The 798 District

798 stands for much more than a three digit number: in Beijing these numbers symbolize the country's cutting edge art movement led by the Chinese vanguard, unchained artistic personalities with alternative life goals. Wild and unconquered attitudes waft inside 798's free and rambling atmosphere. This area feels a kinship to what can be discovered and sensed along the Left Bank in Paris or around Greenwich Village in NYC.

The 798 Art District is located in the Dashanzi area, Chaoyang District, in northeastern Beijing, past the 4th Ring Road. The large area was once a booming compound for the State's pre-reform electronic industries. After the economy toppled these dinosaurs the space became available and these former industrial units evolved into the now famous Factory 798.

The 798 complex came into being in 1995, when the Central Academy of Fine Arts' rented it to use as a sculpture workshop. The workshop, which in its early days was known as the sculpture factory, is still thriving.

In 2000, an American named Robert, an active figure in Beijing's art circles, came to the area. Robert changed the factory dinning hall into an art bookstore, which has since become the haunt of local artists. Upon Robert's recommendation, more and more people came to 798 to set up art workshops, exhibition halls, and galleries. Robert, in effect, introduced factory 798 to the world.

Beginning in 2002, more and more artists and cultural organizations began to divide, rent out, and re-make the factory spaces, gradually developing them into galleries, art centers, artists' studios, design companies, and even restaurants and bars. Hence, gradually the 798 complex became a "Soho-esque" area of international character, replete with "loft living," attracting attention from all around.

798 has become the biggest arts area in China and earned great international acclaim. The 798 District impresses visitors by the odd but harmonious combination of historical and artistic factors... the formation of new, modern lifestyles in old spaces. Here art is alive and real, with artists at 798 living and working in spaces in tune with the past and the present.

The 798 Art District provides creative people with an opportunity and an outlet to enthusiastically pursue their artistic ideals. It has also given them a unique, spiritual homeland. China's artists have truly inspired new life into an area of Beijing, resurrecting the ghosts of the past while breathing in energy and innovation in the present. Indeed, China's vanguard has turned an industrial graveyard into an artistic paradise.