Simulacra heritagization. The Minyuan Stadium in Wudadao, Tianjin.

Based on the example of the Minyuan Stadium, a 2014 building constructed from scratch on the grounds of the original stadium of Tianjin built in 1926, the paper shows how an architectural simulacrum contributes to blur the line between the real and the fake, historical facts and imaginaries and creates distorted geographies of a reinvented destination in which heritage plays a salient role. This paper is grounded in a qualitative research based on the analysis of official documents, in situ observations, and discourses drawn from semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders as well as web-based marketing and advocacy materials. The main interest lies in the critical perspective allowed for mainly how this analysis imbeds features of globalisation in a 'communist' country and State-led capitalist economy imbedded within an architectural simulacrum object.