The curious incident of the Assistant Faculty Librarian for Business and CCI

In my capacity as Assistant Librarian for Business and CCI, you may think that ‘never the twain shall meet’.  With a background in corporate business and a lifelong interest in cultural/creative industries I was lucky to be offered the job two and a half years ago.  There can’t be many academic library posts that cover two such different disciplines.

As I have your undivided attention I thought I might share something I have found that is very quirky (I like quirky) and reflects both sides of my job.  I have just been looking for an interesting website for business students and settled on the Economist website.  I fell across a really interesting article (as you do) all about China replicating English and European towns and cities (including Venice and Paris) throughout their country.  The English feel has been achieved mainly by copying Georgian and Victorian architecture and it is proving very popular.  A bit like a theme park but with more taste perhaps.  Unfortunately Las Vegas also has a Venice….need I say more?

A link to the article on the Economist website:

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21600800-shanghai-suburb-forever-england-dreaming-spire

And here we have the battle for Venice lookalikes:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/28/fake-venice_n_4181552.html

Whilst I wait for the architects to respond you might be interested to know there is a book dedicated to this interesting phenomena.  So I am keeping this blog library-related.  How many ‘copies’ of this title shall we order?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Original-Copies-Architectural-Mimicry-Contemporary/dp/0824836065/

I have to say the Chinese really are the masters of fakery!  Move over ‘Burberry’ and the 1000 knock-off World Cup tropies that Chinese Customs have discovered today.  Make way for the ‘Eiffel Tower’ and ‘Tower Bridge’.

The downside is that lawsuits are now flying all over the place.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2258975

They just can’t resist copying but I fear there will be some very expensive tears at bedtime!