SHORT STORIES: art factory 798

Once a giant Chinese state-owned model factory constructed in the 1950s in collaboration with East Germany, today this Bauhaus-influenced complex houses the most avant-garde art galleries in Beijing.

During the hight of the socialist era these spectacular structures were home to almost 20.000 workers who proudly produced a wide variety of military and civilian equipment to the communist world. In the 1980s most of the factories were closed and abandoned untill the first artists arrived in the late 1990s. Since then a growing amount of artists, designers and architects have occupied and reconstructed the empty factory spaces and gradually developing them into ateliers, galleries, art- and design centres, restaurants and bars.

Today the 798 Art Zone is the heart of a growing art and culture community in Beijing presenting new chinese and international exibitions and performances almost every day.