By Li Hongmei

As the greatest urbanization drive in history swells China's cities with ranks of identikit apartment blocks, one culinary businessman is indulging his architectural appetite with a visual feast of extravagant, outlandish castles.

"I don't have any hobbies, except for planting trees and building castles," said Liu Chonghua, standing on a crenellated turret atop the largest of the six he has constructed.

Liu, who made millions from feeding China's growing appetite for cakes and bread, now plans to make his home in the grey stone structure, which resembles Britain's Windsor Castle and towers above the surrounding rice fields.

His others include a red-brick fairy-tale edifice stacked with soaring spires, which seems to have emerged from Disney's version of Aladdin, and a white confection with candy-colored towers reminiscent of Neuschwanstein, the hilltop fantasy built by Bavaria's 19th century "Mad" King Ludwig II.

"When I was a child I heard stories about princes and castles," said Liu, 59, adding that he grew up "with an empty stomach every day" in China's countryside and was sent to dig ditches during the Cultural Revolution in1960s.

After making his fortune, he said, "I wanted to turn the castles of my dreams into something real."

His designs were stimulated by buildings in Munich and the chateaux of France's Loire Valley, he said, citing maverick Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi, designer of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia cathedral, as an inspiration.

China's building boom is unprecedented in human history, with the country's urban population growing by an average of over 20 million people a year for more than a decade - resulting in hectares of utilitarian, cookie-cutter developments.

Urbanization has raised living standards for millions, but Liu says he is taking a stand against miles of identical apartments.

"China needs castles, because it needs a more pluralistic culture, he said. "A city needs people who have dreams, to help society develop."