Art & Design Trends from… China

Written By Daniel Allen on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 at 6:45 PM | In Lifestyle Trends

Beijing’s 798 Factory- a discarded Soviet-era industrial complex, now housing Beijing’s trendiest artists

Factory 798 was once an important facility for the manufacturing of electronic components used by the Chinese military, the sprawling factory complex was designed by East German architects and built with Russian assistance in the early 1950s. These days, the factories reveal some of the grandest industrial architecture to be found in Beijing. Enormous monoliths of brick and glass, the old factory buildings are adorned with round porthole-style windows, arched rooftops, and twenty-foot high banks of panelled glass-decidedly non-utilitarian architectural flourishes that serve to distinguish them from their more banal counterparts

Cases:

Factory 798

Today, Factory 798 is home to the Beijing-Tokyo Art Project (BTAP), the Graphic Design Club (a graphic design firm whose first floor is given over to a café/bar) and Vibes, a dance club that will feature performances by a variety of foreign and local DJs and electronica pioneers. There is also a Japanese teahouse and Sichuanese restaurant, tailor’s shop, combination furniture gallery/French café, darkroom facility and an enormous gallery on whose walls are preserved, in peeling red paint, Maoist slogans dating from the Cultural Revolution.

Scattered around the factory are a number of small studios occupied by Chinese painters, sculptors and installation artists. A small bookshop across the way boasts an extensive collection of English and Chinese language art books. Most of the several thousand books and magazines on display are purely for reference, though some are available for purchase.

Trend impact:

Despite the large number of artists, clubs and galleries currently setting up shop in the area, it remains to be seen whether Factory 798 will develop into a true cultural and artistic district on the order of New York’s SoHo.

Quotes:

We aim to develop it into a cultural and artistic center in its own right“, says Xu, who is also, incidentally, the general manager of Beijing’s famed Hutong Tours, “This factory is a living representative of China’s past, present and future“.

“This community is special in its artistic and fashionable atmosphere”, says Liu, manager of a French restaurant in the 798 area, “It is both a museum and an industrial zone.

Links:

798 Space
Flickr pictures of 798