Aharoni, Tamir, Dennis Sharp, 2021

WHICH VILLA SAVOYE ARE YOU TODAY?1 An Inquiry into the Memetic Transformation of Architecture

Tamir Aharoni Tutors: Will Orr and Ricardo Ruivo Pereira

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Playground version from @arch_grap on Instagram: “Villa Savoye, how future architects have fun ...”

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Unknown architect.

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Villa dall’Ava, OMA. Completed in 1991 in the residential area of SaintCloud, overlooking Paris. The strip windows and thin, repeated columns recall Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. The transparent glass box with inset, opaque service volumes appears and the Glass House by Philip Johnson, inspired by Mies van der Rohe.

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Xavier Delory, 2014. The Belgian visual artist has envisioned Villa Savoye, the modernist mecca, as a dirty, neglected site where street artists and other scoundrels have turned it into a messy, post-industrial playground. “The result is a playful yet eerie set of images that remind us that nothing is immune to time and change. These provocative, altered images of the Villa Savoye challenge the processed, pristine portrayals we see in textbooks, using the purest example of Le Corbusier, whose work has famously been altered after habitation.”2 Delory asks in his statement, “What remains of the utopias and the promises of a better future promised by the modern movement at the beginning of the 20th century?” continuing, “but let’s not kick a man when he’s down, every era carries its burden, and let’s not spoil our pleasure of ‘the wise, correct, and superb play of masses gathered under the light.’”3 That latter description of the Villa Savoye is, in fact, a quotation from Corbusier’s Toward A New Architecture.

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Ashton Raggatt McDougall, 2001, Canberra, Australia. This evil twin of Villa Savoye is as awkward and cheaply built — or not so cheaply, the structure cost $13.8 million to make — as one would imagine a copy to be. The double is one of several follies that dot the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). The replica (architectural counterfeiting is not limited to emerging East Asian countries) was “designed” at a 1:1 scale of the original. A staircase grows from one of the structure’s sides, connecting the second floor to the quad, while the upper loggia and roof deck are non-existent, stitched in by panes of dark, opaque glass. The white stucco, specified

by Le Corbusier, is replaced with black aluminium panels that scream bad 80s architecture. When coupled with rooftop’s solidified forms, lend the structure a heaviness entirely missing from the original scheme.4

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I think I am 1 but I am probably 8.

Xavier Delory imagines Corbusier’s Villa Savoye in a state of decay designboom, September 2014. No need to imagine, Xavier Delory, just look at René Burri’s photographs from 1959.

Ibid.

What’s the deal with this evil Villa Savoye? Samuel Medina, Architizer, July 2009.

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Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier, 1929-1931, Poissy, France. The photographer René Burri documented the building in its abandoned state in 1959 in a series of memorable photographs. They were later shown at the MOMA in a 1966 exhibition called: Villa Savoye: Destruction through Neglect. After it was damaged in the second world war, the Savoye family abandoned the house. Used at one stage as a hayloft, the local town of Poissy unsuccessfully attempted to confiscate the building to demolish it to make room for the expansion of a nearby school. In his 1976 article “Architecture and Transgression,” Bernard Tschumi records visiting the Villa in its state of vandalism and disrepair. “Those who in 1965 visited the then derelict Villa Savoye certainly remember the squalid walls of the small service rooms on the ground floor, stinking of urine, smeared with excrement, and covered with obscene graffiti.” This, he argues, was not an unnatural state for the building to be in, but on the contrary, one in which it “was never more moving”. Following a campaign led by Le Corbusier and leveraging significant international support, the Villa became the first modernist building to be added to the French register of historical monuments in 1965, providing the motivation needed to start its preservation. It was not until 1985 that work started on a complete r efurbishment, with the restoration of many of its original features, completed in 1997. Since it was preserved, the Villa remained in the state of “nevermore moving,” as Tschumi argued.

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Artist not found, but this is what google images suggests it to be:

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“Flooding Modernity,” Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen, 2018. The artist has sunk a scale model Villa Savoye in a Danish fjord as a statement about the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election. Flooding Modernity was on display at the Floating Art Festival on the Vejle Fjord, organised by the Vejle Museum in Denmark. The sculpture is a 1:1 replica of the Villa’s corner partially submerged – as if the building were sinking beneath the water. According to the artist, it symbolises how technology swamps modern values. “Through this meddling, a certain sense of democracy has ‘sunk’.” Havsteen- Mikkelsen said.5

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“Villa Savoye Makeover”, Mirče Mladenov, 2014. The image was produced as part of “Out of Place”, the Maxwell Render for a SketchUp competition. For the artist, the level of absurdity and satire achieved highlights all of the things that Villa Savoye stands against. A yellow, ridiculous, new version of the iconic Villa populates the rendering with all the tropes that can be, but usually aren’t, added in the 3D environment.

This provocation attempts to turn the idea of minimalism and “good” renderings on their head. Air conditioning units, lawn gnomes, and a satellite dish tell the true story of domestic personalisation and the messiness of everyday life, re-contextualising the sacred, protected purity of the original.

Objectively speaking, Villa Savoye is a great building. It exists both as an icon and a model, a myth and a system. These nine versions show appropriation as well as displacement of Villa Savoye. It becomes a poor image6 through its distribution – by compressing, reproducing, ripping and remixing. The poor image, a term coined by Hito Steyerl, is a low-quality copy in motion. As it accelerates, it deteriorates. What is version number one, if not the illegal fifth-generation bastard of the original Villa?

Despite their substandard resolution, the different interpretations embody, in a way, the afterlife of the conserved and protected masterpiece. They could also be seen as the architectural version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. While the original stays the same age, its new images, as its proxy, travel and become uglier and uglier.7

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Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye sunk in Danish fjord, India Block, August, 2018.

In Defence of the Poor Image, Hito Steyel, 2009.

“The ugly and stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live - undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They never bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Henry; my brains, such as they are - my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks – we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.” p. 10.

Hallstatt is a housing development in Luoyang, Boluo County, one hour outside Huizhou in the Guangdong Province. The housing project was built by the China Minmetals Ltd., a wholly-owned Hong Kong-listed subsidiary of China’s largest steel and mining company, China Minmetals Corporation. (CMC). The name officially used by the operator is “Hallstatt See - Huizhou”. Its urban core is modelled after the small town of Hallstatt in Austria, listed as World Heritage. The centre of the Chinese village, with its pastel-coloured chalets and a splendid lakeside location, looks like a picture-postcard alpine town, a place that echoes with the sound of cowbells and yodelling. It contains a replica of the parish church, the fountain and various other objects from the original town centre.

The UNESCO protection of the Austrian town and Villa Savoye attempts to preserve the object. However, it led to changing it through tourism, once declared an architectural gem, and copying the object. CMC announced their $940 million plan to re-create the secluded hamlet in June 2011, and just one year later, thanks to the speed of construction, the place was already open to visitors. In an interview with GQ, the developer said that a team of designers and photographers was sent to document the Austrian town. Even the flowers are fake, he said. He also noted that the Austrians “may not have known” about his plans and that “I don’t think it’s relevant”.8 Hallstatt’s mayor, Alexander Scheutz, first heard about building a replica of his town in 2011. At that point, the construction was already in an advanced state.9 When it was reported in 2012 that the Austrian town had been secretly cloned, right down to its angel statues, some residents viewed the Chinese plans with scepticism.10 However, mayor Scheutz, who personally visited the opening ceremony in 2012, seemed quite excited. “We are very proud,” he said, as he signed up to an agreement for cultural exchange with his town’s new twin.11 It is now clear why: the clone has been a lucrative means of cultural promotion, with the number of Chinese visitors to the Austrian Hallstatt jumping from 50 to 8,000 per year. Although the Chinese town was destined to be a European-branded real estate project, it failed to sell the houses. Eventually, it became what it might have been meant to be – a set design. This project’s profit now comes from tourists, mainly with wedding photos’ production. Therefore, the village was duplicated, but its function changed utterly.

Unlike many former Chinese reproduction types, Hallstatt no longer is an occidentallooking singular building out of its context. The formal and aesthetic context of the

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScSs2-l7pTg Exklusiv-Talk - Mit Bürgermeister Alexander Scheutz (Hallstatt). Brandwork Studios. Archived from the original on 2014-07-25 10

Although the Chinese are enjoying the spectacle (one Huizhou resident told Reuters that the

village feels like Europe), not everyone agrees that cloning villages is appropriate. “I don’t think

that it is a good idea,” Hallstatt resident Karin Höll told Reuters. “Hallstatt is just unique with its

culture and traditions. You cannot copy that. I saw a report and the photos, and the copy seems

different. In my opinion it is unacceptable.” (https://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL3E8H42VJ20120604) 11

Hallstatt-Double: China weiht nachgebautes Alpendorf ein. Spiegel Online. 2012-06-02.

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Austria

China

Advertisement for Hallstatt See Huizhuo: “From sunrise to sunset, 1786 chapel blesses every day of your sweet dreams”.

Translator: Ellen HU.

building was pasted as well. Western-style structures are found not only in isolation, scattered throughout an existing urban fabric but also in dense and extensive themed communities that replicate identifiable Western prototypes. Indeed, entire townships and villages have been copied from England, France, Greece, and the United States, then pasted or spot-welded to Chinese cities’ margins. It attempts to recreate the superficial appearance of historical western towns and the “feel” – with foreign names, signage, western food, and monuments to Western culture heroes. It is seen as kitsch, fake, temporary and unimaginative.

While “Hallstatt See – Huizhou” was described as “a whole new level” due to the reproduction scale, the following example comes to defy once again the ability to replicate, as the original is younger than its copy. Wangjing Soho is a project

by Zaha Hadid in Beijing, completed in 2014, replicated by pirate architects in Chongqing, the megacity in the south of China. Due to the speed of construction, the replica was completed in 2013.12 Originally Zaha’s Soho was designed as a twotower complex, but it became a three-tower project with lower maximum heights due to height concerns. The complex of pebble-shaped towers13 – an office and retail development – is a copy of the office’s Galaxy Soho in Beijing, completed just two years before. Which, of course, formally continues the brand of the office. The Guardian described her as the “Queen of the curve,”14 who, through her signature adoption of non-Euclidean geometries, “liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity.”15 Although the outrage is focused on the exterior, when looking at both projects’ plans, the spatial organisation looks strikingly similar, which leads to the assumption that the interior, also used for offices, was studied and copied. Nevertheless, none of the dozens of articles written on this juicy case show plans or interior views. The focus and almost obsession with the building’s image are seen in those written about the replica and Zaha’s argument.

When asked about the being copied, Zaha responded: What’s worse, is that she is now being f

orced to race these pirates to complete her original project first. Which was a competition she lost.

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Many different symbolic interpretations have been written about the shape of the complex (The

Death of the Author). According to The Telegraph the curvilinear walls of the towers evoke

“dancing Chinese fans”, while Der Spiegel describes the three-tower complex as “resembling

curved sails that appear to swim across the surface of the Earth when viewed from the air”.

Architecture News Daily (Arch Daily) describes it as “three curved towers whose “shimmering”,

metallic skin unifies the complex as each volume appears to “dance” around each other.” Pan

Shiyi, Chairman of the Board of SOHO China, said in an interview that the design of Wangjing

SOHO was meant to evoke the image of Koi, a traditional Chinese symbol of wealth, luck, health

and happiness.

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‘Queen of the curve’ Zaha Hadid dies aged 65 from heart attack, Caroline Davies, Robert Booth

and Mark Brown, The Guardian, March 2016.

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Zaha Hadid, Groundbreaking Architect, Dies at 65, Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times,

March, 2016.

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Wangjing Soho

Wangjing Soho, Zaha Hadid

Chongqing Soho

Chongqing Soho. “An office building is not only a place for working, but a platform for enterprise to have a conversation with the whole world. It’s about the status of the company. The Shape of the building is extracted from nature, culture and trend of the current era. The building, with two main cores and magnificent lobbies are delicately inserted, which perfectly matches the image of the enterprises, their unique class and identity.” The description shows a high level of irony. Translator: Ellen HU.

China, the gift that keeps on giving fakes, duplicates many of the world’s architectural gems, such as the UNESCO protected village, the UNESCO protected Le Corbusier’s Notre-Dame du Haut (Ronchamp Chapel) and many others.16 Not a bad group to be part of. However, Hadid did not find that flattering. She intended to take legal action against the Chongqing architects. Pan Shiyi, the billionaire chairman of the Soho empire, had vowed to “bring the infringers to court”. Practice director Nigel Calvert said: “We will be demanding that the copycats immediately cease construction, change the exterior of the building, offer a public apology and provide compensation.” Hadid added: “It is fine to take from the same well – but not from the same bucket.” Critics that have written about this, almost unanimously, criticise the replica. Compared to the Chinese versions of the Eiffel Tower, English village, and fake designer brands, as evidence of China’s knock-off culture, its disregard for uniqueness and its staggering lack of innovation.

However, Chongqing Meiquan, the developer behind the building, claimed innocence, insisting at a press conference that the project was inspired not by Hadid’s curves but “by the cobblestones on the bank of the Yangtze river by which Chongqing was built.” In response to the furore, an advertising campaign was launched, headed with this slogan: “Never meant to copy, only want to surpass.”

This catchphrase seems like the motto of the general attitude for copying and could be the manifesto for modern production.

Despite the vow to bring the pirates to court, Zaha Hadid eventually dropped the case. They evaluated the chances of winning too slim because the Chongqing project had only two towers and not three. Therefore no court would see it as a violation of copyrights.17 While Zaha gave up on the legal battle, Foundation Le Corbusier was more successful in claiming their copyrights against the Chinese replica. A counterfeit version of Corbusier’s Ronchamp chapel, located in eastern France, sprung up in Zhengzhou in the 1990s. After the foundation intervened, it was demolished, and the ruin now serves as the surreal backdrop for a barbecue restaurant.

When covering stories about the Chinese copies of western architecture (is Zaha’s Wangjing Soho western architecture?), many authors argue that it is in the Chinese tradition of thematic appropriation, which dates back to the First Emperor’s unification in the late third century BCE. As Qin Shihuangdi successively conquered the six last remaining kingdoms, which stood firm against unification, he would commission replicas of each of their local palaces (probably in two-thirds scale)

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Rem Koolhaas told Der Spiegel that the rapid growth of Chinese cities has led to the appearance of architects who “copy and paste” architectural elements from other designs and create new composite designs. Koolhaas calls these architects “Photoshop designers” and says: “Photoshop allows us to make collages of photographs -- (and) this is the essence of (China’s) architectural and urban production…. Design today becomes as easy as Photoshop, even on the scale of a city.” (Kevin Holden Platt. “Zaha Hadid vs. the Pirates: Copycat Architects in China Take Aim at the Stars”. Der Spiegel.)

Paul Crosby, that worked in Zaha Hadid at the time, told me.

on the capital’s north slope. There were replica palaces, passages, and walled pavilions from Yongmen to the Jing and along the Wei River banks outside his capital city of Xianyang. Before unification, when variations in regional culture were still considerable, in everything from writing script to architectural style, the diverse architecture arrayed along the Wei may well have rivalled the contrast between old and new seen in today’s urban centres.

The underlying nature of this appropriation was manifested as well in the early royal parks: exclusive preserves that later gave rise to China’s private gardens were paradisiacal microcosms stocked with all the beasts, horticultural varieties, and artificial replicas of geography from throughout the known world. All gathered in one place as both symbol of the ruler’s sovereignty and a reality that he could draw upon to enhance his earthly powers. As a classic example of this, when still in the early planning stages of his invasion of the Dian Kingdom in the deep south, the Han emperor Wudi (reigned 141-87 BCE) made a small-scale replica of Dian’s Kunming Lake, upon which his naval assault would be launched. Down through the ages, such appropriations continued. Reduction of the scale of alien landscapes and architecture facilitated control; possession of the replica made it real.

China appears to be inverting the paradigm of the “Middle Kingdom.” While it once considered itself to be the centre of the world, China is now making itself into the centre that contains the world. By replicating, the rest of the world becomes increasingly irrelevant and redundant. Archaeologist Jack Carlson, writing in Foreign Policy magazine, argues that the wholesale copying of architectural culture may have its roots in something much bigger than shameless commercial borrowing: “The ancient parallels for these copycat projects suggest that they are not mere follies, but monumental assertions of China’s global primacy.” While Carlson’s argument sits well within the fear of China’s increasing power, the history of architecture in both east and west is full of copying.18,19 Framing the problem as the confrontation with another cultural frame of mind, which does not hold the same values dear: one that respects copyrights and another that respects the right to copy,20 ignores how Western architecture has evolved throughout history.

One example of Orientalism in architecture and design is Chinoiserie, the catch-all term for the fashion of Chinese themes in decoration in Western Europe, beginning in the late 17th century and peaking in waves, especially Rococo Chinoiserie, c. 1740–1770. From the Renaissance to the 18th century, Western designers attempted to imitate Chinese ceramics’ technical sophistication with only partial success. Early hints of Chinoiserie appeared in the 17th century in nations with active East India companies.21 Tin-glazed pottery made in Delft and other Dutch towns adopted Ming-era blue and white porcelain from the early 17th century.

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Ernst Gombrich, in his book The Story of Art, claims that art has always advanced through copied itself with small changes.

The White House, based on the British Georgian style, has been replicated many times, there is even an incomplete Wikipedia list of them: in the US, in China and even in Austria.

Apologies for the word game.

Early ceramic wares made in Meissen and other centres of ‘true porcelain’ imitated Chinese shapes for dishes, vases and teawares.22 While classical styles reigned in the parade rooms, upscale houses, from Badminton House23 and Nostell Priory to Casa Loma in Toronto, sometimes featured an entire guest room decorated in the chinoiserie style, complete with Chinese-styled bed, phoenix-themed wallpaper, and china. Landscapes, such as London’s Kew Gardens, also show distinct Chinese influence in architecture, with a monumental 50-metres pagoda in the garden’s centre, designed and built by William Chambers. A replica of it was constructed later in Munich’s Englischer Garten, while the Chinese Garden of Oranienbaum includes another pagoda and a Chinese teahouse.

While Carlson’s argument maintains the legal and moral high ground of protecting “original” works, it would be hypocritical of western civilisation to have always upheld this ideal. Indeed, developing throughout the eighteenth century, it came into being primarily to protect commercial interests. It had nothing to do with any sudden moral epiphany about the original sanctity. Architecture was not even covered under copyright law in the United States until 1990.24 Moreover, the line between copy and original, even in the eyes of the law, is nebulous due to architecture’s slippery definition as a work of applied art – with functional and artistic qualities, in which only the latter is protected. This overlooks the fact that the two can rarely be separated: a facade could be an integral part of a building’s structure, as well as its image. As Michael Graves has noted, copyright protection is not for a building’s pragmatic/ technical characteristics but only for the “poetic language” of architecture. However, who is to say where pragmatism ends, and poetry begins?

Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram façade details show this tension between the poetic and structural. The beams are significant because they dispel a long-held belief that Mies was a “form follows function” kind of architect. While it is true that it was a precept of the international style, Mies also believed structural elements should be externally visible. The trouble was, New York City building codes would not allow Mies’ steel frame to be exposed, requiring it to be covered in a more fire-resistant material like concrete. To comply, Mies used a concrete frame and ran decorative bronze I-beams up the structure’s face—an ingenious plan that is commonplace today.25

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England (the East India Company), Denmark (the Danish East India Company), the Netherlands (the Dutch East India Company) and France (the French East India Company).

Pleasure pavilions in “Chinese taste” appeared in the formal parterres of late Baroque and Rococo German palaces, and in tile panels at Aranjuez near Madrid. Thomas Chippendale’s mahogany tea tables and china cabinets, especially, were embellished with fretwork glazing and railings, c. 1753–70. Sober homages to early Xing scholars’ furnishings were also naturalized, as the tang evolved into a mid-Georgian side table and squared slat-back armchairs that suited English gentlemen as well as Chinese scholars. Not every adaptation of Chinese design principles falls within mainstream “chinoiserie”. Chinoiserie media included imitations of lacquer and painted tin (tôle) ware that imitated japanning, early painted wallpapers in sheets, and ceramic figurines and table ornaments.

Where the “Chinese Bedroom” was furnished by William and John Linnell, ca 1754.

The same period as Starchitecture.

Pagoda in the English Garden in Munich

It seems that Mies van der Rohe’s reputation grew precisely because of his ability to be copied. This was a big part of his power and success – not only could he replicate himself, but other architects could also easily replicate him. And what is Philip Johnson’s career, if not all a series of imitations of different architects?

Johnson himself said that the Glass House tried to be a Mies object, but he does not get Mies’ fundamental gestures.26 Some of the early buildings by the architectural giant Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM) are indistinguishable from Mies van der Rohe, so Frank Lloyd Wright is so much so nicknamed the trio The Three Blind Mies, paraphrasing in itself Three Blind Mice. Mies’ IBM Plaza heralded a flood of copycat buildings in Chicago. The John Hancock Center and then the Sears Tower (officially called the Willis Tower, it was once the world’s tallest building), both designed by SOM. It seems that Mies had created a blueprint for the kind of buildings seen in Chicago (and a model for many sleek skyscrapers in the world).

A more empathy-evoking couple of examples of Mies’ imitations are the Hermann Hall and the Galvin Library. Designed on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus, Mies planned that both look very much as if the famous architect designed them.

However, they were built in 1962, three years after Mies left IIT, by Walter Netsch, who worked for SOM. Both buildings are crowned with steel girders, which appear to be a tribute to Crown Hall, but unlike Mies’ masterpiece, Hermann Hall and Galvin Library’s provide no structural support. Wright criticised SOM for adopting Mies’ aesthetic but failing to execute it as well as the original—a common critique of Mies’ imitators. However, if the gestures of Mies are mixing ornamental and structural elements, then perhaps these misreadings of Mies are accurate interpretations.

Mies’ ability to reproduce shows that architecture and urban design are already based on the logic of repeatability. Vernacular buildings are repeated; hence they are vernacular. New technologies, such as 3d scanning and 3d printing, make it increasingly easier to replicate. In an article for ArtInfo, author and architectural historian Mario Carpo explained the ire and outcry for Hadid’s Galaxy Soho as being:” ‘the rift between the new media and technologies we use and the old cultural frame of mind we have inherited and not yet updated’ that inspired this disquieting case of architectural mimesis.”

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“Seagram: Union of Building and Landscape” Phyllis Lambert, 2013, Places Journal.

Bayrle, Thomas. Layout: Phillip Johnson in conversation with Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Walther Kolling, Köln, 2003. <<Koolhaas: “in my view, there was a prefiguration of Postmodernism in the fifties, in your work” Johnson: “because I was interested in architectural history... the Glass House is Classical not Miesian. Mies hated it ... you can’t have a house with an entrance like that and call it a Miesian house. Then I made the Classical error of putting the columns in the corners – that’s a very classical way to do it ... I was much more Classical-minded than I was admitted to myself.>>

However, what then to do about that nagging issue of authenticity? In The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles, cultural historian Hillel Schwartz tackles the problems posed by the “Real McCoy” and its nasty reincarnations as likenesses, doubles, replicas, twins, as copies as one sort or another. Mr Schwartz suggests that any notion of the original is validated, extended, and reified by many copies. Which goes back to the argument that copying is the highest form of flattery. Then what is the great fear of copies? It goes to the point of doubling whereby the self is othered, and that other is then beyond our control, the Frankenstein. Ms Hadid is powerless to do anything about her Frankenstein being speedily erected in Chongqing. Someday, people may assume she did it.

Despite the level of details in which Chinese copies are reproduced, from using the same Chantilly stone for a French chateau or replicating the Winston Churchill statues in a British town, it is important to note that there are adaptations and improvements made upon these clones. In Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China, Bianca Bosker notes that European cities’ typical, winding streets and tiny apartments, which do not align with Chinese desires for order and space, are generally not incorporated into the Chinese versions. The Chinese Hallstatt, for example, completely lost its original function. While from the bird’s eye viewpoint, they appear strikingly similar, upon closer inspection, they are quite different. Such is the nature of copies. The Chongqing Meiquan developers may even be right when they say they were not intentionally copying. It just happened, but, by the way, ours is better!

Successful and desirable models, like Mies’, are repeated. Things that work - travel.

Often, things that do not work so well travel, too. Would it then be desirable to have so many of these blobby contexts-unto-themselves scattered about? In renderings, they can be made to fit any context, but the reality on the ground can be much different. The Wangjing Soho scandal raises the issue of the place-specificity of such projects. It also questions the issue of singular or unique visions and the starchitect’s role in our current era of the copy. Starchitecture, generally connected to novelty and brand, is used to obtain financing and increase their buildings’ value.

Iconic, highly visible within the site or context, Starchitecture is usually associated with the Bilbao Effect, where cities attempt to reinvent themselves. Identity has become the central currency of today, and, as Hito Steyerl has noted, “Identity is currently an opioid for the masses”.

By trying to differentiate themselves from each other through branded design, the new landmark is meant to drive traffic and tourist income. The “wow effect” architecture came with privatisation and individualism, which creates an arms race of the spectacular. The skyline then becomes the high street, a succession of familiar-looking brands connected to the neoliberal radicalisation of the concept of

architecture as a commodity.27 The obsession with individual genius far exceeds commitment to the collective effort needed to construct the city. What, then, are the implications of having Wangjing Soho in Beijing and its sort of twin “Wangjing Soho” in Chongqing? For one, it implies that this sort of iconic architecture is indeed repeatable rather than being so iconic in terms of lending a unique identity to a place. What would it mean to have a “Wangjing Soho” in every city? Would all of them then be unique? What would happen if “Wangjing Soho” turned out to be more successful and better constructed than Wangjing Soho?

One solution for the Starchitecture problem has been introduced ironically by OMA in the “Dubai Renaissance” project. Instead of designing another expressive tower in Dubai, a new architectural gem, OMA proposed a generic-looking tower. A single monolithic volume constructed, in one continuous operation – 200 meters wide and 300 meters tall comprising offices and business forums, hotel and residential suites, retail, art and urban spaces. The project attempts to end the age of the icon. Instead of the architecture of form and image, OMA has attempted to create a reintegration of architecture and engineering, where intelligence is not invested in effect but in a structural and conceptual logic that offers a new kind of performance and functionality.

The ironic collage made for the project shows in the background a pile of Dubai’s towers that represent the 21st-century trend in city building, leading to a mad and meaningless overdose of themes, extremes egos and extravagance.28 However, although the project intends to be the new beginning (a Renaissance) of Architecture that reinvents itself in time of crisis,29 it ends up being another monument. The generic tower uses its characterless as a character; instead of being a radical experiment in alternating identities, it gains its identity by attempting to stand out among the surrounding towers, which repeats any new icon’s effort.

Dubai Renaissance is no different from Wangjing Soho. While Chongqing Soho could be seen as a good example of Parametricism – by tweaking the values: switching from three blocks to two by slightly changing the proportions – it does not count as Parametricism. In what terms could one agree with Schumacher and yet not contravene his intellectual property? Perhaps the only thing missing that would make it Parametricism is the brand Parametricism©. Suppose the original Parametricism was generic because it is not about the iconic form but designing a form-making system to introduce the necessary parameters to solve a spatial problem. In that case, it could be seen as a functionalist argument. Historically it became a branded symbol of Starchitecture, and although OMA tried to break away from it, it ended up being the same gesture. OMA’s proposal, wide and flat, like an image of Le Corbusier’s UN tower in New York, is the same commercial tower in Dubai, with a veneer of modernism.

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Davide Ponzini and Michele Nastasi, STARCHITECTURE: Scenes, Actors and Spectacles in Contemporary Cities. Turin, Allemandi, 2011. https://oma.eu/projects/dubai-renaissance OMA are ahead of their time to the extent that although it was proposed in 2006, the project could be seen as the architectural knight’s move after the 2008 economic crisis.

Dubai Renaissance, OMA, 2006.

What happens when aesthetic hierarchies are toppled but economic ones remain intact? Does distinction withdraw into sheer buying power? How come an OMA building once again managed to overcome the law of gravity, trickling up to the one per cent? While people who live in these high-density housing estates, from where the façade is borrowed, keep trickling down? Perhaps because Starchitecture is the Midas of contemporary architecture. With their unique touch, they can transfer anything to gold.30 However, his touch also prevented him from eating or drinking and turned his daughter into gold. Although this is unfortunately not entirely accurate – in both Villa dall’Ava (Villa Savoye version number three) and Le Corbusier’s UN building, OMA creates an icon from what is already one – the golden touch is still there. Instead of rebranding new architectural gems, there is something to be learned from the ‘right to copy’ attitude towards intellectual property rights and the strategy of copying and surpassing.

It is not only that western criticism towards Chinese copies are invalid since western architecture is based on reproduction and full of examples of Orientalism, but also, copying could be adopted to wear off the aura of an object, used against buildings like Zaha’s. It is a tool to criticise and, by removing meaning, used against branding.

Reproduction, being horizontal and anti-hierarchic, can be a way to democratise and even allow for a participatory culture of the icon.

The relation between the nine versions of Villa Savoye and the Dank Lloyd Wright meme that shows them represents the general similarities between the ‘right to copy’ culture in architecture and Internet memes, especially memes of artwork (such as “Classical Art Memes”). Memes of artwork establish diverse meanings and construct a complex interaction between creators, imitators, and artefacts.

The affordances of contemporary technologies shape and expand mundane manifestations of creative acts, constituting a public vernacular culture. Within this new environment, remediation of artwork into digital memes can be perceived as a visual genre that expresses the changing logic of creation and authorship and challenges the subtle interaction between creators and their artefacts.31 Although memes are directly connected to the digital sphere, Marcel Duchamp’s LHOOQ could be considered a very early meme. First conceived in 1919, the work is what Duchamp referred to as readymades. The readymade involves taking mundane objects not generally considered art and transforming them by adding to them, changing them, or (as in the case of the Fountain) simply renaming and placing them in a new setting. In LHOOQ, the found object is a cheap postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa, onto which Duchamp drew a moustache and beard in pencil and appended the title, which sounds in French like “her ass is on fire.” This gesture is understood as a parody of the icon, or in other words, as a Classical Art Meme.

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Claudian states in his In Rufinum: “So Midas, king of Lydia, swelled at first with pride when he found he could transform everything he touched to gold; but when he beheld his food grow rigid and his drink harden into golden ice then he understood that this gift was a bane and in his loathing for gold, cursed his prayer.” In another version, Midas’ daughter came to him, upset about the roses that had lost their fragrance and become hard, and when he reached out to comfort her, found that when he touched his daughter, she turned to gold as well.

Jenkins, 2009

L. H. O. O. Q. Marcel Duchamp, 1919.

The biologist Richard Dawkins (1976) originally suggested the term “meme” to describe the replication and alteration of cultural units. Allocated to digital contexts, memes are defined as groups of items that share common attributes, have a mutual awareness, and are propagated by multiple users.32 While virality entails rapid replication over social networks, memetics comprises a more sustained transmission through modification and manipulation.33 However, memetic and viral distributions are not, however, dichotomic; viral texts can attract memetic modification and vice versa—remakes may even popularise the original.34 Whether based on naive reflection or a mocking and critical view,35 memetic alterations can be accomplished by imitating or remixing.36 Both of these praxis predated the Internet and adhered to Burgess’ notion of vernacular creativity, that is, the remediation of traditional activities into contemporary media manifestations.

Memetics thereby reconfigures everyday creativity and acts into a shared public culture.

Thus, memetic distribution exacerbates the tension between significant pieces’ social prestige and the mundane ability to copy, distribute, and even change or disrupt them. Alongside their entertaining, whimsical, and often-sloppy nature, digital memes provide an avenue for political and civic participation.37 They reflect public opinion and may serve as powerful tools for collective shaming, punishment, and even bullying. Their ability to intertwine humour with serious meaning and their indication of cultural taste make digital memes valuable social capital. Memes allow the expression of both a unique identity and communal affiliation, thereby performing as agents of networked individualism.38 Despite their potential to convey diverse meanings, memes are structured around format conventions and generic attributes. They are often characterised by the Internet Ugly aesthetics that normalise flawed and unpolished appearance while mocking mainstream conventions. The very act of artistic creation and the genius it stands for is mimicked here. While relying on the artist’s fingerprint and a painting’s aura, users mimic art in an attempt to demonstrate their value. In contrast to the accepted distinction between remix and imitation, the ‘right to copy’ may indicate a continuum rather than a dichotomy between them. Simultaneously, due to its low resolution, a bad quality fake differs most from the original and is the most critical one. This could be the afterlife of the protected masterpiece.

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Shifman, 2013 Hemsley, 2016; Shifman, 2014 Burgess, 2008; Shifman, 2014 Milner, 2013 The basis of nondigital meme distribution, involves practices of re-creation and embodiment of a text. (Blackmore, 1999). Remix, a newer practice, enables the re-editing of an existing artifact via technological manipulation. (Shifman, 2013).

Milner, 2013 Shifman, 2014

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