Lady’s 798 Art District Guide

The 798 Art District in Beijing just might be my new favorite place in the world. Tucked away in the northeastern corner of the city, the 798 Art Zone is a former factory complex that is now packed with contemporary art galleries, chic cafes, boutiques, and exhibition spaces. 

798 Art District

Interspersed among the converted warehouses and modern buildings are massive sculptures and public art displays, making every street in the 798 Art District a surprise for the visitor.

Visiting the 798 Art District in Beijing

With one day in Beijing between Ulaanbaatar and London, I took the advice of my cousin, who works at an architecture firm in New York City, and went with three friends to explore the 798 Art District.

We arrived in the late afternoon under a slow drizzle, which meant we had the zone almost all to ourselves.

Hopping from art galleries to ceramics shops to bookstores and plazas, we explored as much of the 798 Art District as we could.

Giant red dinosaurs in cages gave way to cavernous warehouses full of thick red paintings. An exhibition on Socialist Realism from North Korea transitioned into a courtyard full of menacing clay wolves.

Art galleries featuring delicate porcelain tea sets stood side-by-side with larger-than-life soldier sculptures as the aroma of sweet food emanated from nearby cafes.

It was amazing to see how much the 798 Art District had evolved from its previous life as a manufacturing district.

Nanluoguxiang in Beijing

The sky was almost dark by the time we finished exploring the 798 Art Zone, so we took a taxi to the hutong of Nanluoguxiang in Beijing.

A narrow street lined with traditional low-rise buildings, the hutong took us several centuries back in time. A world away from the contemporary art of the 798 Art District, this was old Beijing at its historical finest.

But not everything about Nanluoguxiang was old. In fact, most of the buildings housed fashionable boutiques, bars, and restaurants. The hutong was alive with shoppers, diners, and denizens of the local watering holes.

We stopped at a Chinese restaurant for dinner, where we enjoyed an excellent meal of black pepper beef and mustard greens.

From there we strolled north along the hutong, stopping at a few shops along the way.

At one point we came across fried scorpions for sale at a street food vendor’s window. None of us was adventurous enough to try them, but we did take a few photos.

At the end of the hutong we found a taxi to take us back to our hotel, the Aloft Hotel in Haidian.

As we drove by the Forbidden City, I couldn’t help but think of all of the amazing places I had seen both that evening and the week prior.

And yet there were still so many I didn’t have time for. If I had known how much I would like Beijing and the 798 Art District, I would’ve booked a few extra days in China.

Someday I’ll return to see the rest, and I can’t wait to see how much both the old and new parts of Beijing evolve in the interim.

This post appeared in the Lonely Planet Blogsherpa travel carnival “Favourite Places” on Sophie’s World.

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