Chapter 3: Authenticity in Different Degree of Displacement Architecture
3.4 Chinese Duplitecture to Disneysand
3.4.1 Chinese Duplitecture, Live and Leisure City
European influences can be observed everywhere, particularly in cuisine, culture, and architecture. However, China has taken the influences too seriously. In the 1990s, China underwent a period of economic growth and began constructing rural towns and villages. They meticulously replicated some of the most popular cities in Europe. The upshot is a smattering of sparsely populated European imitation villages around China.
(Olito, 2019) Despite the fact that the Chinese towns are not identical to the originals, the likeness is uncanny and may be difficult to detect.
- Repetition & Duplicate – Extreme Degree of Displacement
At the request of Shanghai's mayor in 2001, the city's municipal government launched a program dubbed "One City, Nine Towns" for urban development. Proposals for 10 new cities with experimental zones showing mostly European architecture were part of a broader strategy to extend some of Shanghai's satellite towns. As a result, "English neighborhoods" popped up in Songjiang and Anting, "German neighborhoods" appeared in Gaoqiao and Luodian, and "Dutch neighborhoods" appeared in Songjiang. Scholars in the West have paid scant attention to the phenomenon of themed towns or districts in China that are partly or fully based on European and North American architectural patterns. The
"One City, Nine Towns" program has generated a lot of attention in the architectural community, with various blogs compiling news items and accounts from international tourists and architects. There are many more cases like these that go unreported because the problem has spread across the country and is therefore much worse. (Bosker, 2013)
Products of Chinese social transformation brought about by the emergence of a wealthy middle class drawn to the image of success that European goods communicate.
As such, they are the latest manifestation of a Chinese culture of imitating. Since the birth of the phenomena, the subject of how Western features are imitated has been at the forefront of the debate. Do you know how? How is it viewed and felt by those who experience it? Is there a specific reason why these structures were built? Who lives in this house? What's the point? When it comes to China's middle and upper classes, what can we learn from this film? The phenomenon of cloned cities has cultural roots.
When compared to the Western world, where only originality and authenticity are prized, the Chinese perceive imitation differently. Examples from a variety of sources indicate the value of an excellent copy in China, even if it is impossible to tell from the original. In light of this disparity in values, postmodern analysis is unable to fully grasp the complexities and uniqueness of the situation in China. China/West divide in copying vs.
authenticity is a bit ambitious, as cases based on specific links to imitation in China can be disputed by European historical equivalents. Despite being half a century old and still hotly debated, China is nevertheless seen as being influenced by a postmodern Western cosmology. (Olito, 2019)
The causes behind the large-scale replication of foreign architectures and, concurrently, the reasons why Chinese traditional architecture patterns are not replicated.
For the government, which is involved at every level of decision-making, imitations of Western products are a source of higher short-term profit because they communicate an image of wealth and grandeur and signify China's capacity and power to close the technological gap and even surpass the West. The Chinese government uses reproductions of European traditional style as a method of symbolically conquering the West's past and present, and as mementos of such conquest.
The generalization of this theory to all situations comes with a few caveats based on field data. As such, the state's engagement was clearly larger than it would have been had it not been for the touristic and symbolic importance of such zones. However, the "One City, Nine Towns" program, which was launched by the mayor of Shanghai, the nation's economic center, and thus naturally under media scrutiny outside China's borders, and the gated communities on Chongqing's periphery, whose architectural quality is appreciated by both institutions and residents – some neighborhoods have been constructed by the private sector. (Bosker, 2013) Situation and context influence the motivations of stakeholders including government agents, promoters, buyers, and locals.
China's present pace of development in accurate and relevant information on the forms of imitation, and changes in demand and capacities of China's new and upper middle classes and their condition.. Rather than representing an externally imposed acculturation linked to China's reintegration into globalized networks, the style of replication of European architectures is an authentically endogenous phenomenon, as it shows from a broader perspective, reflecting what is known as 'Chinese globalization.'
Gaoqiao New Town repetition of Amsterdam.
Figure 107 Windmill and historical Amsterdam row House Façade fail to define authenticity.
Retrieved fromwww.flickr.com/photos/arndalarm/6987955516
The Dutch architecture firms were hired to recreate Amsterdam's original enchantment in Gaoqiao's "Holland Town," but without success. In a reflection on the project, one of the responsible designers was reported as noting that it was created under immense pressure, resulting in complexities and compromise. Gaoqiao's spectacular canal- side windmill had the potential to be a tourist attraction, but many of the red-brick homes failed to sell.
Thames Town, repetition of London.
Figure 108 The combination of various English vernacular elements in Thames Town.
Retrieved fromjournals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/7216
In 2006, China's interpretation of London cost a staggering €642 million to produce. The cobblestone alleyways and telephone boxes of Shanghai's Thames Town were insufficient to keep Chinese tourists interested. Originally envisioned as a classic medieval market town, the area's real estate sold like hotcakes. As a result of the surrounding area's identity crisis, a significant number of the neighboring business spaces vacated swiftly. CN Traveller declared it a ghost town 10 years later. (McDonagh, 2021)
Hallstatt, Guangdong, repetition of Hallstatt, Austria
Figure 109 A replica of an Austrian UNESCO heritage site, Hallstatt village, in Huizhou.
Retrieved fromwww.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-06/06/content_15477154.htm The original Hallstatt is a storybook town par excellence. It is hardly surprising that officials in Guangdong desired to convey a traditional style internationally. The
affluent residents of Boluo County were not amused by the abrupt transformation in the landscape. Members of the original Austrian town viewed the project with utter mistrust because they were not informed of the project's true scope until it was halfway finished.
But the mayor of the original Hallstatt quickly saw an opportunity in the replica town. In 2012, he attended the opening ceremony to officially establish a cultural exchange.
Tianducheng or Sky City, repetition of Paris, France
Figure 110 China’s beautiful but empty “little Paris”
Retrieved fromwww.travelbook.de/orte/skurrile-orte/tianducheng-das-paris-von-china
The globe is not short of Eiffel Tower recreations, but Tianducheng's redesigned Parisian center receives full credit for its efforts. The towering edifice became the focal point of the district's miles of French-inspired houses and landscape. Even its own Champs-Élysées exists. Tianducheng, nicknamed "Paris II," has not yet given up on avoiding becoming a ghost town. The initial low occupancy rate of 2,000 inhabitants has slowly climbed to 30,000 as of 2017. It is one of the few developments of its kind that merit building expansions as opposed to demolitions. (McDonagh, 2021)
Tonghui Town, repetition of Interlaken, Switzerland
Figure 111 Interlaken Shenzhen, the luxury theme couldn’t attract much of local tourist Retrieved fromhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinpoh/4090961234
Beijing's foray into "fake foreign appeal" was labeled by China's Global Times as baffling. Beijing decided to participate a decade later than others and was aware of the risks. Tonghui Town is located close to Beijing's Central Business District and was previously lined with facades resembling a Swiss market town. There were a variety of bars and stores in the city that catered to artistic types. Now? It is surrounded by a green fence. Those who seek to explore its spooky corners must obtain special permission from the area management. One of the managers responsible for managing the area's development ascribed its losses to a "branding failure," although the writing was on the wall from the beginning. When there is so much of China's own culture to explore, Chinese visitors have no interest in visiting Europe. (McDonagh, 2021)
In 2001, the Shanghai Planning Commission initiated the "One City, Nine Towns"
project. China's tourism sector determined that it would profit from large-scale investments in recreating some of Europe's most iconic and authentic cities. Theoretically, a trip to Shanghai might potentially include stops in cities such as Amsterdam, London, and Paris. The government had high hopes that the split of Shanghai's suburbs into European "towns" would reduce civil stresses in the city's core, establish new economies, and promote tourism throughout the entire district. Other regions of the country got a taste of this ambition and imitated Swiss villages and Italian commercial promenades with their housing complexes. A tourism strategy that was once so expansive that it was incomprehensible to other continents fell victim to its own hype. Tourists were underwhelmed by the bizarre recreations of the world's most popular tourist attractions, which resembled film sets. Things became bizarre very rapidly. Some feel the developments are more accurately defined as failed amusement parks; after all, China is reported to be home to around 1,600 such attractions.
- Ghost Town – With No Difference, It Fails to Define Authenticity.
China’s duplitecture trend aimed to create perfect copies of foreign cities but in the end, they’ve become something much more interesting in the result. The repetition of the imported foreign architecture here is mainly because of the investment and the bubble in real estate development with the strategy of “build-it-and-they’ll-come” that developer had judged success in concrete poured. But for many, Sky City’s demise was an
“I told you so” moment. planners and architecture critics have assured me the movement
was on its last legs. It’s really just a trend and it’s not sustainable, Chinese duplitecture was already outdated even within China not so long after they finished. These ‘fake cities’
are just so ridiculously similar to their Western originals that rather than anyone taking them seriously, they turned into residential amusement parks empty backdrops for wedding photos and tourist selfies. The authenticity wouldn’t apply to the residential and working facilities at all. (Bosker, 2013)
For instance, Liaoning’s Holland Village—which installed windmills, canals, and a double of the Hague on an area three times the size of Brooklyn’s Navy Yard—
had been demolished 10 years after its construction. Most of the duplitecture development in China was planning to be the residential and working space or office space, which was totally opposite function as the leisure city which displacement architecture work quite well in Las Vegas a decade earlier. When it was living or working space which the user didn’t expect the heterotopia space to escape from their working life, the result is quite straight forward that authenticity is no need in the working or living daily life. These duplitecture satellite city development finally earn “The Ghost Towns” from the local because of its tenantlessness.
Figure 112 Liaoning’s Holland Village decline and demolished in just10 years after the opening.
Retrieved fromwww.sinopix.com/search?I_DSC=HOLLAND%20VILLAGES
Despite the fact that both villages had been abandoned, the surrounding Western landscape had taken over, obscuring the indigenous way of life. They used to place a strong emphasis on their ethnicity by pursuing firms with ties to the West or implementing restrictive design covenants to keep their distinctive appearance and flavor
intact. Enclosing balconies or constructing vegetable gardens, all of which are frequent sights in Chinese neighborhoods, was traditionally against the law. Its first decades were dominated by European-themed neighborhoods designed to fit the area's European architecture. English pubs in Thames Town and German bratwurst in Anting Town drew crowds from throughout the world. Tianducheng or Sky City, a replication of Paris, is one example of a metropolis that is experimenting with a new strategy that could lead to a more authentic duplitecture working and living city.(McDonagh, 2021)
Sky City, Hangzhou's version of Paris, was supposed to be a ghost town when it was first built. An Eiffel Tower and Champs-Élysées were included in the 2006 construction of a 10,000-person city styled after Paris. Few people had moved in because it was too far, inconvenient or strange. Within two years of a new management business taking over the town, Hangzhou's Paris was flooded with Chinese tourists clicking photos just like France's Paris.(Bosker, 2018)
Figure 113 Sky City after applying the local culture and lifestyle to attract the local inhabitants.
Retrieved fromwww.scmp.com/culture/how-chinas-fake-paris-
This manager saw the significance of attracting services and retailers that would attract residents. They intend to introduce a Montessori school, French research institutes, and spas with the world's most authentic and innovative beauty treatments to Sky City; within a year, the town's population will reach approximately 40,000. Nonetheless, it looked as though something was functioning. The creators of Hangzhou Paris did not view it as a "spooky and dismal ghost town." They described