Auckland Planning students visit Building 798 in Beijing. It is an excellent example of adaptive reuse of a cluster of industrial buildings.... The whole zone covers an area of 0.6 square kilometer, with Jiuxianqiao Road to its west, Beijing-Baotou railway to its east, Jiangtai Road to its south and Jiuxianqiao Road North to its north. 798 Art Zone, characterized by modern art, has become the exhibition center of Chinese culture and art, and also a world- famous cultural and creative industries centralized area...
We really didn't know what we were in for. Just inside the entry way was this pile of shipping containers - a new form of medium density housing...? windows...? doors...?
The relevance of this case study to Auckland is that it is an example of an set of relatively recent factory buildings being re-used for a cultural purpose. ie not demolished to make way for new commercial or residential developments.
The industrial factory history and some other histories are remembered throughout the huge site...
You can see a good description of the history of the buildings and site (built in 1951 - so very recent - much more recent than the sheds and other buildings that need better recognition in Auckland and New Zealand...),
here at Wikipedia.
There are some traditional galleries, for traditional artists, but also cafes, book shops, other souvenir shops. Industrial artifacts from the military factory past remains.
According to the China Travel Guide: "The area occupied by 798 Art Zone was once the place for Beijing North China Wireless Joint Equipment Factory. Afterwards, the corporation moved out of the Dashanzi District and leased those plants (798 factory being one of them). The architectural style, featuring simple design and varied composition, follows the Bauhaus way. Attracted by ordered design, convenient traffic, unique style of Bauhaus architecture, many art organizations and artists came to rent the vacant plants and transformed them. Gradually there formed a district gathering galleries, art studios, cultural companies, fashion shops etc. As the area where the early art organizations and artists moved in was located in the original area of the 798 plant, this place was named 798 Art Zone...."
There were many, many galleries, and all sorts of artwork and styles on display... made me wonder where Auckland might have an equivalent...
Porcelain and sculpture and paintings were on sale. More traditional bracelets and other tourist items were also on sale - by local or indigenous Chinese people one of our Chinese student buddies told us - you could tell by their dark skin apparently...
Great stones and other artifacts from factory days are scattered throughout the site - which feels a little like a village within a city. It covers most of a Beijing city block...
You never quite know what you'll come across around the next corner. Quite a place of discovery.
Some of the spaces are good just to sit and contemplate...
...figuring out where your next snack or coffee or treat will come from...
...and everywhere there are artists of all sorts and styles planning or making their next creation...
...oblivious to me and my camera...
...there is a lot of figurative art in this establishment, and not a lot of what might be termed landscapes and scenery... people and society or communities make up a lot of the subject matter... reflective of the culture in China I think... people and communities matter more than things and money... though that may be changing for a section of the population as market oriented reforms gain a bigger foothold.
This guy's checking out where he is and what's next on his list of galleries to visit. Found him in a gallery dedicated to Chairman Mao...
This staircase was not part of the original factory, and was built as an add-on later. Interesting that it's made of brick...
...this piece of artwork is about 8 metres high - it features a huge metal screw shape in the middle of a building frame. I wasn't sure what it meant. But I understand these screws can be used to take rubble down when demolishing - but this building shape looked as if it represented construction rather than demolition. Who knows...
And this was just an existing staircase from the factory days, used to get between floors in this particular gallery.
Wasn't entirely sure whether this was art - but these girls were certainly modelling wedding dresses and being photographed. Great location and backdrop maybe for a magazine shoot...?
If you look closely here - you will see evidence of me and my camera. To the left is the outfit for the business man who has everything - except antlers, and a camouflage jumper.
No comments:
Post a Comment