Thames Town is one of seven satellite communities to become established
this year within Shanghai’s expanding orbit, which in total will
provide for half a million people in new housing. This is a Chinese
version of what an ‘olde English towne’ might look like, not unlike
Prince Charles’ successful venture at Poundbury Wiltshire in England.
Like Poundbury, it was at first a matter of hilarity for all those
architects who have seen it. There is a brick Tudor pub, which actually
does sell real Ale: a Gothic Church forms a kind of centrepiece,
complete with spire (curiously crisp and clean-cut). Nineteenth century
Warehouses have been built then rebuilt to simulate historicist
converted shopping units. Will Chinese-built Rover cars (newly acquired
plant from England) soon be unloading revellers into the restaurants,
or be seen parking confidently outside the new apartments? One can now
see why Rover was such an appealing acquisition for China, Tennis
Courts are already springing up, and Sir John Betjeman would not be
dismayed to see an army of racket-bearing Joan Hunter Dunns descending
on the Courts. There will be nine Universities, and which old school
colours will they adopt from the ‘mother’ country?
