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电影视频片段英文对白在线阅读 |
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1 A very long time ago, far away in China, 2 a villager living along the banks of the Yellow River 3 built a simple mud hut to shelter his family. 4 Thousands of years later in the year 1420, 5 the empire's best craftsmen put the final touches 6 on the ultimate masterpiece of Chinese architecture - 7 the Temple of Heaven. 8 Chinese buildings evolved from simple shelters 9 into complex magnificent structures 10 with great swooping roofs, stately columns, and rich detail. 11 Between this simple mud hut and this amazingly complex structure - 12 its every detail full with cosmological symbolism - 13 is a tale of emperors, monks, scholars and genius craftsmen - 14 a story which explains an architectural tradition 15 of great beauty and flexibility. 16 And to start this story at the beginning, we have to leap back 17 two millennia, 18 to when the brilliant tyrant Qin Shihuang becomes the first emperor 19 of a unified China. 20 In 1938, an American fighter pilot flying over a remote part of China 21 spotted giant pyramid-like structures below. 22 In his excitement he took a photo 23 and declared to the world 24 that he had discovered a lost civilization. 25 What he discovered, however, weren't pyramids, 26 but massive tomb mounds. 27 And the grandest of them all was the tomb of the man who unified China. 28 Our story begins with the tomb of Qin Shihuang 29 the first emperor of China, who lived 200 years before Christ. 30 A brilliant warrior and tactician, 31 he annihilated all his rival states and created the imperial system 32 which survived until the year 1904. 33 And the grandeur of his tomb matched that of his ambitions: 34 For more than thirty years he used 700,000 workers- 35 probably more manpower than the pharaohs had assembled to build 36 the pyramids - 37 to re-construct his kingdom in the private underground world of 38 his tomb, 39 with palaces and courts for a hundred officials, 40 rooms containing countless gems, 41 rivers of mercury and candles which would never burn out. 42 They sat you can't take it with you, 43 but Qin Shihuang sure tried. 44 His tomb was guarded by hundreds of terracotta warriors, 45 but just as fascinating were the clay model houses that were found inside 46 his tomb. " 47 Because of their belief that people had to provide for their ancestors 48 in death, 49 the early Chinese buried their deceased with clay models of the 50 structures they depended on in life - 51 granaries, houses, watchtowers and the like. 52 These 2,000 year-old models are the only surviving examples of early 53 Chinese wooden architecture, 54 and from them we can see how houses were constructed around the time 55 of the first emperor. 56 These models show a type of wooden house that incredibly can still be 57 seen today. 58 So why did the ancient Chinese build in wood rather than stone, like 59 the ancient Europeans? 60 The availability of wood in the extensive forests of early China 61 was no doubt a major factor. 62 The ancient Chinese did know how to build with stone, and how to 63 use the arch... 64 and they used the arch extensively for tombs, gates and bridges. 65 And yet they rejected the stone arch 66 for building houses, temples and palaces. 67 To see why we can again find clue from the tomb of the first emperor. 68 Archaeologists recently excavated from the tomb a 2,000 year-old sword 69 that is still sharp as a razor. 70 The reason it is still sharp is because it is coated with chrome - 71 a fact that may not seem too amazing 72 until you realize that chromium wasn't invented until 1938- 73 the same year the tombs were spotted by that American pilot. 74 This means is that the ancient Chinese developed incredible metal-working 75 skills very early in their history, 76 and so they had metal woodworking tools at a very early date. 77 Stone can be used to fashion and work stone, 78 as early Britons must have done to build Stonehenge. 79 But iron tools were necessary for wood carving and joinery. 80 And with such tools, however primitive, wood construction was 81 much easier than construction in stone. 82 Western cultures began their architecture without iron tools. 83 So they started in stone and brick and continued building with these materials. 84 The Chinese, on the other hand, began building with wood and continued 85 to do so for 6,000 years, 86 starting with the basic Chinese house 87 which was first developed on the flood plain 88 of the yellow river. 89 In areas prone to flooding, this structure was raised on pilings. 90 In the central yellow river valley of China it rested on solid platform. 91 Stone bases for each column, twice the diameter of the column, 92 were placed on this platform, 93 then the column raised on top of this. 94 So, the elevation of a Chinese building has three elements: 95 the podium underneath, 96 the columns in between 97 and big roof resting on top of the columns. 98 Four columns form what is called a bay; 99 groups of bays then form the different types of buildings. 100 From the earliest times the Chinese separated the supporting 101 from the enclosing elements of a building. 102 This meant the interior columns supported the roof weight completely, 103 while the walls were just for privacy and protection from the elements. 104 In a country plagued by powerful earthquakes, 105 the Chinese didn't build solid walls, 106 which could be cracked and rent apart by an upheaval of the earth's crust, 107 but rather they built flexible structures without using glue or nails. 108 These structures could ride the heaving earth like a boat, shifting 109 and settling back, 110 with the platform acting almost like a raft. 111 Heavy roofs with tiles were supported by columns built of white fir 112 which was four times stronger than steel, 113 and six times more flexible than concrete. 114 It was the beginning of an architecture of great beauty, elegance 115 and practicality. 116 The first feature of a Chinese building 117 that usually impresses a visitor is the elegant, 118 sweeping and seemingly gigantic roof. 119 Western architecture, with its spires and Greek columns - and more 120 recently skyscrapers - 121 usually emphasizes the vertical. 122 And since the introduction of concrete, steel and glass, 123 modern Western architecture has remained a vertical architecture of 124 walls, facades, and invisible roofs. 125 Chinese architecture offers a delightful contrast. 126 The most expressive element is the roof, 127 with its great curving slope, 128 and the emphasis is on the horizontal. 129 The approaching pedestrian can see the whole roof, 130 even as he begins to enter the building. 131 While Europeans built their roofs using a truss system incorporating 132 diagonal beams, 133 the Chinese used a post and beam system; there are no diagonals. 134 The stepped shape allowed for the curvature of the roof. 135 Using this system roofs could be expanded to create buildings of 136 impressive scale. 137 The height of a building has never equaled status in China. 138 In the year 1747, the emperor Qianlong commissioned European missionaries 139 to design a summer palace in "the manner of European Barbarians". 140 The emperor had them build a two-story facade in front of traditional 141 one-story Chinese halls, 142 because the emperor had no wish 'to live in the air' like Europeans who, 143 as the emperor commented ' must be very poverty-stricken and lack land' 144 to live in such a fashion. 145 Instead of height, the rank and importance of Chinese buildings is 146 determined by the roof design. 147 One can see that this temple was patronized by the imperial family 148 by the yellow diamond on the roof. 149 Elaborate roof ornaments also denote the importance of a building. 150 The part that looks like the tail of a fish at either end of the main ridge 151 is known as the ridge-devouring beast: 152 the mythical son of the Sea dragon, able to whip up waves and create rain. 153 These ornaments were in fact symbolic fire extinguishers. 154 Along the sloping ridge there might also be a string of smaller animals: 155 nine for imperial buildings, 156 with the number of animals decreasing |