候，您的目标是什么？

　　 A: My first concern about the Cathedral was how to make a place of cultural authenticity1. For me this meant respecting the fact that we are building in the 21st century on the Pacific Rim in a city that is one of the most multi-cultural places on earth. I thought it was important to separate the idea of sacred space from the familiar forms that we often associate with religious buildings of other eras — the great basilica2 form cathedrals of 15th and 16th century Europe, for example — and fundamentally examine the meaning of spiritual space in our time.

　　答：我首先考虑的是如何建造一座能体现文化真实性的建筑。对我来说，这就意味着我要尊重这样一个事实：我们是在21 世纪太平洋沿岸地区一个最具多元文化的城市建造一座教堂。我认为重要的是要将我们对宗教建筑的概念同我们所熟悉并时常联想到的其他时代的宗教建筑形态区分开——比如说15世纪和16世纪欧洲宏伟的长方形廊柱大厅式教堂——并从根本上追索我们这个时代精神空间的内涵。

　　A: The great value of cities is the cultural richness they provide. I thought this building should be physically and symbolically connected with the city as a powerful social and cultural resource for Oakland. At the same time the Cathedral itself and its grounds should provide a place of respite3 from our unrelenting4 secular5 world. The Cathedral’s gardens and dependencies6 are very open and connected to the city as an extension of Oakland’s Cartesian urban grid. The Cathedral itself is turned slightly from this grid in alignment with the long axis of Lake Merritt. In doing so, the Cathedral is symbolically connected to nature in contrast to the gardens and dependencies. The Cathedral’s modern aesthetics spring not from its relationship to the city but rather from its authentic relationship with our contemporary moment in time — the 21st century.

　　答：城市的巨大价值在于其所呈现的丰富多彩的文化。我认为，这座建筑应该作为奥克兰一个强大的社会与文化资源，在外形和寓意上都与这座城市彼此相联。同时，教堂本身和它周围的场地则应该成为人们暂时摆脱严酷的世俗世界的地方。教堂的花园和其他附属建筑非常开阔，它们作为奥克兰笛卡尔坐标式城市布局的延伸而与城市相连接。与花园和附属建筑不同的是，教堂本身稍稍偏离这个坐标，同梅里特湖并行，这寓意着它同自然紧密相连。教堂的现代美感并非源自与城市的关系，而是源自其同21世纪这个时代的真实关系。