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An example of Zaha Hadid's designs
© Associated Fabrication
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The SOHO building comprises three curving towers. It was designed
by the Iraqi-British architect, Dame Zaha Hadid, who recently designed the
Aquatics Centre for the London Olympics and who no fewer than 11 current projects in China. The SOHO towers
are currently under construction, yet a group of pirate architects and
construction teams is already building a copy of the towers in Chongqing , in southern
China. Embarrassingly, the pirates look set to complete their building before
the original is finished.
According to the German newspaper Der
Spiegel, Yet You Yunting, a Shanghai-based lawyer has said that China's
copyright law includes protection for works of architecture and that "SOHO
could have a good chance of winning litigation in this case." However he
says that "even if the judge rules in favor of SOHO, the court will not
force the defendant to pull the building down. But it could order the payment
of compensation."
Zaha Hadid is said
to have a philosophical stance on the copying of her designs: If future
generations of these cloned buildings display innovative mutations, "that
could be quite exciting." I wonder if the financial backers of the
Wangjing SOHO project feel the same way?
You can see a picture of the Wangjing SOHO towers here.
1 comment:
This strikes me as another instance of the idea prevailing over the expression as the basis of a claim of infringement. It's hard to tell from the artist's impressions but really the buildings, whilst similar, aren't copies either in their height or their envelope shape. Curved buildings are hardly a novel architectural concept. Indeed one might think these Chinese structures are just pregnant versions of the Swiss Re building (the Gherkin) or City Hall in London. It will be interesting to see how this story is resolved.
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