Egypt Outraged Over China's Fake Sphinx!
Source: http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Regional/2014/05/25/Chinas-fake-Sphinx-to-be-demolished-state-media
#sphinx #unesco #egypt #china #funny #culture
China is famous for its "duplitecture," but one recent example, a larger-than-life-sized replica of the Sphinx, outraged Egypt so much that it called on UNESCO to issue a cultural cease and desist. The structure will now be demolished.
The fake Sphinx was built in a cultural park in Shijiazhuang, in China's northern Hebei province, and reportedly took only a couple of months to construct. It's about 30 meters high and 80 meters long, and built out of steel-reinforced cement. A park spokesperson says the Sphinx was only built as a movie props and was always intended to be temporary anyway.
Temporary or not, the fake Sphinx certainly drew a crowd, with street food vendors popping up around it to take advantage of the tourist trade. However, Egyp's minister of antiquities, Mohammed Ibrahim, said the replica Sphinx contravened UNESCO's 1972 Convention and is "a violation of Egypt's rights to its cultural heritage and a bad imitation that disfigures the original." Ouch! The park's spokesperson counters that "We did not use it for commercial purposes and did not charge fees from visitors, nor do we intend to make it a tourist attraction," but the park has agreed to dismantle the structure anyway and regrets the misunderstanding.
Anyone knows that China is famous for its duplitecture. But did you know that there's a faux Eiffel Tower in China, as well as an entire copy of the city of Venice, complete with gondola-lined canals? In the past few years, builders in China have replicated world-famous buildings and landmarks at a remarkable pace - from the world's first cloned Austrian mountain village to reproductions of the White House, entire English villages and even new architect designs that haven't been built yet, like Zaha Hadid's Wangjing Soho complex.
Recently Officials in a Beijing suburb have sidestepped President Xi Jinping's crackdown on government waste by building themselves a lavish office complex reminiscent of the Kremlin. Mentougou, a largely rural district in western Beijing with some 270 thousand residents, is now home to a group of government buildings with onion-shaped golden crowns, arched windows and white walls similar to the Cathedral of Annunciation, the five-century-old Russian Orthodox Church located inside the Kremlin in Moscow.
In 2007 Chinese architects copied the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the famous fountain in the gardens of the Palace of Versaille to make their own version of the French capital. Famous buildings and Parisienne style gardens are surrounded by rows of European-style villas in a special gated community called Tianducheng just outside Shanghai. Tianducheng's Eiffel Tower is 108 meters high.
China has pulled off a feat that no other country would even dream of achieving: a cloned village. Every detail of the original Hallstatt village, a UNESCO protected heritage gem in Austria, has been copied in a replica situated one hour outside of Huizhou in Guangdong Province. China Minmetals Corporation announced their US$ 940 million plan to re-create the secluded hamlet in June, 2011, and just one year later in 2012, the place opened to visitors.
Architect Zaha Hadid's Wangjing Soho complex in China has been praised by designers around the world. The design is so beloved that another developer in Chongqing is ripping it off! Designs of the three-building complex were released in 2011 and construction is already underway, but that hasn't stopped the rival developers from moving forward on a two-building version. Called the Meiquan 22nd Century, the design was clearly lifted from Hadid's plans, and now the two sites are racing to complete construction first.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Zaha Hadid may not agree with this pirated project. Her original design is a complex of three pebble-shaped curvilinear volumes, in true Hadid signature style. The Meiquan complex, although only having two buildings, is unmistakably similar to the Hadid project, and comes close to a direct copy.
Temporary or not, the fake Sphinx certainly drew a crowd, with street food vendors popping up around it to take advantage of the tourist trade. However, Egyp's minister of antiquities, Mohammed Ibrahim, said the replica Sphinx contravened UNESCO's 1972 Convention and is "a violation of Egypt's rights to its cultural heritage and a bad imitation that disfigures the original." Ouch! The park's spokesperson counters that "We did not use it for commercial purposes and did not charge fees from visitors, nor do we intend to make it a tourist attraction," but the park has agreed to dismantle the structure anyway and regrets the misunderstanding.
Anyone knows that China is famous for its duplitecture. But did you know that there's a faux Eiffel Tower in China, as well as an entire copy of the city of Venice, complete with gondola-lined canals? In the past few years, builders in China have replicated world-famous buildings and landmarks at a remarkable pace - from the world's first cloned Austrian mountain village to reproductions of the White House, entire English villages and even new architect designs that haven't been built yet, like Zaha Hadid's Wangjing Soho complex.
Recently Officials in a Beijing suburb have sidestepped President Xi Jinping's crackdown on government waste by building themselves a lavish office complex reminiscent of the Kremlin. Mentougou, a largely rural district in western Beijing with some 270 thousand residents, is now home to a group of government buildings with onion-shaped golden crowns, arched windows and white walls similar to the Cathedral of Annunciation, the five-century-old Russian Orthodox Church located inside the Kremlin in Moscow.
In 2007 Chinese architects copied the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the famous fountain in the gardens of the Palace of Versaille to make their own version of the French capital. Famous buildings and Parisienne style gardens are surrounded by rows of European-style villas in a special gated community called Tianducheng just outside Shanghai. Tianducheng's Eiffel Tower is 108 meters high.
China has pulled off a feat that no other country would even dream of achieving: a cloned village. Every detail of the original Hallstatt village, a UNESCO protected heritage gem in Austria, has been copied in a replica situated one hour outside of Huizhou in Guangdong Province. China Minmetals Corporation announced their US$ 940 million plan to re-create the secluded hamlet in June, 2011, and just one year later in 2012, the place opened to visitors.
Architect Zaha Hadid's Wangjing Soho complex in China has been praised by designers around the world. The design is so beloved that another developer in Chongqing is ripping it off! Designs of the three-building complex were released in 2011 and construction is already underway, but that hasn't stopped the rival developers from moving forward on a two-building version. Called the Meiquan 22nd Century, the design was clearly lifted from Hadid's plans, and now the two sites are racing to complete construction first.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Zaha Hadid may not agree with this pirated project. Her original design is a complex of three pebble-shaped curvilinear volumes, in true Hadid signature style. The Meiquan complex, although only having two buildings, is unmistakably similar to the Hadid project, and comes close to a direct copy.
