In the northeast corner of Beijing, there is an art district named after a factory built in the 1950s, namely the 798 Art District. Located in Dashanzi District, Jiuxianqiao Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing, it is also called Dashanzi Art District (referred to as Dad-Dashanzi Art District). It used to be the old site of the former State-owned 798 Factory and other electronic industries. This area starts from Jiuxianqiao Road in the west, east to beijing-baotou railway, north to Jiuxianqiao North Road and south to Jiang Tai, covering an area of more than 600,000 square meters.
Now this factory is called 798 Art Zone, which is the regional scope of six factories under the former Ministry of Electronic Industry, namely 706, 707, 7 18, 75 1, 797 and 798. From the end of 1950s to 1964, this area was once called "7 18 Joint Factory" and "State-owned Beijing North China Radio Equipment Joint Factory". The six factories mentioned in this paper are branches of the joint factory. 1964, these six factories began to operate independently, from a joint factory to six factories until 200 1. 200 1 Five factories except 75 1, Huarong Asset Company (holding company) and 75 1 jointly form Qixing Huadian Group to manage this area in a unified way.
From 200 1, artists from around Beijing and outside Beijing began to gather in the 798 factory, and they discovered the unique advantages of this place for artistic work with unique eyes. They make full use of the style of the original factory building (Bauhaus architectural style in Germany), slightly modify and decorate it, and become a distinctive art exhibition and creative space. Nowadays, 798 has attracted extensive attention from domestic and foreign media and the public, and has become a new landmark of Beijing's urban culture.
798 Cultural Concept Represented by 798 Art District
After artists and cultural institutions moved in, they rented and renovated vacant factories on a large scale, and gradually developed into a collection of galleries, art centers, artists' studios, design companies, restaurants and bars, forming an international "SOHO-style art settlement" and "LOFT lifestyle", which attracted considerable attention. Through the organic combination of contemporary art, architectural space, cultural industry, historical context and urban living environment, 798 has evolved into a cultural concept, which has a strong appeal to all kinds of professionals and the general public and has a great influence on the concept of urban culture and living space.
The architectural style of the factory is mainly 798 factory, which is simple and simple, emphasizing function. Huge cast-in-place structures and bright skylights are rare in other buildings. They are key industrial projects aided by the Soviet Union and designed and built in East Germany in the early 1950s, and have experienced numerous ups and downs for decades. With the reform and opening up, the cultural orientation of Beijing, the change of people's lifestyle, and the arrival of the wave of globalization, enterprises like 798 Factory are also facing the task of redefining and redeveloping. With the urbanization process and the expansion of urban area in Beijing, the Dashanzi area, which originally belonged to the suburbs, has become a part of the urban area. When the original industry moves out, new industries with no pollution, low energy consumption and high technology content will inevitably emerge on the original site, which is more suitable for urban positioning and development trend. The arrival of a large number of artists and intellectuals is a reflection of this historical trend.
These residents not only have cultural industries such as design, publishing, exhibition, performance and artist's studio, but also have services such as boutique home, fashion, bars and restaurants. On the premise of protecting the original historical and cultural heritage, they redefined, designed and transformed the original industrial workshop, which brought creative understanding of architecture and lifestyle. These vacant factories have been transformed into new architectural works, and a vivid dialogue has been launched between historical context and development paradigm, between practicality and aesthetics and the old buildings in the factory.
The lifestyle of these residents is the product of economic reform, and they show the new relationship between personal concept and socio-economic structure-the new relationship between utopia and reality, memory and future. 798 is the carrier of youth culture in the new period. The culture formed here will be the internationalization of local resources and the socialization of personal ideals. The new "798" means the existence of pioneer consciousness and traditional feelings, the equal emphasis on experimental color and social responsibility, the win-win situation of spiritual pursuit and economic planning, and the interaction between elites and the public. This phenomenon appeared in 798, involving urban development, production and consumption patterns and other aspects.
The Historical Evolution of 798 Art District
[7 18 Joint Factory Established]
Speaking of the history of Beijing 798 Art District, we should start with the industrialization of new China. The place where Beijing 798 Art Zone is located is the "Beijing North China Radio Joint Equipment Factory" built during the first five-year plan period of New China, that is, the 7 18 joint factory. The 7 18 joint factory was approved by Premier Zhou Enlai personally, planned by Minister Wang Zheng, and established with the assistance of the former Soviet Union and the GDR.
1952 joint factory was built in Jiuxianqiao area, and there is no industrial base in the suburbs of Beijing. 1954 started civil works. 1957, state leaders attended the groundbreaking ceremony and announced the production. Its speed was rare in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, which condensed the efforts of the older generation of leaders and builders. There are 774 factories and 738 factories jointly built by 7 18 in Jiuxianqiao area. The completion of these three factories not only changed the face of Jiuxianqiao area, but also formed the beginning of the great development in the history of China's electronic industry, and this pioneering role will always be recorded in the history of China's electronic industry. After the completion of the 7 18 joint factory, it has made outstanding contributions to the national economic construction, especially to the construction of electronic industry, national defense construction and the development of communication industry. 1in April 1964, the No.4 Machinery Department cancelled the establishment of the 7 18 joint factory and established the 706, 707, 7 18, 797, 798 and 75 1 factory directly under the Ministry.
Architectural Design of 7 18 Joint Factory
7 18 joint factory is one of the key projects of 156 during the First Five-Year Plan period, and it is also one of the aid projects of Dongfang Group to China. Due to the leading position of the electronics industry in this camp, East Germany was given the heavy responsibility of building a joint factory. Oelssner, then Deputy Prime Minister of East Germany, personally took the lead and completed this project by using the entire East Germany technology, experts and equipment production line. Since there are no factories of the same scale in East Germany, Oelssner organized authoritative experts from 44 research institutes and factories in East Germany to set up a 7 18 joint factory project support team, which finally gathered the strength of East Germany's electronics industry, including technology, experts and equipment production lines, and completed this grand project with utopian ideals. Li Rui, the first director of the 7 18 joint factory, said in his recollection article: "I have seen more than 20 factories in Germany, and none of them has such a scale. As far as I know, factories of this size are rare in the Soviet Union and other countries in eastern bloc. "
An architectural organization in Dessau is responsible for the huge architectural design of the joint factory, which is in the same city as the Bauhaus school in that year, and the two are interlinked in architectural spirit. 19 19, Gropius established Bauhaus School in Weimar. Under the influence of abstract art, a new style of arts and crafts and architecture has been formed, whose main characteristics are: paying attention to meeting practical requirements; Give full play to the technical and aesthetic properties of new materials and structures; Simple modeling and flexible composition. On this basis, a new modernist architectural style was formed, which advocated adapting to the needs of modern large-scale industrial production and life, and was characterized by emphasizing architectural functions, technology and economic benefits, and was later called Bauhaus School.
The joint factory has a typical Bauhaus style and is a model of perfect combination of practicality and simplicity. Germans pursue high standards in building quality. For example, the seismic strength design is more than 8, while the standards of China and the Soviet Union were only 6 to 7; For another example, in order to ensure the firmness, 500 building blocks were used; In addition, the windows of the factory building face north, while the windows of ordinary buildings face south at that time. This design can make full use of the skylight and reflected light to keep the light uniform and stable, and from the visual experience, constant light can produce an indescribable aesthetic feeling.
The formation of idle factories and art areas
From June, 5438 to February, 2000, the original six companies, namely 700, 706, 707, 7 18, 797 and 798, were integrated and reorganized into Beijing Qixing Huadian Technology Group Co., Ltd., which was the first batch of high-tech enterprises recognized in Beijing and Electronic City Park. Due to the reorganization of the original six factories, some properties are idle. In order to make full use of this part of the property, Qixing Group rented out these factories one after another.
In February, 2002, Robert, an American, rented a 120 square meter Huimin canteen here and transformed it into a company with a front shop and a back office. Robert works as an art website in China. Some people who often associate with him take a fancy to the spacious space and low rent here, and rent some factories as studios or exhibition venues. The "snowball" of the "798" artists group rolled up like this. Because some factories belong to the typical modernist Bauhaus style, the whole factory has good planning and unique architectural style, which has attracted many artists to work and settle down, and gradually formed today's 798 art district.
Existing institutions in 798 Art District
At present, nearly 200 institutions involved in culture and art have entered this field. According to incomplete statistics in March, 2005, among the 103 colleges and universities that entered the 798 Art Zone, there were mainly two categories: creation, exhibition and communication, and design, among which 59 were artistic creation, exhibition and communication (accounting for 57.3% of all colleges and universities) and 29 were design (including space design, advertising design, home furniture design, clothing and image design). In addition, there are some minor categories related to artistic creation, such as communication and distribution, bookstores and restaurants and bars.
At least 300 artists live directly in or take the 798 Art District as their main artistic creation space, some of whom come from abroad, including France, the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia, South Korea and Singapore. There are famous artists such as Liu Suola (writer and musician), Hong Huang (publisher and publisher), Jonathan Lee (musician) and Li Xiangqun (sculptor). In the 798 Art District, there are also unknown people.
The area of 798 Art District rented by artists and their companies ranges from several thousand square meters to several tens of square meters. Among them, the world-renowned Ullens Art Company in Belgium (with a rental area of 4,500 square meters) and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (with a rental area of more than 4,000 square meters) have the largest rental area. Secondly, Li Xia rented space for galleries and exhibitions (2,000 square meters), Hong Huang rented space for publishing magazines such as My Opinion, Seventeen and Le (16 10 square meters), galleries (1350 square meters) and Xu Yong. Recently, the world-famous Guggenheim Art Company plans to rent a venue of 5000 to 10000 meters in the 798 Art District, but at present, there is no such large area for rent in the 798 Art District.
Up to now, in the original 7 18 joint factory building, about 654.38+10,000 square meters of factory buildings have been rented out to various art and cultural institutions at home and abroad, accounting for more than 50% of the total factory area.
The Artistic Effect of 798 Art District
Due to the "cluster" effect and celebrity effect of artists, and the influence of "Diaf- Dashanzi International Art Festival" held twice since 2004, the influence of 798 Art District is growing. The first art festival (one month from April to May, 2004) attracted 80,000 visitors, of whom about 60% came from China and 40% came from overseas, including contemporary art representatives from major foreign cities such as Paris. 1more than 20 Chinese and foreign media reported the art festival, artists active here and their works. Some domestic and foreign cultural institutions and foundations sponsored this festival. The 2nd Art Festival (April 30th to May 22nd, 2005), in 23 days, * * * held 109 performances, exhibitions, seminars and other artistic activities, attracting more than 800 million people, with the maximum number reaching nearly 10,000 people a day. From September 22nd to1October 7th, 2005,10,798 Art District held the "Biennale", which also achieved fruitful results. Many tourists come here with an audience of over 60,000. The above activities make the 798 Art District more and more famous, and the turnover of works of art is also increasing day by day.
Since 2004, the Swedish Prime Minister, the Swiss Prime Minister, the German Chancellor (Schroeder), the Austrian Prime Minister, the President of the European Union (Barroso), the Belgian Princess, Mrs. Annan and French President Jacques Chirac have all visited the 798 Art Zone. When Schroeder visited the 798 Art District, he lamented: "Bauhaus architecture decades ago is rare in Germany, but it is really rare in Beijing today!" Belgian princesses spent tens of thousands of dollars on artworks. Foreign leaders who have been to the 798 Art District or their wives all agree that the 798 Art District is very good. I didn't expect China to have such a good place to express active thoughts, which reflected the achievements of China's reform and opening up.
In 2003, 798 Art District was rated as one of the 22 most culturally iconic urban art centers in the world by Time magazine. In the same year, Beijing was selected as the World City of Newsweek 12 for the first time, because the 798 Art District turned an abandoned factory into a fashionable community. In 2004, Beijing was listed as one of the 20 developing cities in the world by Fortune magazine, and the reason for its selection was still 798.
In recent two or three years, more and more people have come to the 798 Art District to visit, observe, study, communicate and buy artworks. According to a sample survey, there were about 450,000 people in 2004 and more than 500,000 people visited this area in 2005. The ratio of overseas tourists to domestic tourists is about 4: 6.