While China's Hangzhou has been a tourist attraction for its West Lake area and historic buildings, which have been renovated into McDonald's and Starbucks branches, the city is set to construct a new development next year - The Zhejiang Gate Towers - which seems very familiar.

Hangzhou's recent project, created by Australian-German firm Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA), has caused a stir among artists, as the new buildings bear a striking resemblance to New York's twin towers. According to The Guardian, the infrastructures were almost a replica of the World Trade Centers, quelling suspicions that these are yet another example of China's obsession with copycat architecture.

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However, in an interview with The Guardian, Tobias Wallisser, Lava's co-founder, laughed off the comparison. He said that even if he lived in New York as a student and had seen the World Trade Center as an iconic structure, copying was not part of the plan.

"Put any two buildings together and they will probably resemble the World Trade Center," he said. "But there are a few famous twin structures we have compared our new one to recently, such as Petronas Tower [in Kuala Lumpur]. The client wanted to have a simple, commercially viable building with a simple silhouette."

According to Tech Insider, despite their aesthetics, Zhejiang Gate Towers will feature environment-friendly elements, including a large rooftop garden and glass that minimizes glare and solar heat gain. The glass will also come in different colors and shades, enabling light to refract and create a shimmering effect so that the building will display various colors based on the viewer's vantage point.

Construction on the 90-floor skyscrapers will begin next year. The project is expected to be completed by 2019.

TagsHangzhou, Zhejiang Gate Towers, New York, twin towers, world trade center, Lava, Laboratory for Visionary Architecture, architecture