Thread: 798 Art District in Beijing

One of my favorite places to explore and hangout is the 798 art district in Beijing. The history behind the area is very interesting. A little bit about how it developed.

The Dashanzi factory complex began as an extension of the "Socialist Unification Plan" of military-industrial cooperation between the Soviet Union and the newly formed People's Republic of China. By 1951, 156 "joint factory" projects had been realized under that agreement, part of the Chinese government's first Five-Year Plan. However the People's Liberation Army still had a dire need of modern electronic components, which were produced in only two of the joint factories. The Russians were unwilling to undertake an additional project at the time, and suggested that the Chinese turn to East Germany from which much of the Soviet Union's electronics equipment was imported. So at the request of then-Premier Zhou Enlai, scientists and engineers joined the first Chinese trade delegation to East Germany in 1951, visiting a dozen factories. The project was greenlighted in early 1952 and a Chinese preparatory group was sent to East Berlin to prepare design plans. This project, which was to be the largest by East Germany in China, was then informally known as Project #157.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/798_Art_Zone

Now it is a thriving artistic community which changes it's art displays and statues on a continual basis. I've only been three times, so I'll post some pics from my visits.





Some of these were resized at one point.









These were taken from my iphone I believe, hence the smaller size.
This is Chinese yogurt in the forefront. It is very thick, but they drink it with a straw.


Someone went a little crazy with the Tsingtao.

Haha!


Sorry about the sizes, but I took some with my iphone and some with my regular camera.