The British Are Coming… To China
Look at those white stucco Regency terraces. This must be Pimlico. Look again. Well, perhaps we are in Bristol; that's the spire of St Mary Redcliffe over there, isn't it? On the other hand, all those black-and-white Tudor shops seem to spell Chester. Right?
Wrong. This is not England, nor even a chim-chiminee Hollywood film set. Welcome to Thames Town, a beautiful, and extremely serious parody of an olde English town seen through Chinese eyes, and built by uncanny British developers.
Thames Town is one of seven satellite towns nearing completion on the fringe of Shanghai built by the municipal government to re-house 500,000 people. Its six siblings have been designed in equally potty national dresses. Take your pick from architectural styles adopted from Italy, Spain, Canada, Sweden, Holland and Germany.
The German new town, by the way, is the work of Albert Speer. But, no, not that one – his son. Instead of mighty domes and stadiums, Speer junior offers the Chinese volk Hansel and Gretel-style gingerbread homes.
But only Thames Town boasts a chippy, a gothic church, village green and mock-Tudor pub selling real ale. Built from scratch in little over three years, the £200m project encompasses five centuries of British architecture. At its centre are half-timbered Tudor-style buildings. By the waterfront, Victorian redbrick warehouses have been pre-emptively "converted" into shops. The residential area includes gabled Edwardian houses bordered by privet hedges, manicured lawns and leafy roads.
Aimed at China's increasingly wealthy and cosmopolitan middle class, the town – once the community is in full swing – will allow drinkers to quench their thirst in bars inspired by Birmingham's pubs, and parents will be able to send their children to an international school. Shoppers can browse in a covered market that has distinct echoes of Covent Garden.
Foreign visitors, Shanghai planning officials have said, will soon be unable to tell where Europe ends and China begins. Maybe. A while ago when driving through the madcap new towns embanking the Pearl River Delta all the way from Hong Kong to Macau, I thought I saw the Palace of Westminster looming from a drained paddy field. It proved to be a block of flats, complete with a crude miniature of St Stephen's tower. Did a little Big Ben chime the hours? I didn't stop to find out.
Joke oak
Shanghai officials might, of course, have asked WS Atkins, the builders and developers of Thames Town, to choose any number of other famous British buildings other than the ones they did for their latest residential wheeze. They might well have been impressed, for example, by a copy of Westminster Abbey, for western-style weddings, complete with Cardrew Robinson-style vicar (which are much in vogue in Shanghai). They might have liked a copy of Bath's Royal Crescent to house the branches of McDonald's, Sainsbury and Tesco they plan here. And, for those in need of a secure gated estate, what about a Downing Street? Or a replica of the Chinese embassy in Portland Place?
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Chinatown, Africa: Vanguard
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