It had to happen sooner or later, but it finally appears as someone has decided to build a ripoff of the Ontario College of Art and Design’s Sharp Centre for Design, better know as the OCAD Tabletop. The building, called the Lazika Municipal Building, is located in the city of Lazika, Georgia, a city which has yet to be built. The firm that designed the building, Architects of Invention, does not list the Will Alsop-designed Sharp Centre as a model. Instead, co-founder Niko Japaridze cites architect Yona Friedman‘s as the design company’s main inspiration. He goes on to state, “Lazika Municipality is a rectilinear experiment in the vertical displacement of solid mass,” which, if you’re looking for a translation into plain English, I think means: “We pulled this design from you know where.”

Joking aside, it appears that Lazika got the better tabletop to furnish its skyline. More pictures and an in-depth examination of the building can be found here. [Contemporist]

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Igor Bonifacic is a writer working for the Toronto Standard. You can follow him on twitter @igorbonifacic.