Thames Town, Shanghai
"...there’s some corner of a foreign field t hat is for ever England" This is Thames Town in Songjiang, an extended suburb of Shanghai. It was built to house 10,000 well-heeled people from the growing city and is a mash up of facsimiles of places from Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Canada, Netherlands and Germany. What a great idea! Maybe we could solve the housing problems in our decaying towns and cities by building replicas of, say, Lagos or Kinshasa, Potosi, Chisinau or Caracas? Anyway, back to Thames Town. Pictures speak louder that words, so that is what I am going to give you. Let's start the tour. All of those pat phrases about chocolate box architecture apply. The mix is there. Tudorbethan a la Chester, Georgian terraces, Victorian Gothic; all the styles you can't see if you look out of your window. This is The Truman Show meets Portmeirion or Poundbury. There are even statues of icons of British history like Churchill, Princess Di, James Bond and Harry Po