Brian Rudman: Shoddy replica would tarnish Taj

Living in the world capital of architectural facadism, it's hard to blame Auckland's Indian community for thinking the rest of us would welcome with open arms their plan to build a miniature version of the Taj Mahal on New North Rd. But could I plead with them, if they must replicate something, please leave the exquisite Taj Mahal alone. India has tens of thousands of other ancient monuments - if our Indian brothers have to build a facsimile to remind them of home, surely one of those would suffice.

Given the site on the fringes of our red light district, could I recommend one of the world heritage temples of Khajuraho, with their tiered rows of erotic sculptures soaring upwards to the clouds. Situated just around the corner from Eden Park, what a perfect "cultural" diversion for the red-blooded blokes descending on this city for the Rugby World Cup. And what a great change of image from the "shopkeeper" stereotype that currently dogs Indians. But if an erotic temple proved too hot to handle, then why not one of the technicolor towers of Tamil Nadu - these great, multi-hued, writhing masses of sculpted gods, goddesses, humans and animals would appeal to anyone. Anything, please, but the Taj Mahal.

I'm not one for the purple prose, so let's go with Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore who wrote, "Let the splendour of diamond, pearl and ruby vanish, only let this one teardrop, this Taj Mahal, glisten spotlessly bright on the cheek of time, forever and ever."

Once visited, as I did more than 30 years ago, you never forget it. The heat and dust and stink of getting there have long gone. As has the open sewer of a river that runs alongside, and the beggars and the crowds and the traffic. But the first breathtaking glimpse of shimmering marble through the little hole in the surrounding wall occupied by the ticket-seller never will. Stepping inside the walled garden was one of those breathtakingly perfect moments.

Yet Mahatma Gandhi Centre chairman Kanu Patel and his team want to build a scale model replica and pretend they can conjure up the real thing. As Herald correspondent Michael Stevens says, none of the cultural background that helps to make the Taj Mahal unique can be transferred simply by building a scale model. It's a bit like adding a couple of carved barge boards to the front of a Queens Wharf cargo shed, and declaring it a genuine Maori meeting house.

Donald Trump stole the name for an Atlantic City casino, but the odd onion-shaped cupolas decorating the outside of the structure hardly make it an attempt at replication. The only large-scale attempt to copy this 17th century masterpiece is in Bangladesh, where movie mogul Ahsanullah Moni has spent the past six years, and $80 million, building a replica so that his poor fellow countrymen don't have to travel to India to see the real thing.

A spokesman for the local Indian embassy last year fulminated that "you can't just go and copy historical monuments" and talked of breach of copyright laws. He later said visitors were unlikely to confuse one with the other. Critics also claimed that the fake Taj was shoddily built. Given that the cost of labour and building materials in Bangladesh is among the cheapest anywhere, one can only hope that the $20 million Auckland Indians are estimating their replica will cost will leave the project dead in the water.

The Taj is of its time and place and culture. It was a magnificent farewell tribute from a powerful ruler to his dead wife. His architects came to the party with a building of transcendent beauty. Plonking a shrunken replica onto a site in commercial Auckland is like rescoring a Beethoven symphony for a ukulele band.

Auckland's Indians need a larger venue than their present converted bakery to celebrate important events. Instead of trying to borrow a 350-year-old tomb and retrofit it as a 21st century, multifunction venue, they should seek expert help. Many Auckland architects cringed when the Taj story broke this week. For all our sakes, could I suggest they approach the Indian community and offer their assistance in getting them - and us - out of this awful hole.