798 Art District (7): Gallery Architecture

There are over 100 galleries/exhibition spaces listed on the official 798 guide map (see their website here) and trying to figure out which ones we visited is twisting my brain.  The entire area grew out of a deserted factory/warehouse district, so the skeleton of the structures in the neighborhood are largely old brick and concrete shells.  The galleries, studios and residences that sprang from these include both low-end/cobbled together rooms and higher end well-designed structures.

The first gallery here is one of the newer ones, the Xin Dong Cheng Space for Contemporary Art.  It is an open interior with a modern poured concrete shell.

(This is also the courtyard where the Red Tree House and the two statues looking up are located).

The pattern of lights across the ceiling of the main room is an art installation on its own.




























It also features and unusual egg/cave-live entrance and a glassed in tree that was preserved during the building.   In another neighborhood we watched a crew building a structure around an existing tree in order to preserve and showcase it, much like this one.  Very thoughtful.

I'm not sure if you are supposed to, but we went inside to visit the tree! :)

The second gallery has kept for of its original structure, and rightly so.  Likely a factory room or assembly room of some kind, it features many skylight windows and an unusually shaped roof in a kind of wave pattern.  It reminds me a bit of an airplane hangar.

Inside they have built a glass box to house the staircase that leads to a small second floor gallery as well as a ground floor shop and cafe.  The open glass and center handrail of the stairs would likely not fly in the US due to code issues, but it is beautiful, if a bit vertigo inducing ;)

On the whole it seems that the architecture in this area is not bound by many rules, nor are they held to strict codes, which allows for more freedom and imagination (an a few safety violations ;).  It may not be everyone's taste, but I found it quite fascinating.