三位被环境逼出来的成功企业家

比亚克•因格尔斯

    有些创业者在打造自己想要的事业时，可选余地更小。37岁的建筑设计师比亚克•因格尔斯就是一个例子。从丹麦新建的国家海洋博物馆到美国时代广场上那颗巨型的“跳动的心”雕塑，还有他的书《是即是多——漫画建筑进化论》（Yes Is More： An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution），他的作品如今已遍布全世界。

    因格尔斯承认，虽然也尝试做过其他事情，但他最终选择建筑是因为他不断在这个领域取得成功。“我最初的梦想是成为一名图画小说家。但由于没有教授图画小说的专科学校，我学了建筑，”他说。“我想，它能学到很多画图工具，别的不说，至少它能让我很好地画背景。”

    三年级时，因格尔斯完成了首个建筑实践，赢得了第一项竞赛奖项。尽管初战告捷，他还是觉得做建筑单调乏味。

    “毕业后，我去了鹿特丹一家建筑公司工作。那时的我年轻而失意，只是一个助理建筑师，直到快50岁才能看到自己的作品造出来，”因格尔斯说。因此，他决定创建一家名为“Remake”的互联网新兴公司，希望在电影行业一试身手，但最终没有成功。

    “后来，我做了另一个项目ETechture，尝试为年轻的建筑设计师打造一个互联网平台，在这上面他们可以以非常低的价格出售设计。这是利用互联网为打算建房、但负担不起知名建筑师费用的人们提供的一条途径，”他说。“这个创意获了一些奖项和一项现金奖励，但随后纳斯达克股市大跌，所有的投资兴趣顷刻间都消失得无影无踪。”

    在这两项尝试期间，英格尔斯也曾随性试验不同的建筑理念。在第二个企业失败后，他环顾四周，发现自己已经荣获了三项建筑竞赛大奖。“这为我做了决定，”他说。“不是什么了不起的重大决定——因为它几乎就是唯一的选择。”

    当然，如今英格尔斯意识到建筑是他的一大爱好。“一旦对建筑着了迷，其他任何事情都变为是实现建筑的途径。我喜欢好点子，但如果它们不能产生建筑，谁在意？就好比，‘啊，这不错，但建筑在哪儿？’”

    译者：早稻米

Bjarke Ingles

    Some entrepreneurs get even fewer options when it comes to carving out the career they want. Take architect Bjarke Ingles, 37; his work is all over the place these days, from the new Danish national Maritime museum, to a giant pulsing heart in Times Square, and his book Yes Is More: An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution.

    By his own admission, Ingles ended up in architecture because he kept being successful in it despite trying to do other things. "My original fantasy was to be a graphic novelist. But in the absence of a graphic novel academy, I went into architecture," he says. "I figured it would give me a lot of drawing tools and, if nothing else, would make me good at drawing backgrounds."

    As a third-year student, Ingles set up his first architecture practice and won his first competition. Despite that initial success, he found architecture stultifying.

    "When I graduated, I went to work in Rotterdam in an architecture company. I was a young, frustrated guy in a business where you had to be a lay architect until your late 40s before you could get any of your own work produced," Ingles says. So he decided to try his hand at an Internet startup called "Remake" for the film industry, which ultimately didn't work out.

    "So then I did another project called ETechture, trying to make an Internet-based platform for young architects where they could sell their plans at a very low price. It was a way to use the Internet for people that wanted to build a house but couldn't afford a big-name architect," he says. "The idea won awards and a cash prize, but then the NASDAQ crashed and all interest vanished for a while."

    In between these efforts, Ingles had been noodling away on various architecture concepts, and after his latest venture failed, he looked around and found that he'd won three major architecture competitions. "That made the decision for me" he says. "It wasn't a big decision -- it was almost like the only decision."

    Now, of course, Ingles recognizes architecture as one of his big loves. "Once you get bitten by architecture everything else becomes a way to get buildings made. I love good ideas, but if they don't result in a building, then who cares? It's like 'yeah that's great, but where's the building?'"