Suzhou is like many Chinese cities. It has a historic core, including nine Unesco world heritage sites, as well as many beautiful gardens, waterways and temples. And it is experiencing extraordinary rates of urban growth: the Suzhou Industrial Park is a cathedral to consumerism, while the lights at Harmony Times Square illuminate a surrounding urban sprawl littered with construction projects.

But Suzhou has also embarked on another fascinating project: urban mimicry. From Venetian-style “water town” districts to Dutch-style suburban living, Suzhou hosts what journalist Bianca Bosker calls “original copies”: simulations of western landmarks. The city is fast becoming China’s city of clones.

Most amazing of all, perhaps, are the replica bridges. This particular phenomenon is centred in Xiangcheng district, a newly developing area in the city's north-east which is earmarked as a commercial and financial “trade city”.

With 35% of the district covered in water, planners set out to connect its urban archipelago – but rather than use traditional architectural styles (as a water town, Suzhou had already earned the nickname Venice of the East), it was felt that replication would earn more exposure. The result is a sort of museum of world bridges: 56 famous replicas, including spectacular simulations of London's Tower Bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge and Pont Alexandre III bridge in Paris.

Suzhou's Sydney Harbour Bridge, one of 56 famous replicas in Xiangcheng district, is less than a third of the length of the original. Photograph: Michael Silk Photograph: Michael Silk

Built by the Suzhou Municipal Engineering Design Institute, rather than foreign designers or consultants, the bridges have been modified from their originals to fit the urban landscape. Tower Bridge boasts four towers rather than two, offers glazed vertical floating walkways to maximise the scenic view, and houses two coffee shops.



The Sydney Harbour Bridge copy is smaller than the original, made from granite (thereby significantly cheaper and quicker to construct than the eight years it took 1,400 Sydney labourers in the 1920s and 30s), and has been designed as a "rainbow across the river bend", with a 100m replica steel truss arch and 327m in length (the original is 1,149m long).

The Pont Alexandre III bridge, unlike its Parisian counterpart, is constructed from concrete. With little regard for context, as depthless, superficial, pseudo-authentic simulations, these new-old recreations have been parachuted in, as George Ritzer would argue, to “re-enchant” space and encourage commerce and consumption.

Re-enchantez to meet you ... Suzhou's Pont Alexandre III Bridge is made out of concrete, unlike the original bridge in Paris. Photograph: Michael Silk Photograph: Michael Silk

Suzhou is not the first Chinese city to embark upon urban mimicry. A simulation of Dorchester (Dorset, UK) houses 200,000 citizens in Chengdu; there is also Thames Town in Shanghai, a replica of Austria’s Hallstat resort in Huizhou and the replica of the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysee square in Hangzhou. Part accelerated urban development, part race for global recognition, these mimicries capitalise on the symbolic successes of their originals, in an attempt to signal China's self-assured sovereignty and urban speculation.

It is also a result of housing becoming a free-market commodity. After Mao's death, the introduction of a new economic policy, starting in 1979, opened the nation to foreign investment and restored private control over land use. Real estate investors supported by Hong Kong, Taiwanese and overseas Chinese financiers were quick to exploit the new opportunities in the booming housing market. With a rapid increase in the number of cities, a growing middle class and a desire to invest capital in property, there has been a boom in residential construction, investment and sales, coupled with a desire to demonstrate personal prestige.

The trend of urban mimicry, or what Bosker calls “duplitecture”, emerged in the early 1990s, and has seen a vast number of replicated residential buildings and landmarks in cities across China. The opportunity to live in housing that represents the historic grandeur of the west is an appealing prospect to those Chinese citizens who can afford to become part of an urban elite. These buildings offer luxury and exclusivity, the chance to posture and parade among plastic facsimiles of “progress” – displays of conspicuous consumption that are enactments of status among China’s emergent nouveau riche (sometimes known by the somewhat derogatory term tuhao).



Original Suzhounese architecture ... the Shantang Canal connects the old town to Tiger Hill. Photograph: Michael Silk Photograph: Michael Silk

Reaction among Suzhou residents is mixed, with some expressing concern that the developments are not moored within the culture and history of Suzhou. “All the bridges in Suzhou have their history and cultural background, there is a reason for their existence,” said one resident. “However, these new bridges are purely copies. There’s no history linked to Suzhou and they are not meaningful towards the city.”

Others question whether the mimicries promote Suzhou or western countries. Younger people seem more appreciative, marvelling in the “experience” and “convenience of seeing foreign landmarks without needing to travel overseas”, suggesting that the mimicries were markers of a hybrid eastern/western progress, “suitable for a modern Suzhou that always wants to do something new".

Suzhou's currently deserted Dutch Village, complete with a Moon Gate acting as an 'inviting entrance'. Photograph: Michael Silk Photograph: Michael Silk

The scrubbed, sanitised and sparkling sidewalks of these new temples to speculation are, at present, spookily silent: the only sounds come from the migrant labourers putting their finishing touches to the buildings and the frenzied clicks of the wedding paparazzi, part of Suzhou’s famed bridal industry. The brides, wearing western white as opposed to the traditional Chinese red, pose in front of China’s new temples like manicured effigies to neoliberalism. These married couples are clamouring for positive proof of their success and the emulation of a middle-class consumption ethic, as well as, perhaps contradictorially, celebrating local boosterism, growth and achievement.

The cloned buildings hint at another dark side to capital development in China. These mimicked monuments are constructed and maintained by a migrant labour force, one that is simultaneously indispensible and disposable. Suzhou boasts it is the most “popular” city for migrant workers in China. Housed in temporary dormitories, they live in the shadows of this duplitecture, a haunting reminder that the historic structure and temples Suzhou is actively preserving were often built using enslaved labour: after the completion of the iconic Tiger Hill pagoda during the Northern Song Dynasty (959-961AD), its 1,000 workers were put to death.

Migrant labourers in the shadow of Suzhou’s Tower Bridge. More authentic historic structures were often built using enslaved labour. Photograph: Michael Silk Photograph: Michael Silk

Suzhou's development lies is in the hands of urban planners who are attempting to reconcile contradictory impulses: the active preservation and exploitation of monuments to the past; an intensified race to enter global circuits of capital; and spectacular projects of urban speculation and duplication. But the fascination with simulation could have stark consequences. “So far,” said one resident, “other than providing the younger generation with somewhere to take their wedding photos, it is hard for citizens to see any contribution towards promoting the city itself in relation to tourism, culture and its traditional appearance.”

The risk of duplication is that it may result in standardisation – and ultimately harm the distinctiveness and urban differentiation of not just Suzhou but indeed Chinese cities as a whole.

Michael Silk and Andrew Manley work in the physical cultural studies research group at the University of Bath

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