I know China is into ripping stuff off, but does that have to include whole European capitals, too? (HT to reader)
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Paris in China
This entry was written by Robert Koehler, posted on September 6, 2007 at 11:33 pm, filed under Asides, China, East and Central Asia. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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13 Comments
Ludicrous!
That’s so nouveau riche.
I shudder when I think of what happened when a replica of another French-built iconic structure was built in Beijing 18 years ago.
The parents of a former student in China were developers of housing estates like the one in the photo. They would go to Europe for architectural inspiration and then come back and build replicas for the new upper class of Chinese with lots of money and no sense of style or taste. Apparently, business was very good. The woman gave our school’s owner a car as a gift.
To what extent are the replicas “real”?
I.e. is that a full-size exact duplicate of the Eiffel Tower or is it just a somewhat scaled down replica with no elevator, no stairs, no expensive restaurants, etc etc.
Looks like the latter but it’s hard to tell for sure from the photos.
I assume the apartments are just duplicate facades on the outside or do they have interiors that duplicate the originals as well?
Paul,
For the Chinese copy of the Eiffel Tower, I’m guessing the latter. Even today, it would be a major engineering and construction undertaking to (re)build the Eiffel Tower, especially with elevators and a restaurant. I doubt this would be done for just 2,000 people.
Besides that, it seems from the pictures that it’s quite a bit smaller than the actual one. On the main picture, for instance, the first deck of the actual Eiffel Tower would, well, “tower” over the relatively short 4 and 5-story buildings. However, the first level does not even crest the roofs of those buildings. In total, I’d guess the copy to be between 25 and 30 stories (250 feet to 300 feet) tall. However, at 324m, the actual Eiffel Tower is therefor 3 to 4 times taller.
In the close-up picture, it would be difficult to fit a elevator in there without it being seen. So, at best, they have stairs and an observation deck (on what level ?), but no restaurant.
As a side note, to construct a full-size replica of the actual Eiffel Tower would take an enormous amount of steel and be extremely expensive.
True, the idea seems silly of constructing replica Parisian buildings in China, but at least it’s more interesting than hundreds of identical apartment blocks. It might be kind of interesting if they copied buildings from major cities all over the world.
Like Vegas.
Well, Vegas is the first thing I thought about as well. Seems understandable for America the nation of immigrants to import a potpourri of architectural styles, to include bad-taste copies, but I would have thought proud Chinese nationalism would mandate only Chinese themes for luxury apartments.
Never could have happened under the Chairman, mindful as he would have been of the former French concessions in Shanghai:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....ina#French
as well as the former French colonial presence in Indochina.
Well, if China can have MacDonald’s and KFC’s why not a little of la gaite Parisienne. I hope there’s at least one good sidewalk cafe with croissants and non-Starbucks cafe for the residents.
It’s 108 meters, 1/3 the height of the original.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/economi.....paris.html
The one in Las Vegas is 165 meters. Las Vegas’s replica of New York City is also much smaller than the original.
It’s not like Vegas at all. It’s a huge complex (town) with hundreds of apartment buildings. Check it out on google earth.
Here are the coordinates
30°23′26.70″N,120°14′31.22″E
Well I meant only the Eiffel tower replica in Shanghai represents the same idea as the one in Vegas; didn’t mean to imply that Vegas real estate developers would spend money on constructing hundreds of French-style apartments for an uncertain demand.
How about a racing track, something that could be used by “the people” for recreation, instead of a 1/3 size white elephant replica of the Eiffel tower? Something out of the history of France-in-China, seeing as how the original has been demolished:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....hanghai%29
Didn’t know about this facility, was quite interested to read about it, particularly its post-1949 bloody history.