Architectural Replicas: Contentious Contemporary Reproductions

This book presents the first wide-ranging investigation of contemporary architectural replicas as a global phenomenon. Presenting case studies from Dresden’s new Altstadt to representations of KhoiSan culture in South Africa, and from the recent wave of revivalism in Turkey to the nostalgia of ‘modern traditional architecture’ in China – each chapter is written by an expert in each relevant context, interpreting in detail what a particular replica stands for in an accessible way, and revealing how replicas function in a range of cultural contexts, trading on the nuances of local cultures, markets, politics, and nationalisms.

These case studies explain how the construction of architectural replicas has, in the first decades of the 21st century, become more widespread and more highly-charged in a time of resurgent populism and nationalism worldwide. Employing selective ideas of the past, replica architectures are used to construct the self-image of states, cultures, organisations or powerful individuals in the present, often operating in service of radically conservative agendas or ideologies. With an introduction showing this wider context to replicas in architectural history, this collection further reveals how architectural traditions – both national and global – get claimed for identity-building projects by nations, cultures, corporations, and individuals, and provides valuable and topical insights for architectural historians as well as those in heritage studies and cultural studies.