I CAN'T seem to get the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, out of my mind. There's nothing revolu-tionary about the building. But its clean, chiseled forms have a tranquil-lity that distinguishes it in an age that often seems trapped somewhere be-tween gimmickry and a cloying nos-talgia.

我似乎一直忘不了位於卡達多哈的伊斯蘭藝術館。這棟建築本身沒有任何革命創新可言，但它線條乾淨，輪廓分明，在這個經常似乎困在匠氣花招和令人倒胃口的懷舊情緒之間的時代，這棟建築卻帶有一種寧靜。

Part of the allure may have to do with I. M. Pei, the museum's architect. Mr. Pei reached the height of his popularity decades ago with projects like the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Louvre pyramid in Paris. Since then he has been an enigmatic figure at the periphery of the profession. His best work has admirers, but it has largely been ignored within architecture's in-tellectual circles. Now, at 91 and near the end of a long career, Mr. Pei seems to be enjoying the kind of re-vival accorded to most serious archi-tects if they have the luck to live long enough.

其中部分魅力可能和藝術館建築師貝聿銘有關。貝聿銘數十年前就因位於華府的美國國家藝廊東廂和巴黎羅浮宮等建築而攀登他個人聲望的巔峰。從此以後，他在建築界一直是個謎樣人物。他最好的代表作擁有不少粉絲，但大半未得建築界知識分子重視。如今在91高齡，他的志業將走到盡頭之際，貝聿銘似乎正享受幸運活夠久的大半嚴肅建築師獨有的東山再起。

But the museum is also notable for its place within a broader effort to re-shape the region's cultural identity. The myriad large-scale civic projects, from a Guggenheim museum that is planned for Abu Dhabi to Education City in Doha — a vast area of new buildings that house outposts of for-eign universities — are often dis-missed in Western circles as superficial fantasies. As the first to reach com-pletion, the Museum of Islamic Art is proof that the boom is not a mirage. The building's austere, almost primi-tive forms and the dazzling collections it houses underscore the seriousness of the country's cultural ambition.

但這棟藝術館也因其重塑波斯灣地區文化定位更廣泛計畫的地位而知名。無數大型民間計畫，從計畫在阿布達比建古根漢美術館，到多哈準備容許外國大學先設點占地很廣新建築的教育城，往往被西方各界人士斥之為膚淺的空中樓閣。貝聿銘的伊斯蘭藝術館可望最早完工，足以證明多哈大興土木並非海市蜃樓。藝術館莊嚴幾近原始的結構及其令人歎為觀止的收藏品，更凸顯這個國家嚴肅的文化企圖心。

Perhaps even more compelling, the design is rooted in an optimistic worldview, — one at odds with the schism between cosmopolitan modernity and backward fundamen-talism that has come to define the last few decades in the Middle East. The ideals it embodies — that the past and the present can co-exist harmonious-ly — are a throwback to a time when America's overseas ambitions were still cloaked in a progressive agenda.

也許更難能可貴的，該館設計濫觴於一個樂觀的世界觀照，這和都會現代化和落後的基本教義派之間的鴻溝大相逕庭，過去數十年來，中東一直是基本教義派的天下。它所具現的理想，也就是過去和現在可以和睦共存，不啻重回美國在海外的野心仍籠罩在革新進步政綱的那個時代。

To Mr. Pei, whose self-deprecat-ing charm suggests a certain noblesse oblige, all serious architecture is found somewhere between the extremes of an overly sentimental view of the past and a form of historical amnesia. "Contemporary architects tend to impose modernity on something," he said in an interview. "There is a cer-tain concern for history but it's not very deep. I understand that time has changed, we have evolved. But I don't want to forget the beginning. A lasting architecture has to have roots."

貝聿銘謙沖自抑的魅力彰顯了某種高貴的傳統，所有嚴肅的建築都擺盪在過去太情緒化的觀點和某種形式的遺忘歷史兩極之間。貝聿銘在一次訪談中說：「當代建築師往往在什麼東西上都要強加現代化，其中也許有些歷史關照，但不夠深入。我知道時代已經變了，也演進了，但我不想忘本，不朽的建築一定要紮根。」

Many successful architects today are global nomads, sketching ideas on pa-per napkins as they jet from one city to another. In their designs they tend to be more interested in exposing cultural frictions — the clashing of social, po-litical and economic forces that under-gird contemporary society — than in offering visions of harmony.

今天，很多成功的建築師都是世界遊牧民族，當他們從一個城市搭機到另一個城市時，在紙巾上概略畫出理念的草圖。他們設計時多半對外露的文化摩擦，包括強化當代社會的社會、政治和經濟力的衝撞較感興趣，無意呈現和諧的意象。

Mr. Pei, by contrast, imagines his-tory as a smooth continuous process — a view that is deftly embodied by the Islamic Museum, whose clean ab-stract surfaces are an echo of both high Modernism and ancient Islamic architecture. Conceived by the Qatari emir and his 26-year-old daughter, Sheikha al Mayassa, it is the center-piece of a larger cultural project whose aim is to forge a cosmopolitan, urban society in a place that not so long ago was a collection of Bedouin encampments and fishing villages. The aim is to recall a time that ex-tended from the birth of Islam through the height of the Ottoman Empire, when the Islamic world was a center of scientific experimentation and cultural tolerance.

相形之下，貝聿銘想像歷史是個平和連續的進程，這個觀點也靈巧熟練的在伊斯蘭藝術館中表現出來。該館乾淨抽象的外觀，反射出對高度現代主義和古老伊斯蘭建築兼容並蓄。藝術館出自卡達酋長和他26歲的女兒瑪亞莎的構思，它是個大型文化計畫的核心建築，目標是在一個不久前還是一堆貝都因營地和漁村的地點，打造一個國際性的都會社會。目的在喚醒一個從伊斯蘭教誕生延續至奧圖曼帝國全盛時期的那個時代，當時伊斯蘭世界是科學實驗和文化寬容的中心。

"My father's vision was to build a cross-cultural institution," said Sheikha al Mayassa, who has been charged with overseeing the city's cultural development. "It is to recon-nect the historical threads that have been broken, and finding peaceful ways to resolve conflict." Mr. Pei's aim was to integrate the values of that earlier era into today's culture — to capture the "essence of Islamic archi-tecture."

「我父親的願景是建一個跨文化機構，」瑪亞莎說，她負責監督多哈這個城市的文化發展。「目的是要重新聯結一度中斷的歷史脈絡，並找出和平的方式解決衝突。」至於貝聿銘的目標則是要整合早期的價值融入今天的文化中，嘗試抓住「伊斯蘭建築的精髓」。

The museum's hard, chiseled forms take their inspiration from the ablu-tion fountain of Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo, as well as from fortresses built in Tunisia in the eighth and ninth centuries — simple stone structures strong enough to hold their own in the barrenness of the desert landscape. In order to create a similar sense of withdrawal from the world, Mr. Pei located his museum on a small man-made island, approachable from a short bridge.

藝術館輪廓分明、堅固的風格靈感來自開羅伊本圖倫清真寺淨身泉，加上建於第8、9世紀之交突尼西亞的要塞，在荒蕪的沙漠景觀中，簡單的石塊結構有力的撐住本身。為了創造一個同樣從世界退隱的官感，貝聿銘把藝術館建在一個人工小島上，靠一座短橋和外界相通。

Mr. Pei's museum reminds us that building a culture, as much as a polit-ical or social agenda, can be an act of healing. Like all great art, it requires forging seemingly conflicting values into a common whole.

貝聿銘的藝術館提醒我們，建立一種文化，正如政治或社會政綱，可以是療癒的過程。一如所有偉大的藝術，它需要打造似乎互相矛盾的價值到完整共同的建築中。（取材自紐約時報Nicolai Ouroussoff報導）

【詞解】

chiseled forms 輪廓分明
gimmickry 匠氣花招
cloying nostalgia 令人倒胃口的懷舊
enigmatic figure 謎樣人物
superficial fantasies 膚淺的空中樓閣
compelling 難能可貴的
fundamentalism 基本教義派
at odds 大相逕庭
schism 裂縫、鴻溝
progressive agenda 革新進步政綱
self-deprecating charm 謙沖自抑的魅力
noblesse oblige 高貴的傳統
historical amnesia遺忘歷史
nomads 遊牧民族
cultural frictions 文化摩擦衝突
ablution 淨身