798 Art District (Dashanzi): Bauhaus Factories and UCCA

In the Dashanzi area of northeast Chaoyang District, along the route toward Beijing Capital Airport (served directly by Wangjing South Station on Subway Line 14), the 798 Art District occupies a sprawling 1950s military electronics factory complex known originally as Joint Factory 718, of which Sub-factory 798 was the largest unit. Designed by East German architects from Dessau in the functionalist Bauhaus style, the halls were built with north-facing sawtooth vaulted roofs that flood the column-free concrete interiors with soft, shadowless northern daylight while red-stencilled mid-century slogans still line the arched ceiling beams.

When electronics production wound down in the late 1990s and early 2000s, contemporary painters, sculptors and experimental photographers moved into the cavernous brick workshops for their low rents and soaring ceilings. Today 798 has evolved into Beijing's flagship creative quarter, mixing museum-grade international exhibitions with independent design shops, industrial locomotives on the old railway siding (751 D-Park next door) and shaded courtyard cafes.

Anchor museums and galleries to prioritise

Because the pedestrianised factory grid covers more than sixty hectares, start along the main artery of 798 Road and focus on four flagship institutions before wandering the side alleys of Seven Star East and Middle Streets:

• UCCA Center for Contemporary Art: housed inside the vast central sawtooth nave with a renovated glass-and-brick facade by OMA, UCCA stages Beijing's most ambitious museum retrospectives of leading Chinese and international contemporary artists alongside an excellent art bookshop.
• Beijing Commune, Galleria Continua and Tang Contemporary Art: three heavyweight gallery spaces occupying converted industrial halls with rotating solo installations, large-scale sculpture and painting shows.
• 798 Photo Gallery and Three Shadows satellite spaces: dedicated to documentary and fine-art photography exploring modern urban life in China.
• 751 D-Park (Beijing Fashion Design Plaza): walk straight east from 798 into the neighbouring former coal-gas plant, where towering rusted desulphurisation towers, overhead steel pipelines and a retired steam locomotive at Train Street Square frame industrial design studios.

Note that almost all galleries in 798 (including UCCA) are closed on Mondays, and most doors open from mid-morning onwards. For a quieter, studio-focused sequel without the weekend selfie crowds, take a ten-minute ride further northeast to the red-brick compounds of Caochangdi.