該不該爲蘋果的新總部點贊

A giant spaceship has landed in Cupertino. This summer, 12,000 Apple employees will start to move into this great disc of a building, which has been eight years coming and is said to have cost $5bn — making it the world’s most expensive office.

一艘巨大的宇宙飛船降落在庫比蒂諾。今年夏天，1.2萬名蘋果(Apple)員工將開始搬入這座巨型碟形建築。這項工程持續了8年、耗資50億美元，使其成爲全世界最昂貴的辦公室。

Apple Park is Steve Jobs’s last, posthumous hurrah; as a vanity project it is roughly on a par with Nicolae Ceausescu’s People’s Palace in Bucharest. Jobs managed the spec as the control freak he was, insisting on irreproachable door furniture and stone from a Kansas quarry that was distressed to make it look like the walls of a Yosemite hotel he was fond of. The obsessiveness and the grandiosity make the marble that Jacques Attali once ordered when he was head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development look slipshod.

蘋果公園(Apple Park)是史蒂夫?喬布斯(Steve Jobs)的遺世之作；作爲一項面子工程，它在宏大程度上和尼古拉?齊奧塞斯庫(Nicolae Ceausescu)在布加勒斯特的人民宮殿(People’s Palace)差不多。作爲一貫的控制狂，喬布斯生前對建築規格進行嚴格管理，堅持用無可挑剔的門配件和來自堪薩斯州某個採石場的石頭，那裏的石頭具有老舊的外觀，可以做得像他鐘愛的一家約塞米蒂（Yosemite ，加州的一個國家公園——譯者注）酒店的牆一樣。這種執迷和誇張，甚至讓雅克?阿塔利(Jacques Attali)在擔任歐洲復興開發銀行(EBRD)行長時預定的大理石石料也相形見絀了。

If I were an Apple shareholder, I would not be happy. Overdoing it on the decor of the HQ is a sure sign that calamity is on its way. It did not end well for Ceausescu’s Romania, nor for Mr Attali’s EBRD.

如果我是蘋果的股東，我不會高興的。對總部的裝修太過鋪張，必然標誌着災難即將降臨。齊奧塞斯庫的羅馬尼亞不得善終，阿塔利的歐洲復興開發銀行也不怎麼樣。

If I lived in Cupertino I would not be happy either. There are at least 9,000 car parking spaces at Apple Park, which means too much driving. It is better for cities to have offices in the centre, so people do not have to travel so far, and can nip out at lunchtime to spend money in local shops.

如果我住在庫比蒂諾，我也不會開心。蘋果公園至少有9000個停車位，這意味着駕車的比例太高了。最好的辦公地點是在城市中心，這樣人們不用長途通勤，還可以在午飯時間溜去當地商場購物。

Yet as an observer of offices, I am dancing a jig. Over the past two decades, three bad things have been happening with office design, and Apple Park puts all of them right.

不過，作爲辦公室的觀察者，我覺得歡欣鼓舞。過去20年，辦公室設計上出現了3種糟糕的情況，而蘋果公園更正了這些問題。

First we have lost confidence in offices altogether as nomadic workers huddle in cafés and in their own bedrooms. Jobs’s edifice is a hymn to the importance of offices in general. Critics are grumbling about the white elephant the building would become should Apple go bust — but that misses the point. Apple Park screams: “We are here to stay and, given that, we’ve built somewhere beautiful for our staff to work in every day.”

首先，我們對辦公室徹底失去了信心，沒有固定辦公桌的員工們擠在咖啡店裏或者窩在各自的臥室內。喬布斯的建築從總體上歌頌了辦公室的重要性。批評者抱怨稱，如果蘋果破產了，這座建築就會變成昂貴而無用之物——但這並沒抓住重點。蘋果公園彷彿在大喊：“我們會在這裏長期經營下去，因此，我們爲我們的員工建設了漂亮的建築，讓他們每天在這裏工作。”

The second bad thing is the confusion between home and work. Fashionable office designers delight in making work spaces look like the hideous apartments of imaginary hipsters — Airbnb’s office in San Francisco is filled with spaces that look like funky sitting rooms, kitchens and even a “nerd cave”. As far as I can tell from looking at it on You Tube and reading the first review in Wired, the Apple HQ is built on the idea that work and home are distinct. There is not even any childcare on site, which is also progress. I have never wanted my employer to look after my children. I wanted to hire my own childminders and leave work in time to relieve them.

第二件糟糕的事是家和工作的混淆。時尚的辦公室設計師們，喜歡讓辦公場所看起來像嬉皮士的糟糕公寓一樣——愛彼迎(Airbnb)在舊金山的辦公室裏充滿了看似前衛的客廳、廚房、甚至“奇葩洞”(nerd cave)一樣的空間。就我在YouTube上看到的情況和在《連線》(Wired)上看到的第一篇評論看來，蘋果總部的設計初衷是把工作和家隔開。蘋果公園裏甚至沒有兒童託管部，這也是一項進步。我從未想過讓公司幫我照顧孩子。我想自己找保姆，按時下班，接保姆的班。

Most radical of all, Apple Park is made for grown-ups. For the past two decades office spaces have been built as if for primary school children. Google has been a world leader in infantilising its workforce with AstroTurf croquet lawns and slides. In its Tel Aviv office staff have meetings in ridiculous flying pods — baskets with propellers on top. This pernicious trend — ugly, stupid and ageist — started in Silicon Valley and has spread. Even at the frumpy CBI’s new office in London, it is all primary colours, pods and fun murals.

最到位的是，蘋果公園是爲成年人而造。過去20年，辦公室空間就彷佛是爲小學生設計一樣。谷歌在把員工當成幼兒對待方面領先全球，該公司修建了槌球人工草皮和滑梯。谷歌特拉維夫辦公室的員工在可笑的飛行艙（頂上帶着螺旋槳的籃子）內開會。這種糟糕趨勢——醜陋、愚蠢和年齡偏見——發端於硅谷，現已蔓延到其他地方。就連古板的英國工商業聯合會(CBI)在倫敦的新辦公室也全都是原色、小艙和有趣的壁畫。

Apple Park has turned its back on fun and is going for beauty instead. Beauty is serious and grown-up; work should be too.

蘋果公園不再執着於有趣，相反它追求的是美麗。美麗是嚴肅而成熟的；工作也理應如此。

The building has two other big things going for it: democracy and greenery. Offices have been pretending to be egalitarian for decades, but as long as they are housed in skyscrapers, the chief executive is always at the top. The spaceship has only four floors and everyone in the ring will get the same view of the best thing for any worker to gaze upon — trees. About 9,000 of them are to be planted — almost one tree per person.

這座建築還有另外兩個值得讚賞的地方：民主和綠植。數十年來，辦公室一直假裝是平等主義社會，但只要辦公室位於摩天大樓內，首席執行官總是位於頂層。蘋果公園只有4層，在環形建築內工作的所有人都看到同樣的景緻——樹木，這也是最適合員工凝視的。這裏將種植約9000棵樹木——差不多人均一棵樹。

The only bit of hokum is Apple’s attempt to justify the expenditure. It claims that in immaculate surroundings people are more likely to do immaculate work. This is nonsense, many of the world’s finest inventions seem to have been built in garden sheds.

唯一有點胡扯的地方是蘋果試圖證明這項支出的合理性。它聲稱人們在完美的環境裏更有可能做出完美的工作。這是胡扯，世界上很多最傑出的發明似乎是在花園的棚子裏鼓搗出來的。

In any case, Apple does not need any such justification. It has money to burn and has chosen to burn it on something splendid for its workers. As a shareholder I may not like it. But if I were one of the 12,000 I would be counting the days until I moved in.

無論如何，蘋果不需要提供這類辯解。它有大把可以燒的錢，並選擇了爲員工燒錢，給他們一些美好的東西。作爲股東，我可能不喜歡這樣。但如果我是那1.2萬名員工中的一員，我會數着日子等待搬進蘋果公園裏。