The Curious Case of the 'Imposturbs'

We can imagine ourselves in a lot of disparate places. We see ourselves leaning against a classical column overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, or meandering through an archway out into the Tuscan twilight, or under the swaying shadow of a Southern California palm tree. We like these places, or, maybe more accurately, we like the idea of these places. And that's why we've made sure we can have them. Through the power of architectural borrowing and imitation, we can realistically recreate the styles and motifs of pretty much whatever we want, wherever we want. A far-off building type or lifestyle can be – and often is – transplanted to a new and unrelated locale, taking us to the Mediterranean not through travel but through architecture. The world we've built for ourselves can manifest these ambitions, can materialize the idea of a place, can make tangibly real what might otherwise only be make-believe.

Themed housing developments have both carved and filled this niche of consumer desire via homes that offer a loose interpretation of a foreign land and lifestyle, often greatly detached from any local relevance. Banking on notions of places either preconceived or media-enhanced, these imposturbs have been built all over the world – especially in Asia – for a sector of the marketplace of homebuyers whose decisions seem to be driven by a desire for some foreign standard of status.