RIBA president Angela Brady has warned Chinese developers they are in danger of turning their own country into a series of identical cities.

Brady has just returned from a trade mission to the country where she led a number of small practices trying to break into the lucrative market.

In a speech on culture, heritage and identity at today’s Mipim property show in Cannes, Brady said architects needed to be more inventive to ensure one city didn’t just resemble another. “Identical cities are stamped all over China,” she said. “We should be looking at their history and culture. How you give a modern interpretation of that culture will be the key.”

She said Foster and Partners’ Masdar city scheme in Abu Dhabi was an examplar scheme. “They’ve looked at the Arab culture and it has the contemporary flavour of the Arabesque work.”

Closer to home she said Argent’s redevelopment of King’s Cross was also an example worth following. “They’ve looked back and seen the layers of history and worked with buildings that normally would have been taken down,” she said.

But Brady said some Chinese cities, where work is underway, were starting to carve out separate identities. “Chongqing is a real city of the future, they’re looking at a sustainable future,” she said. The city in the country’s south-west is China’s fastest growing, and among the architects to have a base there is Will Alsop’s new company All Design.