China's Fake European Cities Have Transformed Into Something Much More Interesting

[Cirrus]

Perhaps you've heard of Las Vegas? The US built our own faux Paris and faux Venice. Or how about Disney's faux Europe, or faux 11-different countries in one place (faux Canada is my favorite). What's that? You want to see a place people live, instead of a resort? OK, how's about the faux ruins of The Villages, FL, or the faux adobe of New Mexico strip malls. And let's not forget Washington, DC's chain-filled Chinatown.

What China's doing certainly should not be called authentic, but let's not pretend they aren't doing anything we haven't been doing for ages. At most it's merely a different scale.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Perhaps you've heard of Las Vegas? The US built our own faux Paris and faux Venice. Or how about Disney's faux Europe, or faux 11-different countries in one place (faux Canada is my favorite). What's that? You want to see a place people live, instead of a resort? OK, how's about the faux ruins of The Villages, FL, or the faux adobe of New Mexico strip malls. And let's not forget Washington, DC's chain-filled Chinatown.

What China's doing certainly should not be called authentic, but let's not pretend they aren't doing anything we haven't been doing for ages. At most it's merely a different scale.

Assuming that quality materials are used, I'm actually all for architectural revivals or outright copies. I mean, why not reuse a good idea?

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Perhaps you've heard of Las Vegas? The US built our own faux Paris and faux Venice. Or how about Disney's faux Europe, or faux 11-different countries in one place (faux Canada is my favorite). What's that? You want to see a place people live, instead of a resort? OK, how's about the faux ruins of The Villages, FL, or the faux adobe of New Mexico strip malls. And let's not forget Washington, DC's chain-filled Chinatown.

What China's doing certainly should not be called authentic, but let's not pretend they aren't doing anything we haven't been doing for ages. At most it's merely a different scale.

I was going to say the same thing. Even our beloved architecture from the 1700s and 1800s was adopted from England, or from ancient Rome. It's all recycled and evolved from something else.

I think these neighborhoods are interesting. It's something different in China. You can have millions of Chinese neighborhoods in China, but every here and there you have a London, or Paris, or something else. It's some variety. It's no different than here. One of the biggest drawbacks of modern master-planned communities (such as, say, Columbia, Maryland) is that all of the architecture clearly dates from a 10-15 year period. If there were some farmhouses or old churches preserved and saved, it would give a little variety to a block or street, which is much more interesting than acres of the same types of houses, or shopping plazas all with a postmodern look.

If those pictures on the first page are the Chinese versions of Europe, I would say that they did a really good job. They would be welcome to come here and build that in one of our cities!