Beijing 798 Art Zone

The Beijing 798 Art Zone, named after the 798 factory built in the 1950s, is located in the northeast corner of Beijing city. The area is also known as the Dashanzi Art District (DAD) as it sits in Dashanzi zone. The art zone covers an area of 0.6 square kilometers, with Jiuxianqiao Road to the west, Beijing-Baotou railway to the east, Jiangtai Road to the south, and Jiuxianqiao Road North to the north. The Beijing 798 Art Zone, characterized by modern art, has become the center of exhibition for Chinese culture and art, as well as the focal point of world-famous cultural and creative industries.

The area occupied by Beijing 798 Art Zone was once the location of the 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 style. Attracted by ordered design, convenient traffic, and unique 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, and more. 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 Beijing 798 Art Zone.

Currently, Beijing 798 Art Zone has attracted a great deal of attention from the media at home and abroad, and has become the new regional mark of Beijing. Galleries, design studios, art exhibits, artists' studios, fashionable shops, restaurants, and bars now assemble here. By January 2008, over 400 cultural organizations from France, Italy, Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other countries and regions have settled down in the zone.

Nowadays, Beijing 798 Art Zone frequently holds important international art exhibitions and art activities, as well as fashion shows. In order to expand the reputation and influence of the art zone and to promote the development of modern art, the zone has held the Beijing 798 Art Festival (from the end of April to the end of May) every year since 2006. Another festival is the Beijing 798 Creative Art Festival (from the end of September to the end of October). The two festivals focus on exhibition and communication of culture and art.

Many worldwide political figures, movie stars, and social celebrities have not been able to resist the art zone's attraction and have come to pay a visit. Since 2004, Prime Ministers from Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria, ex-Prime Minister from Germany (Schroeder), the President of the European Union (Barroso), the daughter of Belgium's Prime Minister, President of the IOC Rogge, and the Belgium Crown Prince have all come here.