In the new film Synecdoche, New York, a physically, domestically, artistically tormented theater director receives a vast grant and sets out to make something “big and true and tough; you know, finally put my real self into something.”

Of course, since it’s a Charlie Kaufman picture (think Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), the protagonist goes right down a rabbit hole, decamping from upstate Schenectady to New York City, transforming a decrepit warehouse into a full-scale replica of Gotham, and peopling it with stand-ins for everyone in (and out) of his life … including, eventually, himself.

It’s all very punning ("synecdoche"/"Schenectady"), reflexive, absurdist, and meta—according to Webster’s, “synecdoche” means “a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole, the whole for a part, the species for the genus, the genus for the species, or the name of the material for the thing made”—to say the least. It’s also very good, if you like your alternate-reality popcorn buttered with Really Big Questions about life, death, love, and why anything and nothing matters.

But that’s not why we’re posting today. No, we at Pop Omnivore are going down a rabbit hole of our own: the, uh, geographic one that houses full-scale replicas of famous landmarks in unlikely locations.

One we know about is the Parthenon—in Nashville, Tennessee, built in 1897 for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Another? The Lighthouse of Alexandria—in Shenzhen, China’s Window of the World Cultural Park. And of course there’s Stonehenge—in Maryhill, Washington, dedicated on July 4, 1918 as the first U.S. monument to honor the dead of World War I.

While there’s no shortage of Statue of Liberty knockoffs in France—at least five, by most lights—that’s probably not so surprising: It was France, after all, that presented America with the real deal, as a goodwill gift, circa 1886.

Anyway, those are just a few. We’re sure plenty more exist, and we’d love to know all about them—where they are, when they were built, why they were built, maybe even who's or what's behind them.

Can you let us know?

- Jeremy Berlin

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