Photographer Francois Prost's recent photo series, Paris Syndrome, reveals just how far China's "duplitecture" went in the city of Tianducheng. Pairing images of China's replica city with its Paris equivalent—side by side it can be initially unclear which is the original.
Tianducheng features its own 100m high Eiffel tower, a haussmanian style neighborhood and a Versailles garden inspired park. The Paris copy was built 11 years ago and deemed a ghost town until just last year when the population rose to 30,000. Now Tianducheng is in many ways just another suburb with middle class people going about their daily lives.
Have you spotted which is the real Paris? All images on the left are of Tianducheng and all on the right are of Paris.
This duplitecture goes way further than simply copying a famous structure as an attraction; this is an entire city designed to have real people live in it. Dig further into the oddities and ideas around this phenomena in CityLab's article.
all of the photographs aside from the ones of the Eiffel Tower show noticeably different buildings side by side. The only things shared by the first pairing are that the buildings are of neoclassical design, 6 stories tall, and have a mansard roof. Even if you ignore all the other differences and look at the corner - they're entirely different approaches to the classical language! This Francois Prost fella should have played more spot-the-difference games as a kid...
There's a point to be made about China's copying of other cultures' traditions, but it doesn't come across very coherent when I can clearly see that the Chinese architecture throws in random facade elements where they don't belong, whereas the European architecture doesn't display that attitude
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why don't they copy FLLW's buildings?
Hear, hear!
Also: can we just say "copies" rather than silly attempts at trendy buzzwords?
But the larger topic is pretty fascinating.
How china will eventually own the world, so they're just creating a rehearsing stage for their youth?
They dont ned to be tourists anymore
Need
Like Vegas.
all of the photographs aside from the ones of the Eiffel Tower show noticeably different buildings side by side. The only things shared by the first pairing are that the buildings are of neoclassical design, 6 stories tall, and have a mansard roof. Even if you ignore all the other differences and look at the corner - they're entirely different approaches to the classical language! This Francois Prost fella should have played more spot-the-difference games as a kid...
There's a point to be made about China's copying of other cultures' traditions, but it doesn't come across very coherent when I can clearly see that the Chinese architecture throws in random facade elements where they don't belong, whereas the European architecture doesn't display that attitude
you should play more spot-the difference as well! that chinese eiffel is nothing like the original - and about the coherence; would it be better if they copied the international style like the japanese did? become another bland copy of anycity usa? I am not defending the cartoonism they're producing, but I think there is value in trying to reproduce what's perceived as good urbanism and architecture, and when you look closely, they may not have the best neoclassic style, but that's only to a trained eye.
I can tell the fake tower from the original - I was saying it's the only pairing that kind of works to illustrate the similarities more so than the differences.
If you can't beat them...
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