West in the East
Imitation is the best form of flattery, they say. The U.S. has a long history of copying European buildings etc., and even shipping some of them over from Europe and re-assembling them back home.
When I studied shipping at The London School of Foreign Trade, in London, England, in 1961-62, one of our professors told us about Japanese students having made copious notes, in addition to numerous photos of an industrial plant in England. Years later, an English group visited Japan and found that the Japanese had made an identical plant to the one they had visited. Even the placement of the doors was identical.
Chinese industrialization has been spectacular since the reform program really started to take off, around 1991, when Japan's productivity started to decline. Its industrialization extends far back, however. In fact, "in the State of Wu of China, steel was first made, preceding the Europeans by over 1,000 years. The Song dynasty saw intensive industry in steel production, and coal mining." (Source: Chinese industrialization)
The Chinese are known for their knock-off products, but they have taken it to a whole new level when it comes to buildings and the like, recreating cities to give families a taste of European life, without the need to leave home.
For instance, Chinese architects copied the Eiffel Tower (in Hangzhou), the Arc de Triomphe, and the famous Latona fountain in the gardens of the Palace of Versaille to make their own version of the French capital. These monuments will be surrounded by rows of European-style villas , where up to 100,000 Chinese will live in a specially gated community called Tianducheng, just outside Shanghai.
You can view the Eiffel Tower copy below, by placing the cursor over the first thumbnail. To keep the larger image firmly in place all you have to do is to click on the respective thumbnail. Two thousand people have already moved into the complex near Hangzhou in June, after five years of landscaping. Hangzhou is one of the prettiest cities in China, which incidentally means Middle Kingdom. The Chinese Eiffel copy is only 108 m tall, and thus 1:3 compared with the original's 320 m. It was completed in October, 2007.
Tianduzheng is the latest in a growing line of housing communities designed to evoke the charm and lifestyle of old European cities.
The second image is of the collonade at the Laffitte Chateau hotel in Beijing. The hotel is a multi-million dollar replica of France's Chateau Maison-Laffitte, which is located in a northwest suburb of Paris.
The third image shows the French baroque buildings of this chateau, beyond the hotel's expansive courtyard.
The fourth image shows one of its luxurious dining rooms.
At the end of the top row of images we get a view of the Hallstätt replica in Boluo, about 96 km (60 miles) northeast of Hong Kong in China's
Guandong province. Boluo has less than a million inhabitants, and is located about an hour and half's drive from Guangzhou. The original, located on the shores of the Hallstätter See in Austria, is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The first image in the bottom row is Jackson Hole, a cowboy-inspired resort town near Beijing, named after the Wyoming vacation mecca. It offers 900 cabins furnished with both fireplaces and western charm. This idyllic town offers a weekend escape from the over-crowded and heavily polluted streets of China's urban neighbourhoods.
The next two images are from Beijing World Park. The first is of the House wing of the U.S. Capitol building, while the second shows the main front of the same building.
The last two images are from Thames Town, a replica British village, located in Songjiang, near Shanghai. Located an hour's drive from Shanghai's skyscrapers, it features Georgian and Victorian-style terraced houses. It caused a minor uproar after English publican Gail Caddy accused it of replicating her pub and fish-and-chip shop in Lyme Regis, England.
Thames Town was completed in 2006. It cost $ 1 billion to build, occupying 1 km² of land, and was designed for a population of 10,000 people.
Roughly 70% of the villas inside the four compounds, surrounding the city centre were already sold when Thames Town consisted only of four plans and 3 D renderings. The villas were mostly bought by Shanghainese businessmen as an investment. Because of the distance and daily rush hour owners live in Shanghai and as a result business did not develop at first. However, in the last months of last year more and more shops opened, in addition to the insane number of wedding photography studios, which are evident in the last couple of images above. Even the church, copy of a church in Bristol, is now open to the public, with a priest, together with a Christian relics store.
Some argue the carbon copies are simply a manifestation of modern China’s penchant for copyright infringement; others that they represent an obsession with Western styles and tastes. Archeologist Jack Carlson argues it is only the latest example of a broader theme in Chinese history: co-opting duplicates from distant lands to demonstrate China's place at the centre, and as heir to all the world's achievements. "Then, as now, the projects wre intended to showcase China's own worldiness, wealth, and global supremacy," Carlson writes.
One thing is for sure, however, and that is that the reproductions shown and described above represent only a small fraction of this modern copycat wave, and undoubtedly there will be more to come. By China's own estimate there are 20 cities being buillt each year.
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