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Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China
University of Hawaii Press
January 2013
On Sale: January 31, 2013
ISBN: 0824836065
EAN: 9780824836061
Paperback
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Non-Fiction
A 108-meter high Eiffel Tower rises above Champs Elysées
Square in Hangzhou. A Chengdu residential complex for
200,000 recreates Dorchester, England. An ersatz Queen’s
Guard patrols Shanghai’s Thames Town, where pubs and statues
of Winston Churchill abound. Gleaming replicas of the White
House dot Chinese cities from Fuyang to Shenzhen. These
examples are but a sampling of China’s most popular and
startling architectural movement: the construction of
monumental themed communities that replicate towns and
cities in the West.
Original Copies presents
the first definitive chronicle of this remarkable phenomenon
in which entire townships appear to have been airlifted from
their historic and geographic foundations in Europe and the
Americas, and spot-welded to Chinese cities. These copycat
constructions are not theme parks but thriving communities
where Chinese families raise children, cook dinners, and
simulate the experiences of a pseudo-Orange County or
Oxford.
In recounting the untold and evolving story
of China’s predilection for replicating the greatest
architectural hits of the West, Bianca Bosker explores what
this unprecedented experiment in “duplitecture” implies for
the social, political, architectural, and commercial
landscape of contemporary China. With her lively,
authoritative narrative, the author shows us how, in subtle
but important ways, these homes and public spaces shape the
behavior of their residents, as they reflect the
achievements, dreams, and anxieties of those who inhabit
them, as well as those of their developers and
designers.
From Chinese philosophical perspectives on
copying to twenty-first century market forces, Bosker
details the factors giving rise to China’s new breed of
building. Her analysis draws on insights from the world’s
leading architects, critics and city planners, and on
interviews with the residents of these developments.
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