第1自然段

In a land swept by typhoons and shaken by earthquakes, how have Japan’s tallest and seemingly flimsiest old buildings – 500 or so wooden pagodas – remained standing for centuries? Records show that only two have collapsed during the past 1400 years. Those that have disappeared were destroyed by fire as a result of lightning or civil war. The disastrous Hanshin earthquake in 1995 killed 6,400 people, toppled elevated highways, flattened office blocks and devastated the port area of Kobe. Yet it left the magnificent five-storey pagoda at the Toji temple in nearby Kyoto unscathed, though it levelled a number of buildings in the neighbourhood.

在一个被台风吹袭、地震摧毁的国家，为什么日本最高、看似最不牢固的古建筑——大约500座木质宝塔能够屹立了几个世纪？记录显示，在过去的1400年中，只有两座宝塔倒塌。那些消失的宝塔是因为火灾（由雷击或内战引起）而被摧毁的。1995年的阪神大地震造成了6400人死亡，高架桥倒塌，办公楼夷为平地，神户港区遭到了严重破坏。然而，附近京都的东寺五层宝塔却毫发无损，尽管附近的一些建筑物被夷为平地。

第2自然段

Japanese scholars have been mystified for ages about why these tall, slender buildings are so stable. It was only thirty years ago that the building industry felt confident enough to erect office blocks of steel and reinforced concrete that had more than a dozen floors. With its special shock absorbers to dampen the effect of sudden sideways movements from an earthquake, the thirty-six-storey Kasumigaseki building in central Tokyo – Japan’s first skyscraper – was considered a masterpiece of modern engineering when it was built in 1968.

日本学者长久以来一直为这些高耸纤弱的建筑物稳固性感到困惑。直到三十年前，建筑业才有足够的信心建造超过十几层的钢筋混凝土办公楼。中心东京的三十六层霞丘大厦是日本第一座摩天大楼，它配备了特殊的减震器以减少地震突发侧向运动的影响，在1968年建成时被认为是现代工程的杰作。

第3自然段

Yet in 826, with only pegs and wedges to keep his wooden structure upright, the master builder Kobodaishi had no hesitation in sending his majestic Toji pagoda soaring fifty-five metres into the sky – nearly half as high as the Kasumigaseki skyscraper built some eleven centuries later. Clearly, Japanese carpenters of the day knew a few tricks about allowing a building to sway and settle itself rather than fight nature’s forces. But what sort of tricks?

然而，在826年，木质结构只用了钉子和楔子来保持稳定。这座壮丽的东寺宝塔高达55米，几乎是11世纪后建造的霞丘摩天大厦一半高度。显然，当时的日本木工知道一些关于让建筑物随风摇摆和自行沉降的技巧。但是，到底是什么样的技巧呢？

第4自然段

The multi-storey pagoda came to Japan from China in the sixth century. As in China, they were first introduced with Buddhism and were attached to important temples. The Chinese built their pagodas in brick or stone, with inner staircases, and used them in later centuries mainly as watchtowers. When the pagoda reached Japan, however, its architecture was freely adapted to local conditions – they were built less high, typically five rather than nine storeys, made mainly of wood and the staircase was dispensed with because the Japanese pagoda did not have any practical use but became more of an art object. Because of the typhoons that batter Japan in the summer, Japanese builders learned to extend the eaves of buildings further beyond the walls. This prevents rainwater gushing down the walls. Pagodas in China and Korea have nothing like the overhang that is found on pagodas in Japan.

多层宝塔在6世纪从中国传入日本。与中国类似，它们最初是随着佛教一起引入并附属于重要的寺庙。然而，中国的宝塔是用砖或石头建造的，内部有楼梯，并在后来的几个世纪中主要用作瞭望塔。当宝塔传入日本时，它的建筑风格在很大程度上适应了当地的条件——它们的高度较低，通常为五层而非九层，主要由木材构成，并且取消了楼梯，因为日本的宝塔没有实际用途，而成为了一种艺术品。由于夏季经常受到台风的袭击，日本的建筑师学会了将屋檐延伸得比墙壁更远。这样可以防止雨水倾泻而下。中国和韩国的宝塔没有像日本的那样悬挑出这样的屋檐。

第5自然段

The roof of a Japanese temple building can be made to overhang the sides of the structure by fifty per cent or more of the building’s overall width. For the same reason, the builders of Japanese pagodas seem to have further increased their weight by choosing to cover these extended eaves not with the porcelain tiles of many Chinese pagodas but with much heavier earthenware tiles.

日本寺庙建筑的屋顶可以超出结构的侧面50%以上。出于同样的原因，日本宝塔的建筑师似乎进一步增加了它们的重量，选择将这些延伸的屋檐覆盖在更重的陶器瓦而非许多中国宝塔上常见的瓷砖上。

第6自然段

But this does not totally explain the great resilience of Japanese pagodas. Is the answer that, like a tall pine tree, the Japanese pagoda – with its massive trunk-like central pillar known as shinbashira – simply flexes and sways during a typhoon or earthquake? For centuries, many thought so. But the answer is not so simple because the startling thing is that the shinbashira actually carries no load at all. In fact, in some pagoda designs, it does not even rest on the ground, but is suspended from the top of the pagoda – hanging loosely down through the middle of the building. The weight of the building is supported entirely by twelve outer and four inner columns.

但这并不能完全解释日本宝塔的极高稳定性。是不是像一棵高大的松树一样，日本宝塔——以其巨大的类似主干的中央支柱，即称为“心柱”的部分——在台风或地震时简单地弯曲和摇摆？多世纪以来，很多人都这样认为。但答案并不那么简单，因为令人惊讶的是，“心柱”实际上根本不承担任何负荷。事实上，在某些宝塔设计中，它甚至不直接安放在地面上，而是从宝塔顶部悬挂下来，穿过建筑物的中间。建筑物的重量完全由12根外部柱子和4根内部柱子支撑。

第7自然段

And what is the role of the shinbashira, the central pillar? The best way to understand the shinbashira’s role is to watch a video made by Shuzo Ishida, a structural engineer at Kyoto Institute of Technology. Mr Ishida, known to his students as ‘Professor Pagoda’ because of his passion to understand the pagoda, has built a series of models and tested them on a ‘shake- table’ in his laboratory. In short, the shinbashira was acting like an enormous stationary pendulum. The ancient craftsmen, apparently without the assistance of very advanced mathematics, seemed to grasp the principles that were, more than a thousand years later, applied in the construction of Japan’s first skyscraper. What those early craftsmen had found by trial and error was that under pressure a pagoda’s loose stack of floors could be made to slither to and fro independent of one another. Viewed from the side, the pagoda seemed to be doing a snake dance – with each consecutive floor moving in the opposite direction to its neighbours above and below. The shinbashira, running up through a hole in the centre of the building, constrained individual storeys from moving too far because, after moving a certain distance, they banged into it, transmitting energy away along the column.

“心柱”这个中央支柱的作用是什么呢？理解“心柱”的作用最好的方法是观看京都工艺大学结构工程师石田修造制作的一个视频。石田先生因对宝塔的热情而被他的学生称为“宝塔教授”，他在实验室里建造了一系列模型，并在“抖动台”上进行了测试。简而言之，“心柱”就像一根巨大的固定摆锤。这些古代工匠显然没有使用非常先进的数学方法，但他们似乎抓住了在日本第一座摩天大厦建造时使用的原理，这超过了一千年。那些早期的工匠通过试错发现，宝塔上松散堆叠的楼层在受到压力时可以独立地相互滑动。从侧面看，宝塔似乎在进行蛇舞，每个连续的楼层与上下的邻居运动方向相反。通过塔身中央的一个孔，支撑柱限制了各个楼层的移动距离，因为在移动一定距离后，它们会与支撑柱发生碰撞，将能量沿着支撑柱传递出去。

第8自然段

Another strange feature of the Japanese pagoda is that, because the building tapers, with each successive floor plan being smaller than the one below, none of the vertical pillars that carry the weight of the building is connected to its corresponding pillar above. In other words, a five- storey pagoda contains not even one pillar that travels right up through the building to carry the structural loads from the top to the bottom. More surprising is the fact that the individual storeys of a Japanese pagoda, unlike their counterparts elsewhere, are not actually connected to each other. They are simply stacked one on top of another like a pile of hats. Interestingly, such a design would not be permitted under current Japanese building regulations.

日本宝塔的另一个奇怪特点是，由于建筑物逐渐收窄，每个连续的平面都比下面一个平面小，支撑建筑物重量的垂直支柱与其对应的上方支柱没有连接。换句话说，五层宝塔甚至没有一根支柱从底部一直延伸到顶部来承载结构负荷。更令人惊讶的是，日本宝塔的各个楼层实际上与彼此并没有连接。它们只是像堆叠的帽子一样顺序排列。有趣的是，这样的设计在日本现行建筑法规下是不允许的。

第9自然段

And the extra-wide eaves? Think of them as a tightrope walker’s balancing pole. The bigger the mass at each end of the pole, the easier it is for the tightrope walker to maintain his or her balance. The same holds true for a pagoda. ‘With the eaves extending out on all sides like balancing poles,’ says Mr Ishida, ‘the building responds to even the most powerful jolt of an earthquake with a graceful swaying, never an abrupt shaking.’ Here again, Japanese master builders of a thousand years ago anticipated concepts of modern structural engineering.