第191期：红色电话亭：完全的英国范儿

想成为我们的主播，欢迎加微信 xdfbook 投稿。 一段美文，一首英文歌，或是一点生活感想，全由你做主。 《红色电话亭：完全的英国范儿》 British by Design: The Red Phone Box The light emanating1) from a red phone box in the evening was once a symbol of refuge, a beacon2) and a place of connection to the world. An indispensable part of the UK streetscape, what was once a symbol of a remarkable technology has become a piece of heritage. The last remaining phone boxes survive not because they are needed but rather because they are in conservation areas and are protected, like the buildings around them. The history of this most British of icons is intriguing, a cocktail3) of influences and cultural markers. The design of the classic kiosk4), the K2, dates from a competition launched in 1924. It was won by the architect Giles Gilbert Scott5), designer of Liverpool Cathedral and Battersea and Bankside power stations—the latter now Tate Modern. Scott based the phone kiosk design on the unlikely model of Sir John Soane6)’s 1815 design for a mausoleum7) for his wife—the original prototype can still be seen beneath the arch of the Royal Academy. So the phone box had the memory of death inscribed8) in its origins. Made of cast iron—manufactured in Scottish foundries9)—the phone kiosk managed to combine historical allusions and the production techniques of heavy industry, a particularly British mix of high tech, engineering and nostalgia. The red phone box became a cultural symbol, something reproduced as everything from money boxes and biscuit tins to key rings and shower cubicles. It has littered10) popular culture from The Ladykillers11) film to the cover of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust12) and is so familiar it is one of the indisputable symbols of Britain. It is now, of course, obsolete13). The ubiquity of the mobile phone has made this curious micro-architecture irrelevant to the lives of almost everyone. Is its uselessness, perhaps, part of its appeal? The phone box belongs to an era when real attention was paid to making the infrastructure of the everyday beautiful as well as useful. One of the country’s great architects was commissioned to create a piece of street furniture that was so elegant it became a symbol of the nation itself. It was a generous and genuinely public structure. The privatised British Telecom did design successor phone boxes but they were ugly and poorly detailed. Yet is the nostalgia based on a false memory? Anyone old enough to remember feeding endless 2p coins into the slots — if you managed to find a phone that was working — will also remember the fug14) of stale15) cigarette smoke, the stench16) of urine, scratched graffiti, torn up, and damp phone books. With a damp mulch18) of unidentifiable stuff making up the floor and the occasional broken pane19) and cut phone cord, they were often frustrating and unpleasant places to be rather than the nostalgia-pods they now appear. In a way, the red phone box is a perfect metaphor for Britain’s sense of self — its crisis of identity. A shelter made for an obsolete technology in the heavy industrial heartlands of Scotland, beautifully designed but inspired by a Regency20) tomb from the year of Waterloo. A design that survives as a symbol of a lost era of care for the civic21) arena by a state-owned utility. It is the most eccentric marker, at once technical and nostalgic, a piece of architecture that belongs in the realm of street furniture and a symbol of a defunct22) typology. Beautiful but useless. A few of the remaining examples have been turned into anything from art installations and cafés to greenhouses and even micro-libraries. The phone box survives, like so many of the more interesting aspects of the British landscape, as heritage, a part of the national identity the use of which, quite soon, will be obscure and distant. 夜晚，红色电话亭里发出的灯光曾经是庇护所的象征，它是一座灯塔，也是一个与世界连接的地方。 红色电话亭是英国街景中不可或缺的一部分，它曾经象征着了不起的科技成就，如今却已成为文化遗产。现今保留下来的电话亭之所以能够幸存，并不是它们还有用武之地，而是因为它们位于保护区，与周边的建筑一样受到保护。 红色电话亭是最具英国特色的文化标记，它的历史引人入胜，是多种影响因素和文化标记共同作用的结果。这种经典的电话亭又称为K2，其设计可追溯到1924年发起的一场竞赛。在那场竞赛中，建筑师贾尔斯·吉尔伯特·斯科特最终夺魁。斯科特设计了利物浦大教堂、巴特西发电厂和岸边发电厂，其中后者现在已变身为泰特现代美术馆。 斯科特的电话亭设计基于一个出人意料的模型，那就是约翰·索恩爵士在1815年为他妻子设计的陵墓——这座陵墓的原型在皇家艺术学院的拱门下仍能看到。因此，这种电话亭从一开始就被镌刻上死亡的记忆。电话亭使用生铁制成，由苏格兰铸造厂生产，其成功地将历史典故和重工业生产技术融为一体，集英国的高科技、工程技术和怀旧情感于一身。 红色电话亭成为文化标志，被广泛复制在各种用品上，从存钱罐和饼干盒，到钥匙圈和淋浴隔间，无所不有。它在各种流行文化中随处可见，比如电影《师奶杀手》，又比如大卫·鲍威的专辑《Z字星尘》的封皮。它是如此广为人知，因而成为英国不可置疑的标志之一。 当然，现在红色电话亭遭到淘汰。手机的普及使这一奇特的微型建筑几乎不再与任何人的生活相关了。 或许无用也是它具有吸引力的部分原因？在红色电话亭所属的那个时代，人们真的下了功夫，把日常生活使用的基础设施打造得既好用又漂亮。 这个国家的一名杰出建筑师接受委托创造出来的这么一件街头物件如此优雅，竟然成了该国的一个标志物。这是大气并且真正属于大众的建筑。民营化后的英国电信公司的确又设计了新一代的电话亭，但它们样子丑陋，一点也不精致。 不过，这样的怀旧情结是不是源自虚假的回忆呢？所有年龄大一点的人都记得，那时即使你设法找到了一部能用的电话，你还需要往电话投币口不停地投放两便士的硬币，也应该记得亭子里污浊的香烟烟雾、尿骚味、乱七八糟的涂鸦和破烂潮湿的电话簿。地板上到处粘着湿乎乎的、无法辨认的东西，窗玻璃偶尔会碎掉，电话线时不时会断掉。那时待在电话亭经常让人觉得沮丧、不快，而不像如今它们倒成了人们怀旧的亭子。 在某种程度上，红色电话亭是英国自我意识的一个绝佳隐喻——象征着英国的身份认同危机。电话亭在苏格兰的重工业腹地制成，是为一项已过时的技术打造的庇护所；它设计非常漂亮，其设计灵感却源自滑铁卢战役那一年的具有摄政时期风格的陵墓。这一设计作为一种象征保留了下来，象征着已逝去的一个时代，在那个时代里，由国营公用事业公司负责公共民生事务。它是最为怪异的标志，既代表着科技，又象征着怀旧，它属于街头物件的范畴，但也成为过时物品的代表——漂亮却无用。 现存的电话亭有一部分已被改造成艺术设施、咖啡馆、温室，甚至是微型图书馆等。就像英国风景中许多更加有趣的东西一样，电话亭作为文化遗产保留了下来，成了国家身份的一部分，而其使用价值将会很快成为遥远而模糊的记忆。 文章摘自：《新东方英语》杂志2017年1月号