Thesis - Shanzhai Architecture: Journey to the West through Copying

03:2020

nàiJ

)/˧n:ik/ 3niG(

築

Shanzhai Architecture: Journey to the West through Copying

建 ùhZ

Shān

(Saan1 /sa:n˥/)

寨 Zhài

Kavika Lau

)/˥kʊst/ 1kuZ(

山 (Zaai6 /tsa:i˨/)

Notes (Front Cover)

Notes (Back Cover)

ShanZhai (山寨) basically means Copycat, please proceed to next page for its definitions and origins.

JianZhu (建築) means architecture, building, and construction.

Mandarin pronounciation for Shan (Chinese: 山): http://www.chaxuntu.top/zidian/id-VMPXOzx5YKdN.html Mandarin pronounciation for Zhai (Chinese: 寨): http://www.chaxuntu.top/zidian/id-m7zYDBLKo2GP.html Cantonese pronounciation for Shan (Chinese: 山): https://ykyi.net/hongkong/dict/index.php?char=%E5%B1%B1 Cantonese pronounciation for Zhai (Chinese: 寨): https://ykyi.net/hongkong/dict/index.php?char=%E5%AF%A8 International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols of Cantonese pronounciation for Shan (Chinese: 山) & Zhai (Chinese: 寨): https://open-dict-data.github.io/ipa-lookup/yue/?#

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Mandarin pronounciation for Jian (Chinese: 建): http://www.chaxuntu.top/zidian/id-r1VZN2zyZM8p.html Mandarin pronounciation for Zhu (Chinese: 築): http://www.chaxuntu.top/zidian/id-5NnXzGKDoMxA.html Cantonese pronounciation for Jian (Chinese: 建): https://ykyi.net/hongkong/dict/index.php?char=%E5%BB%BA Cantonese pronounciation for Zhu (Chinese: 築): https://ykyi.net/hongkong/dict/index.php?char=%E5%AF%A8 International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols of Cantonese pronounciation for Jian (Chinese: 建) & Zhu (Chinese: 築): https://open-dict-data.github.io/ipa-lookup/yue/?#

Structure This research project intends to question and expand the Shanzhai (Copycat) phenomena in China. By looking closely into the drivers of the phenomena and understanding various perspective, this paper seeks to examine its identity within China and speculate on its significance for the present and the future environment/system of work.

This paper is organised into three main sections: 1. The first chapter will look into the question of copy & learning, and its importance in the process of being 'creative' 2. The second chapter will dive into the world of Shanzhai, however will be mostly looking at the architecture realm after dissecting the background that gave rise to Shanzhai phenomenon 3. The third chapter will take the one of the controversial cases that possibly caused an architectural infringement of copyright, in order to act as a medium explore the current system of copyright protection and its perspectives in different countries' systems.

The fourth chapter is a conclusion section and speculations of Open-source / New Shanzhai system basing on the knowledges gained from the first three chapters.

Form This thesis will be in the form resembling the Cosmorama in Architectural Design (AD) magazine that once existed during late 60s to early 70s, which told different alternatives and ideas behind some architectural designs.

Basing on an actual issue of AD - China Homegrown: Chinese Experimental Architectural Reborn, this paper will be telling an alternative reality happening in the same country under the same time frame.

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Content Current Definitions of Shanzhai & Open-source Research Methodology Statement Part 1: Creative = Original? - Does Copying means it's not creative & not original?

A Primal behaviour of human Machine Learning - technically copying humans Cumulated Creativity Make them better: How to steal & copy

Part 2: Shanzhai - An analysis of the Shanzhai phenomenon in China

Every country copies

The Chinese Economic Reform & Shanzhai

The one and only? How is different from other countries' copying

Different target of appropriation

Expanded beyond the scale of a single building

Technical, financial & political availability

Symbolic means

Symbolic meanings to the nation

Meanings to individuals

Other Socio-political drivers Part 2: Architectural Copyright infringement - Wangjing SOHO vs Meiquan 22nd Century

An interview with Barranco Garcia

Copyright in general

Copyright in Architecture @UK - DACS

Copying building as a whole

Originality of architectural drawings? Evidence of stealing? Same to the eye?

Original artistic features

Other considerations Part 4: A Prospect - New Shanzhai Contributors Bibliography Other unreferenced sources Last but not Least

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Definitions (Dated 15.2.2020) Shanzhai /ˈʂænˈʈʂai/ n.1 1 Original use a fenced place in the forest2 2 Original use villages in the mountain that have stockade houses3; mountain stronghold⁴ 3 Original use A gang living in the mountain stronghold outside of government control5 4 Slang/adj. originated in Cantonese & now also used in Chinese6 - a derogatory word describing knock-offs7 or imitation products8, i.e. copycat9 Open-source /ˈəʊ.pənˈsɔːs/ adj.10 1 Computing denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified11 2 General Use originated with software, but has expanded beyond sector to cover other open content and forms of open collaboration12

Notes 1. http://www.antimoon.com/misc/phonetictable.htm; See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Mandarin 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai 3. Xiandai Hanyu Dictionary (现代汉语词典/現代漢語詞典) 4. https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2018/08/newshanzhai-%E5%B1%B1%E5%AF%A8-shanzhai/ 5. https://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/how-copycatculture-created-chinas-silicon-valley/ 6. https://www.scmp.com/native/business/topics/invest-china/ article/1802238/chinas-copycat-manufacturers-are-nowpushing

7. https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2018/08/newshanzhai-%E5%B1%B1%E5%AF%A8-shanzhai/ 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai 9. http:// parisinnovationreview.com/articles-en/the-new-shanzhaidemocratizing-innovation-in-china 10. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/opensource 11. Oxford English Dictionary 12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source

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Death of the Author

by Roland Barthes

Research Methodology Statement : 6

In the previous short definitions of Open-source & New Shanzhai, information and content are freely accessible and used by anyone, disregarding of what purpose they are used for.

The process of ‘obtaining’ from that ecosystem is essentially a process of copying. Therefore, at certain extent, Open-source & New Shanzhai are explicitly being a collaborative process that starts with copying. A more precise discussion about copy would be included at the start of this paper which identifies it as a process of necessity in learning, perceiving & creating, and its philosophical means. This paper is then explicitly about copying in which even the form of how references are made, is a demonstration of an exercise of collaborative knowledge.

After perceiving the Death of the Author written by Roland Barthes, an idea of how this thesis is going to be written, is born.1 Although in a broader mean of Barthes’s point of view that, entirely removing author and his/her credit from any text, might seemed too extreme and absurd to many; various arguments of him are valid still, despite his repulsive attitude in criticizing New Criticism in literary theories. He mentioned readers are the important subject in how text is being interpreted even though author was the trigger end of a piece of text: “.…the whole being of writing: a text consists of multiple writings, issuing from several cultures and entering into dialogue with each other, into parody, into contestation….the reader is the very space in which are inscribed, without any being lost, all the citations a writing consists of ”2. And text itself is a multi-dimensional space which weave together various writings & citations, resulted from housands sources of culture, therefore no one of which is original. By keeping this notion in mind, writings are then practices of collaborative processes; and this thesis would be one of the practices as such, by trying to address the collaborative

knowledges as far as I could, from the opinions, analyses to data collections, and present as a set of collaborative comments & analyses, including my own points of view, which are a mix of ideas generated from various perception ranging from readings to personal experience to other form of observations.

In the recognitions of the notions of Open-source, Death of the Author, and Book of Copies project by San Rocco3, this thesis will therefore be constructed with/by various authors including myself, for primary data collections, for analyzing collaboratively, to cultivate collaborative comments, and most importantly, generate this paper with shared authorship & shared ownership, as well as allowing me to further exploit this action of collaborative sharing.

This collaborative practice as the brief methodology of this paper, is expected to include cultural, socio-political analyses to explicitly dissect & decipher the Shanzhai (Copycat) culture in the context of China. And by recognizing its scale and the culture itself extending to the realm of architecture, further exploitation in its motivation, its impact & its future (culturally, politically, historically, legally etc.) are carefully displayed, explained, evaluated, analyzed & speculated. These are done by drawing on raw data such as interviews & on-site research, criticisms by various parties & professionals, architectural theories, historical precedents exploiting historical attitudes towards concept of Shanzhai, together with case studies that demonstrate these

left: Illustration for book cover of Roland Barthes’s The Death of the Author (The Macat Library), written by Laura Seymour. The book was an analysis of Barthes’s essay. above: Book of Copies by San Rocco exbiting at 13th Venice Biennale in 2012 upper right: Book of Copies by San Rocco exbiting at the AA in 2013 lower right: Book of Copies by San Rocco, digital collections exbiting on their official website, available at https://www.sanrocco.info/bookofcopies

manners to be analysed. Whilst the Shanzhai mostly took the forms from the foreign, the functional and symbolic means are however unique to China, in the way that they both reflected and captured the essence of New China, formed and driven by assorted political, philosophical, economical and social forces from within.

Finally, please keep in mind that, all the processes involved in this paper are a demonstration of collective knowledge and shared authorship, please feel free to ‘copy’, however utilize it at your own responsibility. Author of this thesis do not own the copyright of any referenced works including images, they are purely for academic discussion purposes and demonstrations here, any commercial activities involving the use of these images are advised to ask for the authorizations/permissions by the original copyright owner (please refer to citations & references). The copyright of this paper itself is intended to be distributed and owned collectively. For further information on copyright, please refer to the section about Copyright further down this writing or check with your local legislation body.

Notes 1. Induced/inspired by various tutorials & crits during Nov 2019 to Feb 2020.

Credit to various critics, especially my main tutor – Simon Herron.

2. Roland Barthes, Death of the Author, 1967.

3. Book of Copies is a project by San Rocco, it was exhibited in 13th Venice Biennale together with the Museum of Copy in 2012, and was exhibited at the Architectural Association in 2013. It is primarily a collections composed by copied images that constitute architecture. It acted as a form of collective knowledge in the aspect of architecture. They are also categorized by certain rules for the ease in understanding. Available at: https://www.sanrocco.info/ bookofcopies; See also http://www.uncubemagazine.com/blog/11212397; See also https://www.burkhalter-sumi.ch/exhibitions/sanrocco; See also https:// www.archdaily.com/297130/ad-interviews-san-rocco-at-the-13th-venicebiennale/1346327152-bnl-fat-7?next-project=no

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Part I

Creative = Original?

Does Copying means it’s not creative & not original?

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Taking the idea of collaborative writing from Death of the Author, where a piece of writing, is at certain level that generated by copying & taking ideas from each other; Copying could be seen as a constructive tool, a step that is a ‘must’ in the process of generate so called ‘new’1; rather than seeing it as a negative act which reflected the deep fetishization of originality within current social values, especially the creative industry like architecture.

above: People dressing alike in a community fair, to be perceived as part of a group or part of an event. Credit to Rainer Binder/ullstein bild

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A primal behaviour of human In the discussion of On Copies, Tom Emerson expressed his notion that Copying is part of a basic form of communication, a basic background of human condition, and a straightforward behaviour by human.2 Amusing examples like “if you smile at me, the chance is I smile back.” & “In panel discussion….when one person crosses their legs then everybody crosses their legs”.3 Maybe he had it overly simplified with his examples, he had strongly shown a part of very basic communication in human. In addition, in many occasions, humans do seem to prone to copy, even it was not intended nor the subject was consciously acknowledging his act of copy. Events such as going to a watch an opera, and dressed in a formal code of suits; watching one’s idol’s concert and dressed like the idol himself/herself, act like him/her, speak like him/her, trying to become him/her, to a point where idols seemed to be living their lives; People living at the English suburb communities dressing themselves alike, the attitude of intending to not to stand out from a group4; are all examples that many of us, in fact all of us, at certain degree, are trying to blend him/herself into some comfort zone that already existed, via copying. Besides, at the period of having to be free from the stress or moral concerns to question whether their works are original, children reproduces artworks & drawings from what they see and what they experience, to a point their recreations become what we define as ‘art’ & ‘aesthetics’.5 Copying is a primal, basic behaviour6 and response of humans, to the world around him/her, regardless of whether the result is ‘creative’ or not.

Notes 1. Rebecca Tushnet, Copy This Essay: How Fair Use Doctrine Harms Free Speech and How Copying Serves It, Yale Law Journal Volume 114 2004-2005, December 2004.

2. Sam Jacob, Tom Emerson from 6A Architects, Giovane Piovene & Pier Paolo Tamburelli from San Rocco, On Copies (Lecture), 29th October 2013, available at https://dezignark.com/blog/tom-emerson-sam-jacob-san-rocco-oncopies/. See also https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=2246.

3. Tom Emerson, Sam Jacob – San Rocco: On Copies, 26m35s, https:// dezignark.com/blog/tom-emerson-sam-jacob-san-rocco-on-copies/.

Emerson: “...it’s almost the most basic background of human condition; it’s what we do as humans....If you smile at me, the chance is I smile back; we copy each other all the time. In panel discussion, don’t know if you’ve seen it before, when one person crosses their legs then everybody crosses their legs. And it is a form of communication, it’s just a very straightforward thing. And I think that, in culture, what we do is, we continue to make copies of each other. And I supposed in architecture, in art, it becomes, you know, a heightened form of production. And maybe the Book of Copies next door (Book of Copies is a collection of architectural archives made out of photocopying text,

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The idol

All dressed up in formal suits for an event

Austin's child copying the car repair manual through his drawing

images that are considered to be useful in the progress and development in architecture, done by San Rocco), is a sort of high rhetorical side of a very basic human value.”

4. Simon Herron, tutorial with the author, 28th February, 2020. See also https:// edition.cnn.com/style/article/seductive-power-of-uniforms-and-cult-dress/ index.html 5. Austin Kleon, Copying is how we learn, 8th February 2018, available at https://austinkleon.com/2018/02/08/copying-is-how-we-learn/. Writer observes his own children’s drawings & paintings, discovering in fact, mimicking and copying are as natural as breathing to them: Mimicking other kids in the playground, mimicking their parents, mimicking each other, recreating the world with Legos, drawing out what they have saw and perceived etc. And most importantly, free from the questions and moral constraints such as “Don’t you want to do something original?”, whereas no one around would tell them they should have done these differently. At some point, writer decide to copy his children, intending to steal the line style induced from their works.

6. Jonathan Lethem, (2007), The Ecstasy of Influence: A plagiarism. New York.

The fan of the idol after seeing his update on social media

so Machine Learning, could it still be defined as Copying?

Humans, on a conscious level, seemed to behave the same as well during the process of generating ideas and being ‘creative’. In the breakdown of Picasso’s quote “Good artists copy, but great artists steal.” (which the quote itself is an interesting story that no evidence shown to be actually said

by Picasso, but only promoted by Steve Jobs)12 by Kirby Ferguson, he derived that creativity contains three key elements13: Copy: No one starts out original. We cannot create anything new until we have a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding in our line of work. Copying is how we learn.

Transform: Taking an idea and creating variations. Major advances are usually not original ideas, but the breaking point in a long history of progress by many different individuals.

Combine: The most dramatic results happen when various ideas are combined together. By connecting ideas together, creative leaps can be made.

At this point, the solid base of knowledge has a chance to be forgotten (partially or wholly) as well. Therefore the same question arose: could the ‘creative’ result defined as ‘creative’ since it starts off from Copying?

Machine Learning - technically copying humans In Arthur Clarke & Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the supercomputer HAL perfectly displayed the controversial topic of our current concept of Machine Learning – the self-conflicting nature of being both intelligently objective (HAL told Dave that: ”This mission is too important to allow you to jeopardise it.”) but also humanely to forced to “live a lie”.7 In addition, it allowed us to have a glimpse of how Machine Learning work nowadays: according to definition8, Machine learning is primarily aimed to allow the computers learn automatically, without the help, interference, adjust by human. And the way to do so starts from obtaining data, through observations, direct experience, instructions and example, meaning it require a collection done via copying all the information, i.e. data. However, the interesting ground here is, one of the algorithms is called Instancebased learning9, where instances are compared with the collection it has, in order to make decisions; and that required enormous spaces for storing both the collection and new instances/ scenarios to be added into it, therefore this is less preferred.10 On the other hand, more commonly, the collection is being analysed in order to find patterns, then the original collection would be either discarded or saved somewhere else11, since these patterns found would be applied in different scenarios instead of comparing with the original set of collection. The question is, at this point the collection is already been abandoned, however the process started off from copying,

Notes 6. Jonathan Lethem, (2007), The Ecstasy of Influence: A plagiarism. New York.

7. Michael Benson, What 2001: A Space Odyssey got right about our blind leap into the digital age, 4th April 2018, Available at https://www.independent. co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/2001-a-space-odyssey-50thanniversary-future-predict-ai-artificial-intelligence-a8287056.html 8. Expert System Team, What is Machine Learning? A definition, 7th March 2007, available at https://expertsystem.com/machine-learning-definition/ 9. Instance-based learning, Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Instance-based-learning 10. Aha, D.W., Kibler, D. & Albert, M.K. (1991), Instance-based learning algorithms. Mach Learn 6, 37–66 11. See Does a machine learning algorithm copy the data it learns from?, February 2017, available at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41797569/ does-a-machine-learning-algorithm-copy-the-data-it-learns-from 12. See Quote Investigator, Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal, Quote Investigator, 6th March 2013, available at https://quoteinvestigator. com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/; See also Dan Farber, What Steve Jobs really meant when he said ‘Good artists copy; great artists steal’, CNet , 28th Jan 2014, available https://www.cnet.com/news/what-steve-jobs-really-meantwhen-he-said-good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/. Widely known to have said by Pablo Picasso. The truth, however, is an unknown. It is not a famous

Left upper: Supercomputer HAL in the 2001: A Space Odyssey Right Lower: Dave (character) in the 2001: A Space Odyssey

quote until Steve Jobs ascribed it to Pablo Picasso in 1996. Nonetheless it inspired millions of people plus the fact that this quote might not be originated from Pablo Picasso, further proved that an idea is not ‘successful’ or ‘good enough’ until it’s recognized, or marketed, or backed up by others. In this case the origin does not really matter but who & how it was presented.

13. See Creative is a remix | Kirby Ferguson, Youtube, 10th August 2012, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd-dqUuvLk4&t=323. See also Eric Ravenscraft, The Three Key Steps to Creativity: Copy, Transform and Combine, Life Hacker, 4th October 2014, available at https://lifehacker.com/ the-three-key-steps-to-creativity-copy-transform-and-1561711228

Cumulated Creativity

Isaac Newton's famous letter to Robert Hooke, 5th Feb 1675 "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. "

Is machine creative?

In an experimental project done by OpenAi, two sets of artificial intelligent programs (they called it ‘agents’) were tasked to play a team-based hide-and-seek game, in order to test the effects basing on ‘Multi-Agent Competition’ machine learning.14 They were put in different scenarios but based on an unchanged main objectives: red team needs to catch the blue team in any possible way; the blue team need to find any ways to not be seen & get caught by the red team. After millions times of tests, not only they developed strategies that an average human could think of, e.g. door blocking, ramp using, ramp defense, shelter constructing etc., they also generated surprising behaviours such as surfing objects (which is very very unlikely to happen in reality), endlessly running away from red team when there are no boundaries (not even hiding but just run), ramp exploitation by blue team (throwing away ramps into program bug/void), ramp exploitation by red team (launch themselves upward while throwing away ramps into program bug/void)15 etc. This test then showed that Copy could be used on the ‘Trail and Error’16, ways that are not working, are copied, memorised, and would never be in use again. And the ‘creative’ strategies developed by agents raised a question – why do we define them as ‘creative’? In this case, the answers seemed to be 1. ‘unexpected, never seen it’; 2. ‘not able to think of, by human’; 3. ‘the possibility of flaws’.17 If these are one of the fine lines presented as ‘creative’, then it is surely possible to let machine to learn (through Copy and Trial & Error), generate millions and millions of possibilities, or maybe forms of aesthetics, and present them to human (individually or collectively), so at the same time being both ‘creative’ & ‘learning’ about human’s perception of aesthetics, and feeding back to the machine, generating an infinite loop of ‘creativity’.

By seeing Copy as a human primal behaviour, the logic 12

of how human & machine learn, and how these ‘original’ thoughts & ‘creativities’ are nurtured, it is arguable that all these start from the process of Copying.18 Creativity doesn’t come out of vacuum but a series of cumulative process which always, always started from Copying. Told by John of Salisbury in his Metalogicon19, Bernard of Chartres said “we are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants, and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter.

And this is not at all because of the acuteness of our sight or the stature of our body, but because we are carried aloft and elevated by the magnitude of the giants.”20, and interestingly, the infamous discoverer of gravity, Sir Isaac Newton, in retort to scientific plagiarism, then ‘plagiarised’ from Bernard of Chartres: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.21 Both Chartes & Newton recognised, ideas, as opposed to coming out of nowhere, are more likely to be a cumulative result of everything happened & collected from the past.22 One may also argue that even at an unconscious level, humans are absorbing and copying what came across, into their mind. The packaging of a pack of biscuits, noises generated by the frictions between underground cabin and the rails underneath, the interactions when one talks to another, all these could be unconsciously feeding in information into our minds without us knowing. On the contrary, education systems, other forms of studying, reading, working systems may reflect the conscious side of our minds in how we learn through experiences, which again involve the process of copying. And sometimes while we are unable to trace back where did the idea/information come from, we might like to call them ‘Déjà vu’ or ‘Instinct’.

However this is going to be another topic of discussion, in here it is just merely suggesting even the unconscious and so called ‘instinct’, could possibly involve the act of Copying.23

left: Box Surfing - The Red team discovered and learnt to surf boxes even the ramp is locked. right: Ramp Removal - The Blue team discovered a bug in the program to discard the ramp outside of bounded venue, to prevent the Red to even use it.

Notes 14. See Emergent Tool Use from Multi-Agent Interaction, OpenAi blog, 17th September 2019, available at https://openai.com/blog/emergent-tool-use/ 15. (Translated) In allowing Artificial Intelligence to play hide-and-sike, and at the end they developed strategies that not human could think of (讓人工智慧 玩捉迷藏，最後居然發展出連人類都想不到的策略!? | 一探啾竟 第80集 | 啾 啾鞋), Youtube, 9th November 2019, available at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Z6fjTZAtziQ&t=109s 16. See Machine Learning, available at https://web2.qatar.cmu.edu/-hebah/ Machine%20Learning.html 17. Mark A. Runco, The Standard Definition of Creativity, 10th Feb 2012. Mach Learn 6, 92-96 18. Arthur Miller, Can machines be more creative than humans, 4th March 2019, available at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/04/canmachines-be-more-creative-than-humans 19. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard-of-Chartres#cite-note-5 20. John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, (London, Paul Dry Books, Inc.; 2010), 16.

21. Bernard of Chartres, Wikipedia, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Bernard-of-Chartres#cite-note-5 22. Gareth Stranks, How creativity and copying are two sides of the same coin, 28th March 2018, available at https://www.hivehealth.com/uk/blog/howcreativity-and-copying-are-two-sides-of-the-same-coin/ 23. Emerson, On Copies (lecture at the AA) at 15’35” of the recording, 2013. He said “-.both possible to be conscious or unconscious in the act of copying-..”

left: Takeoff - The Red found out a bug that could launch them into the air & useful in jumping across obstacles below: Running off - The Blue simply ran off when there is no boundary set in place

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left: at the end of film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968), when Tuco was shouting “ You know what you are! Just a dirty son of a” — the soundtrack cuts him off, leaving Eastwood to revel in his victory and ride off. right (on the other page): at end of Django Unchained (2012), directed by Quentin Tarantino, Tom yelled at Django “uppity son of a”– he’s cut off by a massive explosion, leaving Django to revel in his victory and ride off.

“….an undeniable alignment between the act of ‘stealing’ and paying homage.”28 - Glenn Symmons

upper: Hong Kong crime film City on Fire (1987) described jewel gang thieves and how things go south internally within the gang after the robberies were made, and this picture showed the infamous triangular confrontation lower: Reservoir Dogs (1992), directed & written by Quentin Tarantino, resembled not only scenes by also the plot of City on Fire. Tarantino has acknowledged his love for the former and paying homage through having similar plot and visuals, including the triangular confrontation scene shown in this picture

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Make them better: How to steal & copy “I steal from every movie ever made”24 – Quentin Tarantino Use the former outcome as a foundation, fill holes and errors by latter creator.25 And possible to generate the masterpieces regarded with originality and creativity, like Quentin Tarantino.26 The idea of ‘paying homage to something he admires, ultimately making it great’27 is also an act of creativity itself.

And even this idea is being copied and used by others, the way of HOW to pay homage, HOW to make it great, require one’s both creativity and experiences, which further extend the path into how ‘creativity’ & ‘experiences’ are informed

and the degree of copying, during the learning process, till a point one could have a grasp on the ‘instinct’ and being creative and experienced.

“It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you’re doing”.29 It seemed partly, again, identified the logic and primary driver that drove Japan, China and other developing countries to copy products, technologies & architecture from advanced countries.

Even though architecture, in the West, the considerations of contexts are underlined in the professional system, in

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination…..Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent”31 – Jim Jarmusch

China, architecture constitute and became part of the great commodity system that it symbolizes an act of advancement in which the country has the ability to expose, understand, construct, possess the best things that humans have done. However, the second part of the quote is much more intriguing – not only it implies that certain ability is required, in order to convert & build on something great into a greater creation; but also it underlays that the only way a better work could be created is either by stealing or by copying.30 Although it did not clarify nor indicate whether there is so called ‘originality’ in his successful products, nonetheless it explained that even his products were labelled ‘Original’ & ‘Innovative’, they were successful largely because he elevated the existing best ones instead of having them wholly invented from scratch (despite his successful marketing tactics).

Notes 24. A quote said by from Quentin Tarantino, available at: Nathaniel Lee, How Golden Gloves winner Quentin Tarantino steals from other movies, 6th January, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/ quentin-tarantino-movies-steals-cinema-homage-reference-20197?r=US&IR=T 25. Glenn Symmons, Creativity & Originality: “Good Artists Copy, but Great Artists Steal”, 16th May 2017. ‘Reservoir Dogs’, written & directed by Quentin Tarantino, was widely recognized as a carbon copy of ‘City on Fire’, written and directed by Hong Kong director Ringo Lam. Writer argues that the fact that ,‘City on Fire’ got average review on its release is due to the product is presented with errors & voids, however ‘Reservoir Dogs’ got much better reviews that it was regarded as a masterpiece, is because, not only Tarantino’s reputation, but also it was able to cover the errors ‘City on Fire’ presented and contain better shots that better explain the plot.

Although it is done upon Lam’s foundation, it is still honored to be holding high pedigree. See Also https://www.cheatsheet.com/ entertainment/8-scenes-quentin-tarantino-stole-from-other-movies. html/ 26. Menna Morin, How Quentin Tarantino Steals from other movies, 2nd September 2019, available at https://manofmany.com/ entertainment/movies-tv/how-quentin-tarantino-steals-from-othermovies. Quentin Tarantino pay homage to other films by copying scenes from John Woo, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Pierre Melville etc.

27. Glenn Symmons, Creativity and Originality: “Good Artists Copy, but Great Artists Steal”, 16th May 2017. Available at https://medium. com/@GlennSymm/creativity-and-originality-good-artists-copybut-great-artists-steal-6bc7e3d20cd7 28. Glenn Symmons, Creativity & Originality: “Good Artists Copy, but Great Artists Steal”, 16th May 2017. The writer questioned whether the reuse of ideas is a bad thing or not.

29. Words said by Steve Jobs, Available at: Zameena Mejia, The surprising thing Elon Musk, Kanye West and Steve Jobs all have in common, 14th June 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/14/elonmusk-kanye-west-and-steve-jobs-all-share-a-surprising-trait.html 30. Creativity & Originality: “Good Artists Copy, but Great Artists Steal”. Writer explained that the ability could be by utilizing various methods such as change in products led by a change in audiences, an update, an introduction of new theme etc. He further explained that he disagrees with the implied meaning of the quote that original ideas have no value in it; however a great (original) idea does not mean it is destined to be successful as well, but the need of marketing the idea out to others, is part of making an idea successful, whether it is original or not.

31. Quote by Jim Jarmusch, available at https://www.goodreads. com/author/quotes/314980.Jim-Jarmusch

upper: an avant-garde split screen individual shots in Black Sunday (1977) showing an ill man and the series of actions taken by a nun who is preparing to poison him with a syringe lower: screen divided into two in Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) directed by Quentin Tarantino showing the Bride in a hospital bed and the series of actions taken by a nurse who is prepare to poison her with a syringe

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山 Shān

(Saan1 /sa:n˥/)

寨 Zhài

(Zaai6 /tsa:i˨/)

Part II

Shanzhai

An analysis of the Shanzhai phenomena in China

Every country copies In fact, phenomena of imitation is not anything new in world history, it either happened or is happening, and always followed some sort of reformation of the country.

Japan underwent modernisation in the Meiji Restoration period32, and starting from 1870s and 1880s, they copied social and economic models from the Western countries in a breakneck pace, which then led to transformation from the domestic to the military, typical examples are the copied western guns, cigarette manufacturing & packaging and steam locomotive.33 The second wave of breakneck copying in Japan happened at the post-war period, where it experienced a massive economic growth between postwar period to the end of the Cold War.34 Similar to present China, it transformed itself into the second largest economy system35 after the US at that time (the period is called Japanese Economic Miracle36). Products like toys and cars were copied, produced & sold at a much cheaper price comparing to US, and “Made in Japan”37 was a term used

KFC advertised by teasing imitational fried chicken shops from all over U.K., counting from A to Z

A Glimpse of the Copycat in China In the past few decades, the phenomenon of Copycat in China spread from copying small electronic products to copying a whole building and even to the scale of a town in recent years. In this thesis I am aiming to unpack this phenomenon which is deeply rooted in the country in social, cultural, political & even in philosophical paradigms.

And more importantly, by taking advantage of this Copycat phenomenon and affections followed, opens windows of discussions & explorations on its possibility to be applied in creative industry like Architecture.

For the sake of looking into the whole phenomenon, different types of copies in different aspects in China are all included in order to see the whole picture of the phenomenon. These includes: 1. Mimicry – tries its best to pretend from the original, regardless whether they are well or badly made; 2. Fascimile – in theory almost exact same product; 3. Changed/evolved – after improvements or customisations; 4. Unrelated – No/little sign(s) of context to refer to within the country, by the result produced. On a superficial level, they have one point in common: the visual output did not line up well with traditional aesthetic or elements. Further differences and how they distinct from each other will be distinguished according to different analysis.

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by Americans to describe defective products, just like the term “Made in China� in the 2000s. In terms of architectural paradigm, Japan had also a collection of western-styled architecture such as the theme park called Huis ten Bosch.

Other rapidly developing or rapidly developed countries like Egypt, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia and United Arab Emirates, experimented with Western architecture ideas too in their suburb residential areas38, though in a much looser sense in copy comparing to Japan and China. With these examples in mind, it seemed that Copycat is a, more or less inevitable, by-product of a rapidly transforming societies in modern era. And perhaps US & many European countries were ahead of these countries in terms of modernisation & industrialization, they seemed to be always the target to copy while undergoing their societal transformation.

Notes 32. The Meiji Restoration and Modernization, available at http://afe. easia.columbia.edu/special/japan-1750-meiji.htm 33. Has Japan been a copycat country?, Quora answers, available at https://www.quora.com/Has-Japan-been-a-copycat-country 34. The Story of Design: Japanese post-war design, Tokyo, 6th December 2013, available at https://www.disegnodaily.com/article/ the-story-of-design-japanese-post-war-design 35. Japanese Economic Miracle, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Japanese-economic-miracle 36. Robert J. Crawford, Reinterpreting the Japanese Economic Miracle, Harvard Business Review Jan issue, 1998.

37. The Story of Design: Japanese post-war design, Tokyo, 6th December 2013, available at https://www.disegnodaily.com/article/ the-story-of-design-japanese-post-war-design 38. Bosker, Original Copies, 6.

Same set of KFC advertisements put up in Central district, Hong Kong

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Collections of Japan copycat products over the years, and the originals accordingly

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Collections of Japan copycat products over the years, and the originals accordingly

Collections of Japan copycat products over the years, and the originals accordingly

Collections of Japan copycat products over the years, and the originals accordingly

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The Chinese Economic Reform & Shanzhai Looking with a broad sense, China had occasionally been copying some details, aesthetics or advanced knowledge/technologies from other countries, as one of the forms hinting its open-mindedness towards the foreign unknown. However, these copies are far from turning itself into a phenomenon that spread to every corner in the country, not until the Economic Reform announced and led by Deng Xiaoping in 1978.39 Before the reforms, central planning and state ownership were the predominated schemes of ruling in Chinese economy. These were largely led by Mao Zedong, who navigated the country underwent Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the two major movements during 1958-1976 which considerably made China to suffer from a period of discontinuation of traditions and culture, as well as destructive impacts on Chinese economy. After the death of Mao in 1976, Chinese Communist Party leaders decided to restore the failing economy by a market-oriented policy, namely the Economic Reform.40 The reform was split into 2 stages, whereas the second stage which started in the late 1980s, directly gave rise to the copycat products, namely Shanzhai products. The second stage allowed privatization of many state-owned industries, and removed price controls, and opened up the country to foreign investment.41 In terms of lands and housings, it allowed housings and properties to be traded as free-market commodities, and grant private control on land uses, which contributed a big part in the rise of ShanZhai architecture. However, at the start,

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A research project directed by members of the Geography Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Exploring different aspects and implications in Shenzhen given by the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone policy.

Major events that relates to Shanzhai phenomenon directly or indirectly, details to be explained in following sections in Chapter 2

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these free market policies are focused on a series of Special Economic zones (SEZs), which Shenzhen was the first one.

Centre of these SEZs is the idea that “everything has to serve the economy”42 including politics. “…these few years I felt that in mainland China, especially the changes of Shanghai Pudong district (a new developing district at that time), is that as long as there is a need in economic development, then everything, including politics, are able to open its way for that purpose. Pudong is indeed one of the case that people of Shanghai is proud of.”43 Under the SEZ policy, in Shenzhen many industrial factories were set up and drew thousands of migrant workers from other cities to come to work.44 Although complete supply chains were setup for hardware products, many factories aimed at the dominant grassroot population in the country, as genuine products were not affordable. Together with the loose control of intellectual properties protections, factory started in mass production of imitation products, known as Shanzhai products. The large number of factories and workers were the keys of Shanzhai emerging into phenomena, as they formed many complete supply chains within the city which lower traditional costs of transportation, reduced risks & problems induced from long-distance communications, and most importantly, boosted up the efficiency. “People have realized that if you go to Shenzhen to prototype hardware you can do that at ten times the speed you can anywhere else,”45 director Jim Demuth said, reflecting the dramatic efficiency and collaborative spirit of Shenzhen.

Initially, Shanzhai culture was a grassroot, non-mainstream subculture, which opposes the mainstream culture. Shanzhai pop stars were made by low-end entertainment agents to perform in rural areas, which people could not afford to watch actual shows performed by actual starts. Shanzhai movies, like the Crazy Stones (瘋狂的石頭) imitated Hollywood blockbusters by stunts, multi-angle shots, and rapid cutting

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etc. There are even Shanzhai Olympic Torch Relay, Shanzhai Nobel Prize, Shanzhai National New Year Spring Gala etc.46 Shanzhai shops like KFC started to emerge in 90s, and shanzhai cellphone companies were one of the most successful industries that went through all 4 stages and became one of the leading industry now in the world: 1.

Learn (Mimic) 2. Compare & Compete 3. Chase 4. Surpass: Basic copies were made from mimicking the original; Custom functions were added into the products to suit different customers from different regions with different social needs47; A chase of technologies to both study the new models and generate their own unique technologies; Surpassing the originals and take up part of the dominance in the industry. As Shanzhai products rise and develops, they were favored by the rising middle class as well because of its similar functions and appearances with the originals with a much lower price, hence giving the Shanzhai an extra push.

Notes 39. Christina Zhou & Band Xiao, China’s 40 years of economic reform that opened the country up and turned it into a superpower, 1st December 2018, available at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-01/40-years-of-reform-thattransformed-china-into-a-superpower/10573468 40. Chinese Economic Reform, Wikipedia, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Chinese-economic-reform 41. Ibid.

42. (Translated) Peng Xizhou, Xu Yangfan & Lin qichang, The Shanzhai Economic Revolution (山寨經濟大革命). (Taipei: Xiuwei technology Press Ltd.; 2009), 25.

43. Peng, Xu & Lin, The Shanzhai Economic Revolution, 36.

44. Jenora V, Shenzhen: The Next Silicon Valley?, 10th January 2019.

45. Matt Reynolds, Inside Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Software, 7th June 2016, available at https://www.wired.co.uk/article/shenzhen-silicon-valley-ofhardware-wired-documentary 46. Shanzhai, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai 47. Customised functions include installing super loud speakers and radio receivers for the uses by farmers, since the noise made from machines are too loud for normal phones. Features like torches are included too before the originals added to their own products.

Left: Eiffel Tower in Tianducheng (Sky City), at the suburbs of Hangzhou, China Right: The original Eiffel Tower in Paris, France

Various Shanzhai products & brands in China

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Various Shanzhai KFC in China sometimes mixing in elements of McDonalds, e.g. KenDonalds, McTucky, Mc Ken-cky etc.

Some are selling other local food instead of fried chickens, e.g. Kentuck-Duck, cky-the grandma (selling Spicy Hotpot food) Some mixing in the idea of U.S. and the president at that time, i.e. Barack Obama; and replaced Colonel Sanders with Obama in the logo

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Chinese imitation behaviours Category: TV Shows Shown are the comparisons and simplified implications concerning license and copyright infringement issues

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The one and only? How is it different from other countries’ copying Although the economic boom and the criticisms situations are very much alike to other countries’ Copycat culture, Bianca Bosker spotted the general differences that are different to foreign versions48, by combining her researches and my researches, three general differences are concluded: 1. Different target of appropriation; 2.

Expanded beyond the scale of a single building; 3. Technical, financial & political availability.

Different target of appropriation In many countries, there are products of the immigration & post-colonization, such as various Chinatowns all over the world, Little Italies and Germantowns in American cities. These merely reflect the traditions & cultural roots of primary population around that area. By eliminating these, and by looking at the Shanzhai buildings collected, it is noticeable that, other than Japan, China tends to copy style & architectural language from outside their civilizational matrix, i.e. the West instead of Asian countries. Although there are a few exceptions like Huaxi Village, an old village built in 1961, reflecting slightly different means than other Shanzhai49, which contains Shanzhai Great Wall of China & Shanzhai Tiananmen Square. Chinese Shanzhai architecture always aims at those culturally, geopolitically, temporally

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alien civilizations and remote nations for appropriation.

Another difference when comparing to those Chinatowns and Germantowns is that, those areas/towns are mostly housing & run by the ethnics the area presented as; yet Shanzhai buildings in China, with the representations of the aliens, they are however primarily being utilized by locals and Chinese, rather than the actual aliens, i.e. foreigners.

Notes 48. Bianca Bosker, Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press; 2013), 6-9.

49. Tracy Hampton, Inside China’s ‘richest village’: The mysterious Socialist town where every resident has ‘£100K in the bank' - but once you leave you lose everything’, 18th November 2016, available at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-3942208/Inside-China-s-richest-village-mysterious-Socialisttown-resident-100K-bank-leave-lose-everything.html

Chinese imitation behaviours Category:

Functions of being Courts, took the majority within this category

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Chinese imitation behaviours Category: Single Buildings Shown are the comparisons and copyright infringement implications

Chinese imitation behaviours Category: Theme Park Shown are the comparisons and 31 copyright infringement implications

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Chinese imitation behaviours Category: Theme Park Shown are the comparisons and the long list of landmarks it had replicated and shown in the park

Chinese imitation behaviours Category: Housing development in the scale of a Town Example shown this page: Thames Town Shown are the comparisons Some interiors of the shops did not follow the language of the outer skin

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Expanded beyond the scale of a single building Looking at one of the categories shown previously, Development / Town, it briefly showed the famous themed communities in China, in which they are called “simulacrascapes”50. Comparing to other countries, which only have a handful of alien developments for the tycoons, China dedicated millions & millions acres for these alien projects to build on such as: 1.

Thames Town (Chinese: 泰晤士小鎮) @Songjiang, Shanghai Suburb Thames Town is one of the most controversial simulacrascapes, completed in 2006. Hired the British architecture & engineering consultancy, Atkins, for planning the Songjian New City and designing Thames Town.51 There are highly-imitated elements taken from British landscape such as the traditional red phone booth & those old English light poles. A highly-imitated Bristol’s Clifton Down Christ Church was chosen to be erected in the town too.

2.

Hallstatt (Chinese: 五礦·哈施塔特) @Huizhou Almost whole Hallstatt, the UNESCO claimed World Heritage Site52 in Austria, is replicated in Huizhou, China.

Some iconic objects and constructions, such as the fountain and the parish church, are carefully replicated as well.53 Despite many scepticisms within the original Hallstatt, the mayor Alexander Scheutz signed an agreement for cultural exchange which agreed that the project in China could possibly make a positive impact towards the tourism in the original Hallstatt.54 He also attended the invitation to the opening ceremony at Huizhou Hallstatt back in 2012.

3.

Sky City (Tianducheng) (Chinese: 天都城) @ Hangzhou suburb Central features which made it famous within China include the replica of Eiffel Tower, Paris-styled landscapes and buildings, and an initial area it covered, i.e. 31km2.55 It was once labelled as a ‘ghost town’ since in 2013, it was still not so popular given that it was completed and opened in 2007. However, by 2017 it was reported that it has grown to a population of 30000 which led to several expansion.56

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Renderings of Forest City

It then suggested clues on a change of people’s attitudes towards Shanzhai architecture, massive growth of population in the urban possibly leading to shifts of homes locations, marketing changes, government interferences etc. which will be explored in following chapters.

4.

Country Garden (Chinese: 碧桂園) @various cities (early Spanish villas, other styles, & big development in Malay) Country Garden is almost a legend and ancestor of simulacrascapes, it is also now the largest resident property developer in China. Yet it started off by selling a series of imitated

Renderings of Forest City

combing technology and environment to provide an ideal working and living ecosystem.59 It then became an example of how a copycat and money driven developer could evolve into one that collaborate in exploring future cities. However, as hinted at the start of this section, sometimes these alien developments, especially those advertised themselves as villas, are favored by the rich and usually being treated as a short escape for spending holidays.

Initial Country Garden developments containing Spanish & mediterranean style villas

Spanish villas in Southern ends of China back in 1992, targeting the rich, with the slogan (and still in use) of “Provides you a Five star home”.57 Initially the customers are mainly Hong Kong citizens, and used as villas.58 Upon developing and expanding, different styles are made available to customers all over the country. Till now, it had at least 32 complete estates all over the country in various cities in China. Its business now extends to Malaysia which is called Forest City, a joint venture with Malaysian-government-backend company. Interestingly, this new project did not aim for building villas, instead it is a futuristicstyled development, advertised itself as a green and smart city

Sample properties interiors provided by Country Garden

Though some of the developments like Country Garden started off by targeting the rich and basically used as holiday villas, some others (such as Sky City) developed and evolved, inducing a wide range of price-points, therefore making them accessible to the emerging middle class.60 Shanzhai simulacrascrapes then started not only available to the rich, but slowly emerged itself into a phenomenon that spread across different classes in China. Thomas Campanella, a historian, urbanist and associate professor at University of North Carolina, described the scale of the Shanzhai architecture phenomenon that “The aggressiveness with which these [architectural] issues are playing out, the number of projects that you see, and the unprecedented pace of all these phenomena are what distinguishes China.”61.

Notes 50. Bianca Bosker, Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press; 2013), 4. The writer wrote that “...themed communities in China: the residential developments of the last two decades that replicate alien and anachronistic models targeted at Chinese home buyers and their place in the nation’s modernization and globalization.... referred to as “simulacrascapes” ”.

51. Harry den Hartog, Shanghai New Towns: Searching for community and identity in a sprawling metropolis. (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2010), 118-127, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309416624Shanghai-New-Towns---Searchingfor-Community-and-Identity-ina-Sprawling-Metropolis; See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThamesTown#CITEREFden-Hartog2010b 52. See https://whc.unesco.org/en/ list/806/ 53. Hallstatt (China), Wikipedia, https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallstatt-(China) 54. Atlas Obscura, see https://www. atlasobscura.com/places/hallstattchina.

55. Tianducheng, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Tianducheng#cite-note-5 56. Tamara Thiessen, How China’s fake Paris impressed a French photographer with the Eiffel Tower and more, 19th August 2018, available at https://www. scmp.com/culture/arts-entertainment/ article/2160186/how-chinas-fake-parisimpressed-french-photographer 57. Did you know Country Garden’s progress in 25 years?, 21st August 2017, available at https:// xuchang.leju.com/news/2017-0821/10086305218700480150367.shtml 58. Country Garden, Wikipedia.

59. About Forest City, https://www. forestcitycgpv.com/ 60. Bosker, Original Copies, 8.

61. Thomas Campanella, interview with Bianca Bosker, 17th September, 2008.

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Technical, financial & political availability Before diving into the reasons why the growing middle class are as well interested in these simulacrascapes, by looking at data, with the limit to an income of 60,000 to 229,000 (according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics), the middle class will constitute more than 75 percent of China’s current population by 2022.62 And as well mind that, there is an existing ever-expanding group of millionaires which accounted for about 1,580,0000 Chinese in 2019, and with the help of having one of the highest saving rates between developed countries, together formed an enormous potential client base for the sale of simulacrascapes.63 In addition, as China is being the World’s Factory, the technologies available and number of workers and machines, are remarkably adequate. China has now both the infrastructural & mechanical availabilities, to create Shanzhai buildings and landscapes virtually overnight. Government played a big role as well, that it is more than willing to support the Shanzhai creations, by providing both financial and propaganda supports. In fact, the larger the scale, the more the supports are given from the government officials. These socio-political deciphering is then taken into deeper look in the following sections.

Number of millionaires in China from 2012 to 2019

Notes 62. Mapping China’s Middle Class, June 2017; Who Are China’s Middle Class?, 23rd January, 2010; available at http:// www.china.org.cn/china/2010–01/23/content-19293900. htm.; See also Report: China Has World’s Fifth Largest Number of High Net Worth Households,” People’s Daily, 31st October 31 2007, available at http://english.peopledaily.com. cn/90001/90776/90882/6293645.html; See also Xin Zhigang, Dissecting China’s ‘Middle Class,’, China Daily, 27th October 2004, available at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/ doc/2004– 10/27/content-386060.htm 63. Angela Wiederhecker, “China: Retailers Tap into Hierarchy of the Nouveau Super-Riche,” Financial Times, June 4, 2017; http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0825bf90-1238-11dc-b963000b5df10621.html#axzzlpWHYAPY8.

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Projected middle class statistics by 2022

Symbolic means Massive destructions on traditions and unethical struggle sessions happened during the dark period of Cultural Revolution under Mao's ruling

Symbolic meanings to the nation In Mao’s era, restraints were placed on urban growth because of the “Rustication”(鄉村化) propaganda, from Mao’s rise till the end of Cultural Revolution. At that period, individual designs were not embraced, and being labelled as rightist, luxurious, which defeated Mao’s propaganda.64 Buildings in cities are dominated essence of industrialization following Soviet models.65 This anti-urbanism policy and city models lasted so long that it directly led to the degradation of architects’ creative role in architecture, which are reflected on Chinese architects’ struggles in catching up 21st century architectural design principles, even after the Economic Reform.66 “Though ideological liberation and political reform have brought about a relaxed artistic atmosphere, architects have been damaged by the many years in which they were shackled ideologically and prohibited form blazing new trails.” Zheng Shiling said, a director working at the Shanghai Urban Planning Commission.67 Although Chinese architects had been struggling for these few decades in design principles, the nation’s wealth & technological progress had not fallen behind. A shout to the world that it has caught up is very much craved. Shanzhai architecture, especially those large scale displayed at the simulacrascapes, served as symbols of the nation’s success, monuments and markers of enormous progress in the posteconomic reform era, i.e. the New China, under Chinese Communist Party’s leadership.68 Unfortunately, not many Chinese architects have adequate knowledges nor skills, to express New China’s success through their own language of design. Western iconic architectures then become handy in fulfilling the nation’s wish. “There is a very important symbolic value to this architectural movement. It is a statement of having arrived, of being rich and successful. It says, ‘We can pick and choose whatever we want, including owning a piece of the West. In fact, we’re so rich we can own the West without even having to go there.’ “ Howard

French said, who is a former New York Times China correspondent.69 This display of establishing itself as a First World power through owning others’ best, might as well be a warning to the West that New China has not only caught up, but surpassing. Peter Thiel, a co-founder of Paypal, expressed that Japan was a successful case to have surpass the West via copying.70 Japan started its globalization and rapid copying from Meiji Restoration at the late 19th century and at the post-war period. However, the Japan now, is much less imitative, and much less interested in western countries like the U.S., signifying that they had already moved away from globalization. Thiel further argue that it then pushed U.S. to question, is that their society is less worth of being emulated?

Is that there is not much left to copy, not much left to learn?

Now if we replace Japan’s previous position with China: when China is able to copy to the finest details, and with the reputation of the World’s Factory, implying products contain much less flaws than the last decade; it seemed that China is starting to push the West to ask the same question: When they had copied all the best, all of it, does that mean we are becoming less worthy? Could we still sit in the sofa and laugh about these identical copies of Paris homes, ignoring China’s monuments of success?

Notes 64. Helena K. Rene, China's Sent-Down Generation: Public Administration and the Legacies of Mao's Rustication Program, 2013, available at https://www.jstor. org/stable/j.ctt32b67x 65. Bosker, Original Copies, 10.

66. Bosker, Original Copies, 72.

67. Zheng Shiling, “Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism,” in Balfour and Zheng, Shanghai, 130.

68. Lily Kuo, 'Defend China's honour': Beijing releases new morality guidelines for citizens, 29th October 2019, available at https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2019/oct/29/defend-chinas-honour-beijing-releases-new-moralityguidelines-for-citizens 69. Howard French, interview with the Bianca Bosker, September 11, 2008.

70. Peter Thiel, Peter Thiel: Japan Has Stopped Copying the West, Youtube, 21st September 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZEdfZGSSXA&t=7

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Meanings to individuals These alien Shanzhai architectures both presenting and feeding back into the shift of social order, seemed to recall Michel Foucault’s concept of “Heterotopia” in which generate a new type of spaces that cultivate cultural heterogeneity. In one of his texts – “Of Other Spaces”, he further elaborated the means of “spaces of otherness” & “different spaces” in that term. Those heterotopias are ‘different’ since they differ to the main societal spaces, and they appeared to be ‘other’ because they presented as incompatible existence within social order, by some sort of destabilizing and disturbing juxtapositions.71 These heterotopias are isolated spatially, and brought in indifferent places, objects, discontinued timelines in practice, which then open up the “heterochronisms”.72 “…the heterotopia has the power to juxtapose in a single real place several spaces, several emplacements that are in themselves incompatible…” Foucault also mentioned, hinting that these heterotopias are catalysts working in dynamics, together change along with the shift of larger social structure.

These heterotopias interrupted the linearity in Chinese space & time, which in a sense line up with the shift that Economic Reform and became part of a mechanism of ‘kick starting’ an era of New China. In terms of urban and residential traditions, the ‘otherness’ they presented also acted as a breach and fracture towards the continuity of the territorial and the historical.73 And this ‘otherness’

are further represented by Western ideal modes of life, which are promoted by western festivals, recreations of celebrations, shopping malls, marketing strategies, urban planning, landscaping, and architecture. In fabricating the Shanzhai models, the people are then introduced to western manners and thoughts, and most importantly, promoted and setting up habits, basing on certain degree of freedom, to make lifestyle choices on their own.

Within a society that restricts its people to travel to other nations, restricting them to experience and understand other civilization, Shanzhai architecture provided them the perfect prototypes of seeing and experiencing the ‘real’ ‘otherness’. Once miniatures theme parks were popular amongst the people, like Window of the World opened in 1993. However, alongside the scaling up of these replicas, these heterotopias provide an even more ‘real’ experience for people to escape from the top-down ideological framework in the Chinese society. They opened doors for the people to choose, from English mock-Tudor to Parisian-styled housing next to the Eiffel Tower. They acted as painkillers to ease the tensions & frustrations induced from the difficult social & political climate induced by enormous shifts.74 These heterotopias hence imposed massive seductions to those rising middle classes, providing them the freedom to choose their escape in the forms of the West.

The governmental slogan in the late 1970s basically summed

“Welcome to Thames Town. Taste authentic British style of small town. Enjoy sunlight, enjoy nature, enjoy your life & holiday. Dreaming of Britain, Live in Thames Town.”79

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Internal reports investigating marketing strategies in Thames Town

Constantly having engaged bride/groom-to-be taking their wedding photos at the Thames Town

up the policy and shortage in building resources at that time – “Functional, economical; delightful if conditions allow.” (實用, 節約; 條件允許下的享樂)75. Super-crowded spaces and concrete structures are the characteristics of buildings built & design at that time, they are now symbols of ‘regressive’, ‘discomfort’, and ‘poverty’. The Chinese “do not want to replicate the styles of architecture that represent their most recent past,”76 whereas the recent past, i.e. last century, was filled with unpleasant, disgraceful, dark history alongside with problems both within and from outside of the nation. “People are not quite comfortable with the recent past in terms of the quality of the architecture and of the urban planning that existed in the 1950s and 1960s.”77 Paul Rice also said, an architect at Atkins (The company responsible to design for Thames Town). Therefore, both the architects & the consumers would not buy in that idea for either precedents for designing nor choices for their new homes. On the contrary, the West symbolizes ‘advancement’, ‘comfort’, and ‘affluence’, “The way to live best is to eat Chinese food, drive an American car, and live in a British house. That’s the ideal life.”78, said Wang Daoquan, one of the residents living in Thames Town. “Europe is more advanced, so in China, we try to learn from more advanced countries by copying their superior styles” he added. The link why Shanzhai didn’t take inspirations from Chinese own history but the West now becomes obvious – it is the symbolic meanings of both the 20th century Chinese history represented and impressions of a fantasy of the “good life” in the West that together pushed many individuals to construct and buy in those symbols.

“Your home represents everything: your status, your taste, your style. It represents your dream. Your dream is a building. Your home symbolizes you”80 said Xie Shixiong, one of the residents living in Sky City. The rising middle

classes, with increased status & wealth, now searching ways to display wealth & their ‘sophisticated’ taste in aspirations & lifestyles. The consumer culture from the West is one of the best way to do so, hence there was once a successful trend in Shanzhai handbags and other luxurious products.

And the western brands also got cachet that they become a marker of prestige, civility and progress.81 Combining the thought that “People are always looking up to advanced cultures. They will not follow disadvantaged cultures but advanced ones. If people in New York were to follow Chinese styles [of building], it would seem strange, but it’s normal that the Chinese would follow the Italian or Baroque styles, quite normal.”82 Said Tong Ming, a professor teaching architecture in Tongji University; Shanzhai homes thus became an expression of their individual identities, social status to be shown between other Chinese, which constitute an important part in Chinese culture itself.

Notes 71. Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces” (1967), in Heterotopia and the City: Public Space in a Postcivil Society, edited by Michiel Dehaene and Lieven De Cauter (New York: Routledge, 2008), 20.

72. Foucault, Of Other Spaces, 21.

73. Felicity Woolf, A compensatory heterotopia: a microethnographic study of Zhongshan Park, Ningbo, submitted on 6th June 2014, available at http://www. heterotopiastudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Chinese-Heterotopia.pdf 74. Bosker, Original Copies, 121.

75. Felicity Woolf, A compensatory heterotopia, 3.

76. Paul Rice, interview with Aurora Gomez, 5th September, 2013.

77. Paul Rice, interview with Aurora Gomez, 5th September, 2013.

78. Wang Daoquan, interview with Bianca Bosker, 1st October, 2008.

79. See tourist blog post, available at https://popularyuling.pixnet.net/blog/ post/165050448 80. Xie Shixiong, interview with Bianca Bosker, 12th October, 2008.

81. Iris Chan, Deciphering China: Chinese opportunities under western perspective, 5th December 2019, available at https://www.luxurysociety.com/ zh-hans/articles/2019/11/jie-du-zhong-guo-xi-fang-shi-jiao-xia-de-zhong-guoji-yu/ 82. Tong Ming, interview with Chiara Howard, 20th November 2012.

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Other than these symbolic meanings, they are indeed still very alien to relate to any context. However, with the rise of Country Garden, which posed an important figure of wealth and sophistication, it then further justify the image that architecture is merely part of a commodity trade. With that in mind, architecture in general, then seemed fine when disconnected from context, hence further re-justifying other Shanzhai architecture (non-residential ones).

Shanghai Growth under the One City, Nine Towns policy

Other Socio-political drivers On 5th January 2001, Shanghai government released the plan of the One City, Nine Towns plan, which clearly stating its will in building a total of ten new urban centres, and each of them is themed with foreign countries, for both development of the country and accommodating the rapidly expanding population83 (1city 9town + 1 9growth diagrams) The reasons, recorded in the planning memorandum says: “As we have now entered the 21st century, we (Chinese) should draw on the successful experience from foreign countries - achieve high quality planning models & constructions and further improve the efficiency, in order to construct various distinct towns with unique styles.”84. The Shanghai government even proposed to provide financial support, in order to attract foreign architects and planners to participate in the design and planning process of this massive plan, thought the details of how it is going to work were never specified. Other than Thames Town, which is one of the town built under this same policy, Tianducheng held the same primary intention in learning from the West. Guang Sha Property Development Limited described the project as “broadly drawing from the experience of advanced western countries such as the U.S., and further exploit those knowledges and apply them as guidance and foundation of further development.”85 Although government’s directive led many developments took the West as models to follow, however, it is obvious that many of the Shanzhai architecture chose the historic ones as guides, rather than the newest architectural & planning model, e.g. Smart Cities. Chairman of Dynamic Urban Foundation, Neville Mars hinted the financial

Other Socio-political Drivers

Songjiang New Town

reason behind, “The current land valuing system required a large amount of money to be paid up front, the amount is even more than the U.S. Meaning that you are forced to immediately, or at least gain your money back as soon as possible.”86 Secondly, local government officials are eager to get constructions done within their term in office, since their future in career largely depends on the degree of urbanization under their governance. “The government and officials assert large amount of pressure on the developers responsible to those projects…..even in China, it still exists a four-year term in officials. Since those buildings directly concern their career, the only thing that matters thus become the number of new buildings constructed within their 4-year term”87 Mars added. It is then not hard to understand why some many constructions happened all in a sudden within the past decade, especially those with a massive scale (like town or simulacrascapes). When comparing the techniques and time required, it is then obvious that the older models from the West are taking up less time to construct. In addition, not only developers could save time in the design of these old models, they could also lower the costs from hiring knowledgeable architects.

Although many Shanzhai buildings are replicas of historical ones, and looked like they had been constructed from outdated techniques; they are actually constructed by both innovative technologies and conventional techniques.

Energy efficient roofs and facades, sustainable waste treatment systems, and other “green” systems are almost standard in those constructions.88 The Canadian Maple Town and Luodian Town are examples of these splitidentity, in which having ‘aged’ skins on the outer and the

‘fresh’ spirits and bodies on the inner. The split between the techniques and the forms further suggest that these Shanzhai buildings are symbolic more than pragmatic. At certain level, it could be said that it reflects the attitudes of many Chinese, that China is indeed, in an economic means, competing with the West.

Although the developer responsible for the construction of Thames Town, received an enormous amount of RMB 1 billion, for the construction to put forward89, the reality of it is merely that simple. Chinese architecture & construction sector is in fact, a chaotic circle formed by complex connections, in which the public and the private interests are not anywhere clear.90 Guanxi (Chinese: 關係), means ‘connection’ with an ambiguous essence, is the code that expressed the corruption and inequity between consumers, government & officials, investors, developers, private, public & state enterprises.91 The developer who built Tianducheng underwent the construction “under the guidance of the Hangzhou government”, which in fact offered the company ‘discounted’ policies92; Furthermore, it was said that the government had rigged the land auction, which enabled the developer to purchase the land with a rate way lower than the market average.93 With all these drivers tracing back to the government, local officials, developers, consumers, enterprises, money and time, Shanzhai architecture almost became an inevitable products generated after the Economic Reform. It existed as hopes, signs, escapes, money machine, corruption channels, which one could not judge whether it is good thing or not.

Maybe in fact that is part of a reflection of Chinese society under the ruling of Chinese government with the ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’.94

Notes 83. (Translated) One City Nine Town, Baidu encyclopedia, available at https:// baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%80%E5%9F%8E%E4%B9%9D%E9%95%87 84. The planning memorandum on the development of Shanghai, “當我們進入 二十一世紀, 中國人必須汲取外國的成功經驗, 以實現高品質的規劃模式, 實體建 築以及高度的效率, 建立類型相異且風格獨特的城鎮” 85. Guang Sha Property Development Limited, “Culture of our Company” (Chi.: 企业文化) 86. Neveille Mars, interview with Chiara Howard, 17th November 2012.

87. Neveille Mars, interview with Chiara Howard, 17th November 2012.

88. Gu Mengchao, (Translated) Architecture & Culture. (Beijing: University of Tongji Press; 2016), 14.

89. Shanghai Henghe Real Estate Co., “Guanyu xiaozhen: Songjiang xincheng jianshe fazhan youxian gongsi” (About Us: Songjiang New Town Development and Construction Company), Taiwushi xiaozhen guoji yishu qu (Thames Town International Art District); http://www.thamestown.com/culture3-2.htm.

90. The Repulic of China list of corruption cases, Wikipedia.

Illustration of Shanghai Overall Planning (1999-2020)

91. Kei Yip, (Translated) Chinese buildings have a lifespan of only ¼ of that in the U.K. Korean media: The government requires “fast food”, 12th October 2018 92. The policy of Shanghai government supporting completion of project, available at http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/nw2/nw2314/nw2318/nw26472/ u6aw2271.html 93. Bosker, Original Copies, 46.

94. Deng Xiaoping: Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, available at https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-4/deng-xiaopingsocialism-with-chinese-characteristics

Songjian New Town growth under the One City, Nine Towns policy

Part III:

Architectural Copyright Infringement

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Wangjing SOHO vs Meiquan 22nd Century

Rendering of Meiquan 22nd Century buildings

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An interview with Barranco Garcia On 25 February 2020, I had a 1-hour long interview with Irene Barranco Garcia, who is the Collaborations, Compliance and Copyright Manager in our school (University of Greenwich). Her main job is looking over the protection & usage of copyright of resources in our university, meaning she is constantly making sure that students & staffs are aware of, and respect the terms & conditions required by the licenses (licenses that the school holds, allowing students & staffs to use/scan/copy resources in some certain ways, e.g. CLA license). Though she is not a lawyer, nonetheless she possesses the professional knowledge of copyright. Furthermore, she is also keen on keeping herself up to date with policies & implications induced from copyright. And by combining researches & this important conversation, cases studies are put in place to synthesis the current systems concerning copyrights, the perspectives they took (interestingly not only by definitions (which is inadequate), but also took cultural, social & political considerations), understanding how architectural works are evaluated under these values & systems currently.

Rendering of Wangjing SOHO

Copyright in general Most countries in general, there are four main types of Intellectual Property protection: Trade Secret, Trademark, Patent & Copyright. Trade Secret is out of the discussion in this thesis. Architectural patents are one of the best

ways to protect in architectural ideas, however often in technical terms.show Rem Koolhaaspatents) Various KFC imitators both in UK and China, is more likely to be governed by Trademarks.

Although this is possible to be discussed in terms of design, inspirations & ideas development, the trademark infringement95 aspect shown is more about unauthorised uses on goods or services, which creates less direct impact on artists, architects and their works. Therefore, trademark will not be discussed in this chapter as well. Copyright, however, are directly related to, and have much larger impacts on artists’/ architects’ design interests and the architectural ecosystem.

Before going any deeper in cases for study, some basics should be made understood. Firstly, what is copyright anyways? According to World Intellectual Property Organization: “Copyright, or author’s right, is a legal term used to describe the rights that creators have over their literary and artistic works.

Works covered by copyright range from books, music, paintings, sculpture, and films, to computer programs, databases, advertisements, maps and technical drawings.”96. However, different country has their own legislation, which made copyright implications different on different soil. And here it comes the significance of International Treaties & Conventions in copyright – treaties & conventions such as the Berne Convention (which China is a member of the Berne Union since late 199297), are international agreement looking over copyright internationally. Although Irene is more familiar with British & European copyright, it is also useful and valid later in this thesis, when I compare them to the system China currently has. Generally in U.K. & Europe, there are four main characteristics to be kept in mind about copyright: 1.

Not everything is protected by copyright,

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Models of Wangjing SOHO

Although the case of, Zaha Hadid Architects designed Wangjing SOHO vs Meiquan 22nd Century, happened in China, putting it in U.K. framework seemed a decent way to both explore the current western system about architecture copyright, and to compare it with Chinese system.102 In this case, Zaha Hadid Architects was trying to sue Chongqing Meiquan for copyright infringement, however the case seemed unresolved as none of my research showed the end of it but just faded away from public’s concern. Even the article on China Intellectual Property Magazine did not have any court conclusion reported but merely suggestions for the improvement on Chinese copyright system based on opinions of a few Chinese lawyers. As for now, analysis would then continue basing on guides provided by DACS.

Rendering of Meiquan 22nd Century

only tangible objects are. Although ideas, systems, methods of operation and facts are not included98, there is a high chance that the expressions of all these are protected, since they are mostly perceptible and tangible, e.g. models, paintings & drawings.

2.

Requires element(s) of originality - this is an important concern & will be dissect precisely on case studies since grey areas present on different perspectives even in law 3.

Copyrights do not last permanently, and the period depends on the country where the copyright law applies, and also depends on the type of works being protected. E.g. In UK, artistic works like drawings, photos, paintings, literary works last for 70 years after the year the creator of the work dies. (Note: Ownership of copyrights doesn’t always belong to the creator, ownership could also be sold, inherited, give to anther person/organization; and the period of copyright does not take consideration of who is owning the copyright but the creator only) 4.

Copyright exists when the work is at a completed (fixed) stage in the form of tangible object/ medium.99 Therefore no specific registration is needed in general100, and creator is free to put on their names on the object clarifying they have the copyrights remained with them.

As stated in the last section, when a tangible object is created & fixed, such as an artistic work, it is protected by copyright. According to 1956 & 1988 Copyright Acts, both architectural drawings & the buildings themselves are considered as artistic works, hence under the protection of copyright.

Notes 95. A beginner’s guide to trademark infringement, available at British Library’s website: https://www.bl.uk/business-and-ip-centre/articles/a-beginnersguide-to-trade-mark-infringement 96. Copyright – What is Copyright, available at WIPO’s (World Intellectual Property Organization) website: https://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/ 97. Berne Notification No. 140 – Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary

Copyright in Architecture @UK – DACS DACS (The Design and Artists Copyright Society) is an organization in UK aims to guide artists & architects on how they can protect their works in the means of copyright101, by showing certain laws, regulations & legislative logics accessible to them. It is however, only a handful of cases were put on court, causing the very fine lines which ultimately decide whether a copyright infringement is in place, are not so clearly defined. The following case study would be trying to tease out these elements as explicit as I can, within the definitions given.

Models of Meiquan 22nd Century

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and Artistic Works: Accession by the People’s Republic of China; available at https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/notifications/berne/treaty-berne-140.html 98. What Does Copyright Protect?, United States Copyright Office, available at https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html 99. Do I Have to Register My Copyright Claim?, Intellectual Property Rights Information & Assistance, available at https://www.stopfakes.gov/ article?id=Do-I-Have-to-Register-My-Copyright-Claim 100. Copyright Ownership: Who Owns What?, Stanford University Libraries, available at https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/faqs/copyright-ownership/

Copying building as a whole Even by UK law that copying building as a whole is included as an act of infringement103, by considering the completion time104, meaning the building as an object is fixed in form, Meiquan completed their buildings in 2013 and Wangjing completed in 2014, the building itself would then not able to be a proof for the infringement charge.

In Chinese law, the categorization works a bit differently.

There were no special provisions provided by special law that primarily look after the aspect of architecture. Building (as a whole) falls under the branched copyright protection of architectural works, & include only works in the form of building or structure in 3D with certain aesthetics.105 However, that doesn’t mean architectural drawings & models are not protected by copyright currently, instead they are possibly protected by copyright for engineering drawings & artistic works respectively. Regarding this categorization, the charges are still not valid under Chinese Law copyright protection.

Originality of architectural drawings? Evidence of stealing?

Same to the eye?

Architectural drawings hence became the decisive element.

Yet (in UK) the infringement of copyright in architectural plans, “each case has to be considered individually”106 when a 2D plans are copied in the form of a 3D building, hence

Floor plan of Wangjing SOHO T2 Office 5/F

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making the law more vague in definition. Assuming the case is valid to proceed, the deciding element would be whether the elevation drawn in the original 2D sets drawings, to the eye, clearly the same as the elevation representation of the constructed building. If so, “reproduction in a material form” would be precisely the accusation in place. The court hence would require the plans from both parties and to be compared with the constructed. Yet the difficulties here is again, time. Because both of the projects progressed almost simultaneously, the plans made by both parties might be so close that time did not help to prove the originality of expression of ideas, hence the following expression in 3D. The proof lacking in this case, I believe, is the evidence of the ‘stealing’ part. If none is provided, Meiquan could still insist the architectural drawings produced came from the concept of “cobblestones on the bank of the Yangtze river by which Chongqing was built.”107 Another argument here would be the definition of ‘clearly the same’ and ‘to the eye’ which are extremely subjective.

Furthermore, if close approximation requires dissecting and measuring the constructed when comparing to the 2D plans, infringement would not occur as well. In my opinion this is very controversial since mathematics could be a very persuasive element to objectively comparing the data of forms in the simplest way. However this opens up the window of aesthetics considerations.

Notes 101. DACS (The Design and Artists Copyright Society), official website available at https://www.dacs.org.uk/ 102. Attempted in contacting Zaha Hadid Architects & Chongqing Meiquan for acquirement of details on the case. Unfortunately no response received before completion of this thesis.

103. DACS, Architectural Plans and buildings, factsheet, available at https:// www.dacs.org.uk/knowledge-base/factsheets/architectural-plans-andbuildings 104. (Translated) Beijing Chongqing architectural “Shanzhai” news, 16th January 2013, available at http://www.rfi.fr/ tw/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B/20130116-%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E9% 87%8D%E6%85%B6%E5%BB%BA%E7%AF%89%E2%80%9C%E5%B1%B1% E5%AF%A8%E2%80%9D%E6%96%B0%E9%AE%AE%E4%BA%8B 105. (Translated) Regulations on the Implementation of the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China (Revised in 2013), available at http://www.sipo. gov.cn/zcfg/zcfgflfg/flfgbq/xzfg-bq/1063543.htm 106. DACS, Architectural Plans and Buildings, factsheet, available at https:// www.dacs.org.uk/knowledge-base/factsheets/architectural-plans-andbuildings 107. (Translated) 22nd Century Official Statement Conference, Sina News, 14th May 2012, available at http://news.dichan.sina.com.cn/2012/05/14/491224. html; See also Oliver Wainwright, Seeing double: what China's copycat culture means for architecture, The Guardian, 7th January 2013, available at theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/jan/07/chinacopycat-architecture-seeing-double

Floor plan of Meiquan 22nd Century Tower A 3/F

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Original artistic features In UK, within a building, functional elements and common features are not protected by copyright but the original artistic features are.108 Functional elements meaning construction methods or processes, which made sense since they are very widely shared and it isn’t uncommon to have buildings built with same strategies & methods. Common features, like windows & doors, are however, could be controversial as well since nowadays the functionals & artistic qualities are emerging, and a façade could integrate with the structure.109 In the case here, both projects constitute a large number of windows which became a great part of the aesthetics expression. And looking at public spaces inside, in an overview sense, they represent slightly different architectural languages. Yet some forms seemed to have crossed over each other.

The problem here then, is the definition of ‘artistic feature’.

As mentioned just now, since technological availability (especially in China) grows higher in a rapid manner, buildings (or at least the possibilities of buildings) with functionals meeting aesthetics are substantially increasing.

Constant update is required on how to define these features.

In China, there was once a controversial case which remained a strong reference for architectural copyright cases to refer to – Porsche AG v. Beijing TechArt Automotive Sales & Service Co., Ltd. Not only it defined the Porsche

Interiors of Wangjing SOHO

building as an architectural work by its uniqueness in appearance & aesthetics in the form of a building, it also ruled out the considerations of ‘common features’ such as interior structures, ‘essential designs’ & texture, colours shown by building materials.

Though some subtle details like some platforms, railings and a few spaces deviate from Porsche Centre’s design, it was said that the basic features were “too much of a resemblance and would remind the general public of the latter.”.110 The infringement charges were then accepted.

By looking at both system, clues seemed to be emerging – both professional knowledges & public opinions should be taken into account. Professionals could help eliminating details and elements out of the artistic equation; the public could act as a standard to judge whether the remaining artistic qualities look

Interiors of Wangjing SOHO

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too similar to the eye. In this sense, although the interior of both projects had certain lightings, materials & windows that highlighted the forms they present; the forms (inside the buildings) themselves look similar only at certain degree, they do not accommodate each other’s aesthetics.

However, looking at the exterior, since the windows form a large part of the aesthetics of both projects, they should be taken into considerations of aesthetics. And by either comparing them with rendered drawings or elevations, they are remarkably similar, and that may led to an argument of infringing copyright of designs. Combining these two points of view about aesthetics, it might took a similar judgment made in the Porsche case that, reconstruction instead of a full demolition111, in this case it might mean a reconstruction of the façade or say the aesthetics presented externally is required, for the losing side. (Although the reasons to reconstruct rather than demolishing in Porsche case, is to minimise impacts on urban planning decisions & to save resources.)

Other considerations

Another decisive element is the fact that whether the alleged infringer has access to the original works. “Access + substantial similarity” means if Meiquan is proven to have ever gain access to any architectural works before they are being published, plus the similarity identified above, the charges might be more likely to be accepted as well, and this would be the part

Interiors of Meiquan 22nd Century

more related to ‘Stealing’ mentioned earlier. This also raise the question of digital files protection as many companies are progressing the design stage digitally, and this might be a clue of how files were stolen. In present digital era, digital files are much easier to gain access from anywhere, though it might benefit the “New Shanzhai” which I am going to mention at the end of this paper, but also increase the risk of exposure to other unexpected/unwanted parties, hence the protection of them are then becoming increasingly vital.

According to the Chinese Intellectual Property law professor in Beijing Jiaotong University, Chen Mingtao, considerations like motivations, aims of the alleged infringer are also taken into investigation & account as well.112 However, Lawyer Zhao Junjie expressed that, from

Interiors of Meiquan 22nd Century

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OMA's Skyscraper Loop patent application A demonstration of an architectural patent Another protection methodology other than copyright

this Meiquan vs Wangjing SOHO case, it is clear that Chinese laws requires further exploration on ways to protect architecture113, questions like whether we should protect it as a whole or in a separate concern (or both like DACS?), the necessity and definition of “originality” in architecture.

Notes 108. DACS, Architectural Plans and Buildings.

109. Wainwright, Seeing double.

110. Jessie Chen, Twin buildings appeared in Beijing and Chongqing, China IP, 6th September 2012, available at http://www.chinaipmagazine.com/en/ journal-show.asp?id=859 111. Ibid.

112. WashULaw, Pirate Architecture and Copyrights: Do Laws Really Prevent Copycat Designs?, 18th December 2017, available at https:// onlinelaw.wustl.edu/blog/pirate-architecture-and-copyrights/ 113. Jessie Chen, Twin buildings appeared in Beijing and Chongqing.

The above comparison and information are mostly based on the following organisations. However, both Irene Garcia and I are not lawyers nor had we been studying law before. The above comments are sheerly personal suggestions, only for educational purpose and reference.

DACS – Architectural plans and buildings. Available at https://www.dacs. org.uk/knowledge-base/factsheets/architectural-plans-and-buildings U.K. Intellectual Property Office. Available at https://www.gov.uk/ government/organisations/intellectual-property-office World Intellectual Property Organization – What is Copyright?. Available at https://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/ International Treaties & Conventions. See Stanford University Libraries, available at https://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/ Chinese Copyright Laws and Regulations. Available at https://iclg.com/ practice-areas/copyright-laws-and-regulations/china China Intellectual Property Magazine. See http://www.chinaipmagazine. com/

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Part IV:

A Prospect New Shanzhai

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Definitions (Dated 26.2.2020) New Shanzhai /njuːˈʂænˈʈʂai/ n.114 1 General Use A bottom-up ecosystem for democratized innovation115; a concept of an open-source system where creators build on each other’s work, co-opt, repurpose and remix in a decentralized way, welcoming open-source innovations & creations116 2 General Use Originate from Shenzhen’s open-source/open-innovation model, which everyone has access to intellectual property, and anyone can modify it, by the systems that enables sharing of ideas and information117

Note 114. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ new?q=New; See also http://www.antimoon.com/misc/ phonetictable.htm; See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Help:IPA/Mandarin 115. http://parisinnovationreview.com/articles-en/the-newshanzhai-democratizing-innovation-in-china 116. https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2018/08/newshanzhai-%E5%B1%B1%E5%AF%A8-shanzhai/ 117. https://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/how-copycatculture-created-chinas-silicon-valley/

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What is ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’(中國特 色社會主義)? In the simplest term, it means taking the methodologies in Western Socialism and Capitalism, and use them to resolve the problems existing in China accordingly.119 As long as it leads China to a brighter future, any methods or ideologies could be adopted. And of course, conditions of the nation are to be taken into considerations too such as “insisting on the leadership by Chinese Communist Party”. These blending mode of China, started from imitating the West, reinforcing knowledges by researching, learning, examining up close, copying others’ advantages, together mixing with their own ideas, turned out to be one of the Chinese greatest “Derivative Invention”120, isn’t it just fit so much with the spirit of Shanzhai? “….It threatens those things that we use to distinguish the difference between us, the cultured, and them, the vulgar.

It is difficult to accept the idea of the citizens of our ‘knownothing culture’ knowing more about the world they live in than the trained cultured architect….” – The Ohio Review’s comments on Learning from Las Vegas.

As Shenzhen became famous of being “The Silicon Valley of Hardware”121 under the effects brought by the Socialism with Chinese characteristics, its breakneck speed of production and rich supplies of parts provided to both China and foreign countries with affordable products. However it seemed that China is not satisfied with the label of the “World’s Factory” and continue to strive further – over 18,000 manufacturers had closed down during the last 5

years122, and now still counting. Businesses are moving away from traditional manufacturing and increasingly engaged in the field of research and accorded developments, with the hope that Shenzhen in growing into a global innovative technology giant.123 These shifts in Shenzhen from manufacturing to research to innovation, is in fact, inspired by Shanzhai itself. One may wonder, if copying could work, and when everyone just simply copies on one another, how come developments did not go stagnant but in fact get stimulated and innovated? This is a simple but important phenomenon in China – the highly competitive environment in every corner. When many companies are able to make perfect copies out of each other and out of foreign models, simple copying is not in favor anymore, the wants of mixing in new elements and upgrading are increasing, hence the competitiveness as well. In order to survive, stagnant Shanzhai isn’t enough, something more than but based on the old Shanzhai system is needed.

As explained in the first chapter, imitation leads to competition, competition leads to chases, chases leads to surpassing. However this is not impossible without the strong collaboration forces and high efficiencies bonded together by the model of “open innovation / open source”. It allows information and ideas to be shared and flowed almost freely within both companies’ structures and the larger frameworks.124 Everyone has access to intellectual property, and anyone can build upon it, co-opt in modifying it, repurpose it and remix with other intellectual properties in a decentralized manner.125 This is the “New Shanzhai”126, the ecosystem where collaborative forces work together enabling ‘creativity’ to be born. With the idea of New

“Creativity & originality is much like life. Not always black and white.”118 from 2000-2016

Shenzhen contributed almost 50% of the whole country's total number of international patent application

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One of the best & well known brand of drones in the world is a company at Shenzhen - DJI Followings are their flagships products, in ascending order from amateur to professionals

Shanzhai, Shenzhen had filed more patents than France and Britain127, and with the rate of growth shown in the diagram, it will be surpassing Japan very soon and catching up with U.S. in the near future.

“Shades of grey are the completed product that improve an industry, pushing boundaries or pushing the creative envelope.”128 Yet in the current legal framework of intellectual properties protections, they could mostly protect tangible works but not digital works. An urgent call is needed in both the Chinese system and the foreign legal systems. Although the legal system in China is less complete and filling with errors and holes, however it gave birth to Shanzhai thus the New Shanzhai ecosystem, it tells us copying could be inspirational with the help of free access to intellectual properties; whereas the more ‘complete’ intellectual property protection system in the West, although primarily protects artists’ & architects’ interest and secondarily ensure a source of income with the use of trademarks and patents, it seemed to also became a limitation of utilizing these patent-ed/copyright-ed/trademark-ed designs, techniques & products etc. as inspirational models to follow before generating something new & creative. Therefore, some good detailed reviews are essential for both China to gain proper control on the New Shanzhai system, and the West to look at the limitations placed on using others’ works and also the possibility of systems basing on collaborative/collective working/thinking manners.

The winds of change are coming, they are about to sweep through the world. It is time for creative industries like architecture, to look into the possibilities, advantages, necessary controls on the more collaborative and free work & design systems, with the intellectual properties being shared in alternative ways –

the Open-source Architecture, or one might say, the New Shanzhai Architecture.

Notes 114. See https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/new?q=New; See also http://www.antimoon.com/misc/phonetictable.htm; See also https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Mandarin 115. David Li, The new shanzhai: democratizing innovation in China, 24th December 2014, available at http://parisinnovationreview.com/articles-en/thenew-shanzhai-democratizing-innovation-in-china 116. Xiaowei R. Wang, Letter from Shenzhen, 24th August 2018, available at https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2018/08/new-shanzhai%E5%B1%B1%E5%AF%A8-shanzhai/ 117. Matthew Keegan, How Copycat Culture Created China’s Silicon Valley, 20th December 2018, available at https://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/ how-copycat-culture-created-chinas-silicon-valley/ 118. Glenn Symmons, Creativity & Originality: “Good Artists Copy, but Great Artists Steal”, 16th May 2017, available at https://medium.com/@GlennSymm/ creativity-and-originality-good-artists-copy-but-great-artists-steal6bc7e3d20cd7 119. (Translated) Peng Xizhou, Xu Yangfan & Lin qichang, The Shanzhai Economic Revolution (山寨經濟大革命). (Taipei: Xiuwei technology Press Ltd.; 2009), 25.

120. Peng, Xu & Lin, The Shanzhai Economic Revolution, 25.

121. Jenora Vasile, Shenzhen: The Next Silicon Valley?, 10th January 2019, Hong Kong, available at https://hivelife.com/shenzhen-the-next-silicon-valley/ 122. Matthew Keegan, How Copycat Culture Created China’s Silicon Valley, 20th December 2018, available at https://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/ articles/how-copycat-culture-created-chinas-silicon-valley/ 123. Christina Larson, From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower, 13th February 2018, available at https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ how-china-became-tech-superpower-took-over-the-west 124. Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of hardware, 5th July 2016, Wired, https:// www.wired.co.uk/video/shenzhen-full-documentary 125. Keegan, How Copycat Culture Created China’s Silicon Valley.

126. Matt Reynolds, Inside Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Software, 7th June 2016, available at https://www.wired.co.uk/article/shenzhen-silicon-valley-ofhardware-wired-documentary 127. Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation, Economist editorials, available at https://www.economist.com/special-report/2017/04/06/shenzhen-is-ahothouse-of-innovation 128. Glenn Symmons, Creativity and Originality: “Good Artists Copy, but Great Artists Steal”, 16th May 2017. Available at https://medium.com/@ GlennSymm/creativity-and-originality-good-artists-copy-but-great-artistssteal-6bc7e3d20cd7 129. Spoken by Jean-Luc Godard; available at Art Is Theft: It’s Not Where You Take Things From, It’s Where You Take Them To, https://www.mentorless. com/2017/01/11/art-is-theft/

“It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take things to.”129-Jean-Luc Godard 55

Contributors Giovane Piovene, Pier Paolo Tamburelli, Kersten Geers, San Rocco, Angus Greig, Rainer Binder, Austin Kleon, Jim Demuth, Jean-Luc Godard, Amy Frearson, David Basulto, Roland Barthes, Quaderns, ArchDaily, Tom Emerson, 6A Architects, Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture, Eva Franch I Gilabert, University of Greenwich, Simon Herron, Sam Jacob, Tomas Klassnik, Wikipedia, Jichen Fan, Zhihu(知乎), Everyday’s Headline (每日 頭條), Rebecca Tushnet, Jonathan Lethem, David W. Aha, Dennis Kibler & Marc K. Albert, Michael Benson, Expert System Team, Chirping Shoe (啾啾 鞋), OpenAi, Mark A. Runco, Arthur Miller, John of Salisbury, Gareth Stranks, Quentin Tarantino, John Woo, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Pierre Melville, Mike Aling, Glenn Symmons, Menna Morin, Steve Jobs, Hong Kong, Jim Jarmusch, Zinab Zaaiter, Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, Robert J. Crawford, Traice Liu, Shunya Yoshimi, Peng Xizhou, Irene Garcia, Xu Yangfan, Lin qichang, Jenora V, Matt Reynolds, Bianca Bosker, Rahesh Ram, Tracy Hampton, Harry den Hartog, Hallstatt, Atlas Obscura, Tianducheng, Tamara Thiessen, Country Garden, Forest City, Qiuyu Jiang, Thomas Campanella, People’s Daily, Angela Wiederhecker, Helena K. Rene, Sikou Qiu, Zheng Shiling, Lily Kuo, Howard French, Peter Thiel, Michel Foucault, Felicity Woolf, Paul Rice, Eric Hobsbawm, Aurora Gomez, Wang Daoquan, Xie Shixiong, Iris Chan, Tong Ming, Chiara Howard, Baidu, Mark Garcia, Guang Sha Propety Development Limited, Joshua Chan, Neveille Mars, Gu Mengchao, Shanghai Henghe Real Estate, Wikipedia, Kei Yip, Deng Xiaoping, British Library, WIPO, DACS, Zaha Hadid Architects, Chonqing Meiquan, Wainwright, Jessie Chen, U.K. Intellectual Property Office, Stanford University Libraries, Chinese Intellectual Property Magazine, David Li, Xiaowei R. Wang, Matthew Keegan, Glenn Symmons, Jenora Vasile, Christina Larson, Shenzhen, Jean-Luc Godard, Parul Gupta, Dan Farber ………and many more

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Other unreferenced resources (helped in shaping argument & provided deeper understandings): David Basulto, Venice Biennale 2012: Museum of Copying / FAT, 4th October 2012, available at https://www.archdaily.com/268884/venice-biennale-2012-museum-of-copying-fat Amy Frearson, "Copying is both fundamental and dangerous to architecture" - Sam Jacob of FAT, 2nd September 2012, available at https://www.dezeen.com/2012/09/02/copying-is-bothfundamental-and-dangerous-to-architecture-says-sam-jacob-of-fat/ Quaderns, Quaderns - Guerrilla interview #10 | San Rocco - Kersten Geers, Pier Paolo Tamburelli, Giovanni Piovene, available at https://vimeo.com/55640033 ArchDaily, AD interviews: San Rocco, 3rd December 2013 available at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=-G9uKPjnaCk David Basulto, AD Interviews: San Rocco at the 13th Venice Biennale, 23rd November 2012, available at https://www.archdaily.com/297130/ad-interviews-san-rocco-at-the-13th-venice-biennale San Rocco – website version of Book of Copies, available at https://www.sanrocco.info/bookofcopies Sam Jacob, Tom Emerson from 6A Architects, Giovane Piovene & Pier Paolo Tamburelli from San Rocco, On Copies (Lecture), 29th October 2013, available at https://dezignark.com/blog/tom-emerson-sam-jacob-san-rocco-on-copies/. See also https://www. aaschool.ac.uk/VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=2246 Architecture in Translation, Dicussion at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, 2018, available at http://www.grahamfoundation.org/grantees/5996-architecture-intranslation Sam Jacob & Tomas Klassnik, Ground Xerox research studio brief, 2012, available at https://www. aaschool.ac.uk/Downloads/Briefs2011/int12-Brief2011-12.pdf Architectural Copying, News on Architectural Doppelgängers research studio at the Architectural Association, available at https://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2012/10/29/architectural-copying.html (Translated) Rethinking Structuralism: Roland Barthes – The Death of the Author (重看結構主義：羅蘭巴 特——作者之死), 9th April 2017, available at https://kknews.cc/culture/mmlz3ag.html (Translated) “How to understand Roland Barthes’s views in The Death of the Author?” (怎么理解罗兰·巴特的「 作者已死」的观点？), 2015, available at https://www.zhihu.com/question/26980430 Roland Barthes, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland-Barthes Parul Gupta, Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal, 31st July 2019, available at https://blog. usejournal.com/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal-ef5fd95b79ce Art Is Theft: It’s Not Where You Take Things From, It’s Where You Take Them To, 11th January 2017, available at https://www.mentorless.com/2017/01/11/art-is-theft/

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Dan Farber, What Steve Jobs really meant when he said 'Good artists copy; great artists steal', 28th January, available at https://www.cnet.com/news/what-steve-jobs-really-meant-when-he-said-goodartists-copy-great-artists-steal/

Last but not Least Although some books in bibliography are not cited and some other sources cited have not been put in bibliography in the writing of this paper, they had been part of the readings during the process of working on this thesis.

One could not deny in a definite manner that those readings are irrelevant in shaping my thoughts, the emergence of arguments, and thus the build up of the whole paper. That is, in fact, one of the delicate & tricky parts of an open-source system - ideas & inspirations were emerged in a subtle manner from the entangled web of knowledges, theories, opinions and 'ideas' that are possibly untraceable or unidentifiable by the conscious minds. Instancebased learning (a type of machine learning) is no longer in fashion; artificial intelligence are moving on to model-based learning which is more about identifying the parameters rather than simply about memorization. Human minds seemed to work alike as these newest models of artificial intelligence too, in the way that ideas, concepts and the core understandings are what we tend to correlate with other subjects instead of by pure memorization.

Therefore an open-source New Shanzhai could then allow human minds to have an increased efficiency and freedom to work simultaneously with the networks of knowledges and ideas, as well as in a collaborative fashion.

Certainly, at present it seemed to contradict with the protection principles in intellectual property and offended the interests of artists and architects with our standards both in the past and in the modern era, and probably dishonouring the authors and writers in the bibliographies and citations too, however this could be another possibility to push humanity into another dimension with another approach, and seeing things from another perspective, generating another future in the future.

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