05 December 2011

Can China Create Something This Beautiful?

China is building a replica Alpine village in a grimy industrial city.

It hopes the chalets in the southern city of Huizhou will be sought after by homesick Europeans.

The village will be a £5.7billion copy of Hallstatt in Austria, complete with artificial lake. Posing as tourists, the Chinese have been photographing every building there for three years. _DailyMail
Hallstatt, Austria on Lake Hallstatt

Chinese developers have built other duplicate towns, based upon villages in the UK. Now a Chinese developer has gone to extraordinary lengths to mimic an Austrian mountain village, down to the boards on building exteriors. Something tells me that the Guangdong version of Hallstatt will not provide that same fresh, brisk, clean feeling as the original.
...at the Chinese site, in the city of Huizhou about 100 miles north of the border with Hong Kong, there is little to indicate that the copycat version will ever approximate the beauty of the original.

A few low-rise buildings are in the early stages of construction, their frames covered with bamboo scaffolding and green mesh. Cranes and trucks moved around the area Friday dodging workers carrying steel construction elements.

Though the area is hilly, there was not an alpine peak in sight and the waters of a nearby lake - apparently the faux Lake Hallstatt to be - were green and murky. Instead of mirroring majestic alpine mountaintops, several dead fish floated on the surface. _DailyMail
The Chinese would do better to try to build a cleaner China, where people will want to go to understand both contemporary and historical China. Mimicking ancient European villages projects a feeling of desperate cluelessness and naivete.

First, build a better China, then if you want to build European village replicas, at least the air and water will be clean.

The above article was previously published at Al Fin the Next Level
This isn't the first time a Chinese firm has used a European place as inspiration. The Chinese city of Anting, some 30 kilometers from Shanghai, created a district designed to accommodate 20,000 residents called "German Town Anting." Modelled after a typical mid-size German city by architecture firm Albert Speer & Partner, it includes Bauhaus style architecture and a fountain with statues of Goethe and Schiller.

In 2005 Chengdu British Town was modelled on the English town of Dorchester. One year later Thames Town was finished near Shanghai, complete with a 66-meter tall church that bears a striking resemblance to a cathedral in Bristol. Also near Shanghai are mini versions of Barcelona, Venice and the Scandinavian-inspired Nordic Town. The architectural plagiarisms are popular destinations among middle-class Chinese, even serving as backdrops for wedding photos. _Spiegel

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3 Comments:

Blogger neil craig said...

It seem,s a strange place to put it - in the middle of the most populated and industrialised region. Somewhere in Tibet/Xianghang would have provided the scenary required.

Tuesday, 06 December, 2011  
Blogger Bloggin' Brewskie said...

Yeah, the clean air bit is funny. In that country, you can see smog within feet of you - and that's out in the country.

Changing gears: a slew of links covering the stark reality of much of China's new infrastructure - it's horrid.

(I'm in a hurry as I have projects to complete, so I'll simply copy and paste the links. Sorry.)

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-06/19/content_8301942.htm

http://www.pekingduck.org/2005/08/the-collapse-of-china/ (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Be sure to also check out the readers' comments!)

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100063812/chinas-crumbling-buildings-not-built-to-last/

http://seeingredinchina.com/2011/07/10/infrastructure-follow-up-nanjings-brand-new-station-needs-repairs/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8620759/Guangzhou-Opera-House-falling-apart.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thnZ-VW6wsw&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddbsODis2M

http://wtdevflnt.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/truth-of-chinese-manufacturing-quality-in-pictures/ (A good one that shows pictures of Chinese welding techniques - startling and funny!)

http://topics.scmp.com/news/china-news-watch/article/Judgment-day-fears-for-high-speed-rail-tracks

http://asiancorrespondent.com/60253/shoddy-bridges-trouble-chinese-netizens/

http://www.weldreality.com/bird%27s%20nest%20welds.htm (This one provides good info on Chinese welding techniques).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1359289/Drivers-escape-alive-motorway-section-collapses-beneath-sending-plunging-23ft-ground.html

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100042402/china-cracks-in-the-three-gorges-dam-so-300000-people-can-wave-goodbye-to-their-homes/

http://english.cri.cn/6909/2011/07/11/1781s647648.htm (The road collapsed TWO DAYS into its trial run.)

http://news.qq.com/a/20110711/000313.htm#p=10 (Photos of collapsed road in link above.)

http://www.chinareallysucks.com/Site/New_Stuff/Entries/2010/8/2_Entry_1.html

http://english.cri.cn/6909/2011/07/05/2021s646303.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-08/23/content_13167866.htm (This one's about China slowing down her high-speed trains - again.)

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/shanghai-subway-crash-2011-9#comment-4e81efb8ecad044b6b00003d#ixzz1ZAyCoczM

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/11/us-china-collapse-idUSPEK16970120070611

http://www.puddingandchopsticks.com/2011/09/29/puddles/comment-page-1/#comment-2075

I can pour more facts on other subjects with links if you wish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH5-DpMObGc&feature=related

http://izismile.com/2009/10/27/two-year_old_chinese_apartment_building_13_pics.html

http://izismile.com/2009/08/17/the_quality_of_chinese_house_building_15_pics.html

http://www.beckyances.net/2010/11/construction-in-china-a-tale-of-two-buildings/

http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=325&catid=13&subcatid=84#3391

Tuesday, 06 December, 2011  
Blogger al fin said...

Thanks for the links.

Neil, there is a problem with your suggestion: CCP officials do not like for the Chinese to travel much. It tends to give people ideas. If you locate your tourist attractions thousands of miles from the nearest city, they will be ghost attractions.

The roads for distance travel outside the main seaboard cities are terrible. No, the Chinese are not great vacationers, and for a reason.

Wednesday, 07 December, 2011  

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