From production landscape to consumption landscape: a study of factory 798 and the Jiuchang arts district inBeijing

Abstract

Urban landscape offers an effective means to improve local capability for regional and global competitions. Along with the growing power of cultural economy, urban landscape with unique identity is increasingly repackaged as venue for cultural, particularly visual, consumption. At the same time, globally oriented cities compete with one another by promoting arts districts. In this context, arts districts have become a global urban phenomenon, contributing significantly to agglomerate cultural consumption activities.

For the past two decades, arts districts in Beijing have gained rapid increase in terms of locations and spatial patterns. However ,they were called ‘artist villages’ which represent their undergrounded statues in the early 1990s.It was not until 2000s that some of them were soon commercialized with international galleries, trendy restaurants, caf?s and night clubs appearing on the scene. These underground settlements were eventually recognized as “creative clusters” by the government. Speculative developers have seized the opportunity to investigate arts districts along with the growing importance of cultural economy.

Compared with western cases, Beijing’s arts districts merely took less than 20 years to shift from its isolated state to a tremendously popular one among local citizens and foreign visitors. Under this specific circumstance, the mechanism that contributes to such transformation has yet to be explored. Knowledge in this field in China is still on the stage of adopting the western model with a strong passion for explaining their economic capability. Whereas, in order to explore the relation between production landscape and consumption landscape, there is need to conduct a critical investigation for arts districts as a cultural spatial product in a social process.

In light of the scenario given above, the study aims to examine the role of place identity in producing Beijing’s arts districts with special focus placed on their branding strategy. The first step of the study is to review the overall development process of Beijing’s arts districts to identify specific background conditions and analyze their development characteristics. In the given urban context, two case studies of Factory 798 and Jiuchang are carried out, which are designed to achieve the research objectives. The two cases display different patterns of development mode. However, according to the study findings, similarities between them can be explored. Based on the distinctive image that the cases create, the study arrives at a conclusion that the role of place identity is evident in forming the characteristic of the consumption pattern. The significance of place identity is recognized for lending its value to Beijing’s arts districts. Further, from production landscape to consumption landscape, the commodification process of arts districts is ineffective without the interplay of social actors.