2006年VOA标准英语-An Architecture of Glass That Filters Sunl

By Carolyn Weaver¹
New York City
28 February 2006
 
watch Glass Architect report

New technologies have made glass, that ancient, fragile material made from molten sand, suitable as an architectural building block, too. New York architect and glass artist James Carpenter is the best-known innovator² in the field, work for which he received a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius" award in 2004.

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Architect James Carpenter, with his design for New York’s new Moynihan Station  
  

"Light is really the subject that most interests me,” says James Carpenter, “and glass is the material that allows you to explore and control and manipulate qualities of light." Carpenter began his career as an architecture student, then veered³ off into glass art and technology, and then back into what you might call “glass architecture.”

In the last twenty years, partly due to Carpenter's innovations, strong new forms of glass have been developed that can be used as a structural⁴ material, whether for staircases, walkways or walls -- transparent⁵ walls that admit sunlight, but are coated invisibly to keep out too much heat.
 
 
“Jazz at Lincoln Center” performance space, Time-Warner Center (Brad Feinknopf, courtesy JCDAINC)  
  
"Most people find this fairly hard to believe,” Carpenter says, “but glass in many respects is much stronger than steel. I mean, we have this presumption⁶ about glass as being very fragile, and it breaks, and those are all true. But if you use it correctly, in compression, and use it in specific ways, it really does have a strength that's much greater than steel.”

For example, new forms of "safety" laminated glass can be laced together on cables, creating flexible walls that can absorb the impact of hurricane winds or blast forces, almost as a tennis racket absorbs the impact of a ball. As Carpenter puts it, "You take the energy and allow the structure to deform⁷ slightly, and then re-find its original position." 

These tennis-racket walls are used both in Carpenter's glass atrium at the Time-Warner Center in New York, and at the new Seven World Trade Center, the first Ground Zero skyscraper⁸ to be rebuilt -- set to open in April -- to which Carpenter contributed the facade⁹ and base.

James Carpenter, with his model for a subway station’s “sundial” dome¹⁰  
  
You can see other James Carpenter works in cities around the United States, and in other countries, including Germany, China and Saudi Arabia. But his most high-profile projects are in his home base of New York City. For the roof of a new subway station in Manhattan, he's designed a glass-enclosed perforated metal dome. He shows a model of the design to a visitor to his firm’s offices in an old industrial building downtown.

“This form that I'm holding is a sort of very delicate, diaphanous¹¹ metal structure that floats inside that glass volume,” Carpenter says, “and the purpose is to take daylight coming down through this oculus or skylight at the roof, passing through, and then hitting the metal skin, the light then is reflected further down into the subway station. So, if you walked through this space every day, you would begin to realize that when you looked up at it and saw the sun shining in, you could effectively tell what time of year it is. It’s a kind of sun dial."

Last spring, Carpenter's firm, James Carpenter Design Associates, won a competition to design New York City's new Moynihan Station, an expansion of a current railway hub, Pennsylvania Station. It will be located across Eighth Avenue in a 100-year-old landmark¹² neoclassical-style building that Carpenter's plan leaves largely untouched, he says, “to avoid doing anything to the original fabric¹³, but to have a glass roof that floats over the building and around the outside.” 

Carpenter’s “Dichroic Light Field,” Columbus Avenue, New York  
  
Standing¹⁴ next to a large model of the design, Carpenter points to the re-opened “moats” and other openings that will carry light down to the shops and train tracks underground. “We’re trying to use elements of light to organize the space, and to provide a means of orienting yourself as you go through the space,” he says.

Adding nuance¹⁵ and beauty to everyday experiences -- walking through a subway station or along a city street -- is the purpose of his experiments with light and glass, Carpenter says.

Further north in Manhattan, a massive flat glass sculpture by Carpenter shimmers¹⁶ on a brick wall overlooking Columbus Avenue.  It looks like a huge window, but that’s actually reflective glass hung on a blank wall, with short projecting "fins¹⁷" of dichroic glass coated to divide the visible spectrum¹⁸ of light – so that the colors shift as you walk by, and as the sun passes overhead.

1 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

2 innovator   

n.改革者；创新者

参考例句：

• The young technical innovator didn't lose heart though the new system was not yet brought into a workable condition. 尽管这种新方法尚未达到切实可行的状况，这位青年技术革新者也没有泄气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Caesar planned vast projects and emerged as a great innovator. 恺撒制定了庞大的革新计划。 来自英汉非文学 - 文明史

3 veered   

v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的过去式和过去分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转

参考例句：

• The bus veered onto the wrong side of the road. 公共汽车突然驶入了逆行道。
• The truck veered off the road and crashed into a tree. 卡车突然驶离公路撞上了一棵树。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 structural   

adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的

参考例句：

• The storm caused no structural damage.风暴没有造成建筑结构方面的破坏。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities.北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

5 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

6 presumption   

n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定

参考例句：

• Please pardon my presumption in writing to you.请原谅我很冒昧地写信给你。
• I don't think that's a false presumption.我认为那并不是错误的推测。

7 deform   

vt.损坏…的形状；使变形，使变丑；vi.变形

参考例句：

• Shoes that are too tight deform the feet.(穿)太紧的鞋子会使脚变形。
• Ice crystals begin to deform measurably.冰晶就产生某种程度的变形了。

8 skyscraper   

n.摩天大楼

参考例句：

• The skyscraper towers into the clouds.那幢摩天大楼高耸入云。
• The skyscraper was wrapped in fog.摩天楼为雾所笼罩。

9 facade   

n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表

参考例句：

• The entrance facade consists of a large full height glass door.入口正面有一大型全高度玻璃门。
• If you look carefully,you can see through Bob's facade.如果你仔细观察，你就能看穿鲍勃的外表。

10 dome   

n.圆屋顶，拱顶

参考例句：

• The dome was supported by white marble columns.圆顶由白色大理石柱支撑着。
• They formed the dome with the tree's branches.他们用树枝搭成圆屋顶。

11 diaphanous   

adj.(布)精致的，半透明的

参考例句：

• She was wearing a dress of diaphanous silk.她穿着一件薄如蝉翼的绸服。
• We have only a diaphanous hope of success.我们只有隐约的成功希望。

12 landmark   

n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标

参考例句：

• The Russian Revolution represents a landmark in world history.俄国革命是世界历史上的一个里程碑。
• The tower was once a landmark for ships.这座塔曾是船只的陆标。

13 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

14 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

15 nuance   

n.(意义、意见、颜色)细微差别

参考例句：

• These users will easily learn each nuance of the applications they use.这些用户会很快了解他们所使用程序的每一细微差别。
• I wish I hadn't become so conscious of every little nuance.我希望我不要变得这样去思索一切琐碎之事。

16 shimmers   

n.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的名词复数 )v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The hot pavement sent up shimmers. 晒热的道路浮起热气晃动的景象。 来自辞典例句
• Sunlight shimmers on the waters of the bay. 阳光在海湾的水面上闪烁。 来自辞典例句

17 fins   

[医]散热片；鱼鳍；飞边；鸭掌

参考例句：

• The level of TNF-α positively correlated with BMI,FPG,HbA1C,TG,FINS and IRI,but not with SBP and DBP. TNF-α水平与BMI、FPG、HbA1C、TG、FINS和IRI呈显著正相关，与SBP、DBP无相关。 来自互联网
• Fins are a feature specific to fish. 鱼鳍是鱼类特有的特征。 来自辞典例句

18 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。