Photography has become a huge part of our life. With social media people are taking more and more pictures. If you have run out of places to go to, here’s a list!

Red Brick Art Museum

This place is perfect during autumn. With red and orange leaves surrounding the outside it gives a captivating environment. Red bricks surround the outside, while inside is a museum.

Find it:
Cuigezhuangxiang, Hegezhuangcun, Shunbai Road, Chaoyang District
朝阳区崔各庄乡何各庄村马泉营
8457 6669

The Hutongs

If you prefer taking pictures at an older and more traditional place, here you will find what you need. From vintage shops, to local delicacies, they have it all.

Find it:
South Luogu Lane Hutong, Dongcheng District
东城区前圆恩寺胡同 28号

Galaxy SOHO

This building is a perfect fit for a more modern take on Beijing. Even though there are many older landmarks here, it also has very developed ones. With the interior it will feel as if you are entering a dystopian movie. It is also a great hangout place with many shops and restaurants available nearby.

Find it:
2 Nanzhugan Hutong, Dongcheng District
东城区南竹竿胡同2号银河

798 Art Zone

This is a more artistic part of Beijing. Streets here are filled with artwork painted on walls, from graffiti to drawings. Many statues decorate the surroundings, making it the perfect place for photography. For art lovers museums with every kind of painting can be explored. There are a variety of cute cafes, restaurants, and vintage shops. People can even visit pet cafes, with many different animals to be seen.

Find it:
2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District
朝阳区酒仙桥4号798
Tel: 5978 9114

Art Shopping Centre

This is a perfect place to go shopping and to take pictures. The architecture will have you mind-blown. It’s a great place to buy home decor and furniture, too.

Find it:
Chaoyangmen Outer Street No.99, Chaoyang District
朝阳区朝阳门外大街99号1-2层

The Orchard

For people who love nature, this is the place to go. A mesmerizing park with a bridge like the one in a Monet painting is what you will see. It is a great place for afternoon walks. If you get hungry, restaurants are available too.

Find it:
Cuigezhuangxiang Hegezhuangcun, Inside Beikou Guo Park, Chaoyang District
朝阳区何各庄
Tel: 6433 6270

Beijing International Flower Port

A perfect way to spend your summer is to go to a flower park! Here you will find every flower color you can think of. It’s great for taking pictures to post.

Find it:
Yangzhen No.9, Xianhuagang South Road (Baima Road North Side) Beijing International Flower Gangnei, Shunyi District
顺义区园区南路

Luo Hong Art Museum

This is a very popular place. Hundreds of people come here during the weekend to see this splendid atmosphere. Inside, there is a museum with photography. If you’re hungry,  a café and restaurant are available.

Find it:
Yanglin Toll Gate, Zhulin Road, Tianzhu, Shunyi District
顺义区开发街6号

Images: Zhirong Liu, Canva

Few things are as inextricably linked to our daily lives as architecture. Of course we marvel at wonders such as the Louvre, Sistine Chapel, and Forbidden City, yet we seemingly take for granted lesser iconic, but all the more necessary structures such as our homes, offices, schools, favorite restaurants, and shops. These buildings are imbued with the same amount of history and memories as their grander counterparts, staples of a community that make us ponder the adage, “If these walls could talk”!

What’s more, architecture is a truly multidisciplinary art form, including musical rhythms, sculpture, chemistry, physics, and technology. From the palm frond huts of Polynesia to the Grand Palace of Thailand, every building deserves admiration and appreciation.

Le Petit Architect: The Awesome World of Architecture is a new bilingual course, organized and led by three industry professionals, that introduces kids aged 7-12 to some of the world’s most iconic structures through an exploratory approach that focuses on historical background, hands-on activities, and creative expression. It’s a comprehensive overview of landmarks, environments, craftsmanship, and historical styles investigated through inquiry, planning, discussion, and design processes.

As opposed to training a new crop of aspiring architects, this series aims to foster an increased awareness of spatial reasoning and structural projects, while building confidence, creativity, aesthetics, and focus.

Founder, Hwa Wu, who is known for her role in organizing Le Petit Fashion Designer, started Le Petit Architect for her son. “Almost all little kids like to build, and architecture is one of the most inter-disciplinary subjects for children to explore their creativity from beginning to end,” she told beijingkids. “I founded Le Petit courses so children can learn and try diverse aspects of creativity and design,” adding, “Kids need something interesting, challenging, and interactive to have an awesome experience.”

Likewise, Wang Chu, whose daughter Tiffany participated in the last Le Petit Architect class, said, “Supporting children to learn through theme-based learning is awesome. In each project, there is art, science, hands-on design, and a powerful unconstrained style. What a rewarding experience!”

The Awesome World of Architecture is held at La Grande Ville Clubhouse (Yutianxia 6 Garden Road, Shunyi) every Saturday from 2pm-5pm, with the next class being held tomorrow, Jan 11 (see flyer below for more info). Enrollment costs RMB 400, which includes all materials, however there is a special discount for students who register for 10 courses. To register, call Roma at 18612951274 or scan the QR code after the flyer.

Photos: Pixabay, Courtesy of Le Petit Architect

A house where people can climb walls, a swimming pool that won’t get you wet, and a floating hutong house… these are just a few of the optical illusions and visual paradoxes enveloped in Leandro Erlich’s extraordinary art installations.

Even sufferers of vertigo will be able to enjoy Erlich’s playful house-scaling installations

The Argentine artist is currently showing at the CAFA Art Museum with a career-spanning exhibition that includes some of his most iconic installations that have helped garner him fame across the world.

Titled The Confines of the Great Void, the exhibition encapsulates the best of Erlich’s output and methods, creating illusory worlds where everyday objects are given another meaning.

Two of the embodiments of this style can be found in “Architecture” (pictured above), where viewers are allowed to “walk” on the building and see their reflection in the mirror and Changing Room where the viewer enters a labyrinth and interacts with both the space and other visitors.

One of Erlich’s Beijing site-specific pieces is titled Pulled From the Root, a repeating artwork that Erlich tailors to the location he is exhibiting in. It’s only fitting then that the floating house, suspended by a crane outside of the gallery, depicted here takes the appearance of a hutong dwelling, similar to the hundreds you’ll find in Beijing’s winding central alleyways.

We like to think that Erlich’s levitating hutong house highlights the importance of protecting cultural heritage

The installation is, of course, open to infinite interpretation, but we like to think that this is Erlich’s way to highlight the importance of protecting buildings with historical and cultural importance, especially given the rapid demolition and remodeling that Beijing’s treasured hutongs have witnessed over the past decade.

The masterful reproduction of the peeling walls and gray tiles also work to remind us that Erlich’s started out as an architect, the skills from which he also utilizes to play with viewers’ perception via well-placed mirrors, angle-play, and sense of depth.

Interaction is not only encouraged but necessary

There is always a trick to be found somewhere in an Erlich artwork, making the interaction between the viewer and each installation not only encouraged but necessary – the audience is not an outsider but rather a part of the installation itself.

The interaction doesn’t only make Erlich’s exhibitions fun but also leave a lingering impact thanks to the visually confounding images that we’d been presented: reminding us just how easily our perception can be hacked, and how seemingly simple changes can draw a line between reality and imagination.

Leandro Erlich’s Confines of the Great Void is showing Tue-Sun, 9.30am-9pm at CAFA Art Museum until Aug 25. Tickets are RMB 108.

READ: 5 Beijing Wanghongdians to Help You Live Out Your Most Narcissistic Selfie Fantasies

Photos: Art Express, CAFA Art Museum, Duan Duan

Calling all young architecture enthusiasts! This Monday in 751 D Park (798 Arts District), as part of the upcoming Beijing Design Week, there will be a bilingual architecture and city planning workshop catered especially for children between the ages of 7-12.

Inspired by Archikidz! from the Netherlands, Kidscity will be providing youngsters with the opportunity to get familiar with the design process, and how to go from the “idea” stage into actually building it with their peers.

It will be a fun, hands-on day, with visiting architects and volunteers that will be helping along the way to make your child’s architectural fantasies come alive. The day will finally culminate in a big, messy, and colorful group model of Beijing built from scratch. This will go on to be exhibited in 798 during this year’s Beijing Design Week.

In regards to the intent behind this fun and creative event, the organizers stated; “We believe our cities can become better by inspiring and empowering the next generation of thinkers and city-makers. Our kids! It’s important for us that they know that their voices are heard and that they can take action in their cities in the future.”

For sign up and more info on Kidscity scan the QR code above, or add the event organizer on WeChat (seba1988). The event price is RMB 350 and includes a complimentary snack, a construction helmet, and KidsCity t-shirt.

Photos: archinect.com, courtesy of Kidscity

Atelier is opening a brand new class for teenagers and adults to discover and understand what architecture is. In each class, students will discover what makes a building, an architect, and an architectural style.

What’s more, students will learn to understand space and the ways to represent it to create architectural objects and conceptualize their ideas. In this class, students will learn how to show the sense of purpose in a project and how to share it with others as the basis of any creation. They will draw and make models to represent space and create architectural objects.

According to Atelier, the primary target in this introduction to architecture is for students to learn to analyze space, which could be represented as the “vacuum” between solid objects. This vacuum is a living space and makes sense for people that are able to see it, the architects.

Schedule:
Age groups: 12-15, adults (over 16)
Time: Thursdays 5-7pm (for 12-15); Thursdays 5.15-7.15pm (adults)
Location: Sanlitun Campus

About the Teacher 
The class will be taught by Vassilia Pirierros, a French architect who graduated from Ecole Nationale des Arts et Industries d Strasbourg. From 1999 to 2003, she introduced architecture classes to teenagers during cultural summer camps with the Belgian Association Roeland.

She profoundly believes that architects should share their knowledge to enable a better dialogue between architects and inhabitants, erecting together better living spaces, integrating human, social and aesthetic needs.

She speaks French, English, and Chinese.

The original China Science and Technology Museum located on the north Third Ring Road (and not to be confused with the newer facility, which opened last year at the Olympic Forest Park) is set for a radical makeover, courtesy of award-winning architects KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten International.

Dating back to 1988, the museum was the first of its kind in China and featured an iconic geodesic dome that houses an "Astro-Vision Theater," among other attractions. Based on the artistic renderings, the new design looks far more grandiose, and, according to evolo.us, features a "floating structure measuring 133.5m x 133.5m, which rises above the pedestal building at a height of around 20m."

This roof is supported by numerous, extremely slender columns, which, based on the image of a bamboo grove, form a concentrated forest of columns. They create a spatial transition from the public road to the scientific exhibition area

No word yet on what attractions will be housed within, but from the looks of it, you can expect some truly-state of the art exhibitions.

Meanwhile, we recently took a trip back to the new China Science and Technology Museum, located a ten minutes’ walk east of the south gate of the Olympic Forest Park. The museum is easily accessible by metro line 1 and the attractions include four theaters, a cafeteria, and an area especially for kids’ exhibits.

The whole building is nicely air-conditioned, making it a great daylong activity for these hot summer days. Tickets for the main exhibition area are RMB 30 for adults, RMB 20 for students with ID, and include four floors’ worth of attractions, over which the obligatory dinosaur skeleton looms.

The attractions themselves are split into are themed areas ranging from "healthy living and nutrition" to "physics." Familiar tricks, such as pendulums and Rube-Goldberg devices, scatter the floor along with block puzzles and ocean life exhibits. All posters and information are written in both English and Chinese, though the scientific details may escape younger visitors.

Once your kids start to tire of wandering the floors, head back to the ground floor and check out the theaters. The Beijing Science and Technology Museum boasts an impressive array of four cinemas: the Dome Screen, 4D Cinema, IMAX Cinema and 3D Motion Cinema. The Dome Screen is reminiscent of a planetarium, with shows such as “Cosmic Voyage” and “Journey to the Stars.” Meanwhile, the 4D Cinema has cute animated films such as “Turtle Vision,” which should appeal especially to younger kids, while the IMAX theater has international films such as “The Ultimate Wave,” a film about Tahiti’s surf scene dubbed smoothly over into Chinese.

Finally, the 3D Motion Cinema should be a good choice for elementary to middle-schoolers, incorporating movement and special effects into selections such as the “Extreme Log Ride 3D.”

The museum has a number of dining options featuring both basic Western options – i.e. hamburgers and hot dogs – and Chinese selections consisting of the standard set meals (tao can, 套餐）with servings of rice, veggies and meat, and a variety of drinks. Prices for these tend to fall in the RMB 20 range for a meal. More options are available in the cafeteria area downstairs, which has both a greater variety of cheaper set meals and a Pizza Company buffet for RMB 49.

China Science and Technology Museum. 中国科技馆
2 Beichen Donglu (ten minutes east of the south gate of the Olympic Forest Park). Chaoyang District. (5904 1000) 朝阳区北辰东路5号

Garden School plans to develop a 45,000-square-meter public middle school in Beijing designed by OPEN architecture. There will be a park and rooftop garden.

"The building form is an organic, free-flowing, root-like structure. Wide interior and exterior corridors serve as large social spaces."

Everything is scheduled to be completed in 2014. It’s definitely an interesting direction and prospect for a Chinese school.

For more info, check Architectural Record here.