Interiors Magazine: Beijing on the Move

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june â „ july 2013

TRAVEL destinations

BEIJINGon theMOVE TEXT: TANYA KÖNIG PHOTOGRAPHY: PETER CARNEY

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ne of the world’s oldest cities is also one of its youngest. China’s capital, Beijing, has seen a lot: It was the seat of the Khitan and the Mongols, and today it is home to the Communist Party of China—as well as a playground for an array of international star

architects. Beijing is a city that is constantly redefining itself.

“The most beautiful thing in Tokyo is McDonald’s,” wrote Andy Warhol

in 1975. “The most beautiful thing in Stockholm is McDonald’s. The most beautiful thing in Florence is McDonald’s. Beijing and Moscow don’t have anything beautiful yet.” In 1992, five years after Warhol’s death, McDonald’s opened its largest branch in Beijing, seating 700. Like so many things in Beijing, this has already passed as well—the building was torn down.

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TRAVEL destinations

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june â „ july 2013

TRAVEL destinations

In its 3,000 years of existence, Beijing has never stood still. The change, however, is happening faster these days. Travelers returning to the city after 20 years, with memories of bicycle jams and blue work overalls everywhere, don’t recognize the city. A new shopping mall?

No problem. For this the government is even willing to tear down a traditional hutong neighborhood of narrow streets and alleys. The Chinese letter for “demolition” (chai) is omnipresent. Houses with their carved lions guarding the door are branded that way—but until they disappear, life goes on within. Many of the typical northern Chinese hutongs are already gone. Their replacements are not always beautiful. Mostly the old is substituted by monotonous housing estates, pragmatic solutions for a city whose population jumped from 16 million to 20 million in the last five years.

But Beijing is not just a depressing concrete jungle. It also dares the big architectural gesture. The building plots of the Chinese capital have in recent years become laboratories for architecture’s global elite. The works of Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid are all located outside the city center, and Beijing’s skyline, with Koolhaas’s CCTV-Building, is located in the southeastern part of the city, known as the Central Business District. Only Paul Andreu’s National Grand Theatre lies in Beijing’s inner ring, right next to the world’s largest square, Tiananmen. Locals simply call the building “the egg.”

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Only a few traditional hutongs have survived in the innermost ring of the city. The Chinese government seems to have realized that it can’t tear all the old single-story houses down—they make up part of Beijing’s character. For it is here that the city is still different from other metropolises like Tokyo, New York and São Paulo. In these small lanes everything’s a bit more downshift: Shopping is done by bike, and entertainment can be found right in front of your door. The men play chess, walk their birds in cages or hang them in a tree or a roof lounge just like the Manchurians did in the past, while the women get together for a chat. Children run through the courtyards, teenagers get their lunch at the nearest snack bar, and on every corner somebody offers a bike repair service. Some hutongs have become tourist attractions, like the Nanluoguxiang, close to the Bell Tower. In this neighborhood visitors find cool hangouts like the Alba, Irresistible Café Sambal, and bars like the Salud, the Modernista and the Wuhao Curated Shop, a platform for young designers. French owner Isabelle Pascal opened this latter space in a wonderful courtyard in 2010. The objects she sells hang not only in the rooms but also in the garden. Starting with only 15 designers, today she works with more than 100 Chinese and international creatives. One of the labels she carries is Ground Zero by Philip Chu, who designed dresses with images of the Great Wall and Lady Gaga on them. Wuhao also features the furniture of Beijing-based architect Naihan Li. Her creations reflect today’s desire for mobility: The wooden pieces of her collection, The Crates, are equipped with sport wheels and can be turned into moving boxes. Designer Pili Wu kept the typical Chinese shape for his Loop Chair but used plastic instead of wood.

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There are also some beautiful stores in the hutongs around the Lama Temple. Lost & Found owns two shops in typical small houses. Here you can buy furniture whose designers have been inspired by China from the

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1950s and 1960s. (All the pieces are “made in China,” but they are by no means cheap products.)

Designers and bars have also settled outside the city center. Sanlitun is one of the city’s most bustling shopping areas. Expats and diplomats mainly live and work here in Beijing’s land of plenty: Hummus, tapas or burgers, in Sanlitun everybody finds what they crave. Amid the many foreign restaurants, Chinese street vendors offer grilled meat. Fine Chinese cuisine can be found at the restaurant Duck de Chine, which serves one of the best Beijing ducks and has won awards, not only for its food but for its interior design, while at the Noodle-Bar, your soup is prepared right in front of you. When the neighborhood’s seniors start their Tai Chi exercises in front of the Armani store, you realize that you can be nowhere else but in China.

Artists and gallery owners have put their singular mark on Beijing, occupying the northeast of the city, and by transforming it they have raised its value. One of these artist colonies is in Caochangdi. This village was to be torn down, but as several galleries have opened here, the demolition has been postponed. Ai Weiwei, China’s most famous contemporary artist, has lived and worked here since 2003 and designed his own workshop, which he calls FAKE. Taking inspiration from siheyuans, traditional hutong courtyard houses, he also designed the nearby Three Shadows Photography Art Centre. The neighborhood is home to taxi drivers, construction workers, artisans and rising young artists, among them Li Gang. The 27-year-old works in an old greenhouse and embodies the new bohemian ethos in Beijing: His gallery doesn’t like his latest work very much—a brown painting on string canvas—but it’s still one of his favorites. “I used to paint beautiful pictures,” Li Gang says.

“Today I create works that you have to look at with your heart and not with your eyes.” n

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