An abandoned factory that became Beijing's art heart
Picture this: you walk into a lane flanked by red-brick buildings with saw-tooth roofs and tall factory windows. On some walls, big red Maoist-era slogans are still painted, untouched. Old steel pipes run overhead, a steam locomotive sits parked as if it were an exhibit, and a large contemporary sculpture stands in the middle of a courtyard. All of this was once Factory 718, a 1950s state electronics complex built in East-German Bauhaus industrial style — practical, light-filled and, decades later, accidentally perfect for showing art.
This is 798 Art District, known to locals as Dashanzi (大山子), in the Jiuxianqiao area of Chaoyang District, in Beijing's northeast. Artists began renting the cheap, high-ceilinged workshops around 2002, and bit by bit the place became the largest and most important contemporary-art district in Beijing.
Today it holds dozens of galleries, artist studios, design shops, independent bookstores, cafés and restaurants, all tucked among the original industrial relics. The anchor institution is UCCA (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art). What sets 798 apart from every other Beijing sight is simple: the open-air lanes are free to wander, there is no ticket queue, and the mix of old factory and new art is something you will not find anywhere else in the city.
