Costa Brava village Cadaqués will be copied in China

Cadaqués (ACN). The village chosen as an inspiration for a new holiday city in China is Cadaqués, a village in northern Costa Brava, where the Catalan painter Salvador Dalí had its house. The project is starting to take shape although construction will not be finished until 2018 according to town planners. Chinese architects want to capture the typical elements from a Mediterranean town such as white walls, red roofs and narrow streets and moreover, they plan to build the village around the main church just as in Cadaqués. The Chinese businessmen chose to imitate the Catalan village after rejecting other proposals from all around the Mediterranean basin.

The complex is being built in Zhangzhou, a city in the Xiamen bay, in the south-eastern region of Fujian, an area of economic growth. According to developers, the project aims to consolidate cultural links through art and the figure of Salvador Dalí. The whole complex will have a capacity to lodge 15,000 people and will offer luxury hotels as well as houses.

Cadaqués was chosen by China Merchants Group Limited as the inspiration for this urban development project in Zhangzhou after their visit to Catalonia last June. This is the second time Cadaqués has been imitated worldwide: at the end of 2010 a tourist complex was opened in the Dominican Republic under the name of ‘Cadaqués Caribe’.

Joan Borell, the Mayor of Cadaqués, said during last June’s visit that the initiative is good not only for his town but for all the Costa Brava and that such a project would launch the name of the town in China over the coming years.