Duplitecture

The best knock-offs in the world are in China. There are plenty of fake designer handbags and Rolexes but China’s knock-offs go way beyond fashion. There are knock-off Apple stores that look so much like the real thing, some employees believe they are working in real Apple stores.  And then there are entire knock-off cities. There are Venices with complete canals and replicas of the Doge’s Palace. A Paris with an Eiffel Tower and an Arc de Triomphe. In the suburbs of any Chinese city, there are endless examples of “duplitecture.”

                                                                                           Photo by Fan Yang

In premodern China, imperial rulers used copycat buildings to show off their authority, making replicas of landmarks in cities they had conquered, or importing flora and fauna to recreate foreign landscapes within their own domain.

In keeping with that tradition, one of the most copied buildings in China is the very seat of western power itself: the White House.  Serving as hotels, restaurants, courthouses and homes, White Houses are all over China, morphed and varied in different permutations. Still, they all have those signature columns and square portico.