Every summer since the days of Mao Zedong, leaders of the Chinese Communist Party have retreated to the seaside resort of Beidaihe to discuss the country’s future in the comfort of luxury seaside villas hidden behind high walls. A four-hour drive from the distractions of Beijing, it was the perfect place to escape the capital’s stifling heat, breathe in the sea air and hold secret meetings in heavily guarded buildings in between refreshing dips.
However, in recent years, the region has attracted the attention of many different types of visitors. On a cool morning, a little further south along the coast, the windswept beach is crowded with stylish twenty-somethings. Crowds of young tourists clad in thick down coats line up to take photos in sub-zero temperatures; Not next to statues of Mao, but in front of striking works of contemporary architecture.
After these buildings went viral, it became a place of pilgrimage. Architects now think they should build a project here
Some pose on the steps of the white-roofed chapel, which rises on slender pillars above the sand, looking like a crisply folded origami piece. Some perch on swings suspended from a curved frame or climb onto the roof of an art gallery emerging from the dune. Others line up to browse the beachside bunker-like library. Electric cars glide back and forth, ferrying visitors from nearby hotels to these stunning seaside structures.
Welcome to Aranya, a surreal gated community that has transformed this remote coastline into an unlikely mecca for China’s fashionable Generation Z. The area was once home to a failed real estate development project but has become a shopping destination in the last few years. The showcase of China’s best young architects boasts a collection of experimental galleries, cafés and meditative chapels, and attracts more than 1.5 million visitors a year thanks to the strong pull of social media.
“They say the Internet saved Aranya,” says Qing Feng, an architecture professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “These buildings became places of pilgrimage after going viral. Architects now think they need to have a project here to prove their status. Many developers try to copy the model. “There’s nothing like it anywhere in China.”
Aranya first rose to online fame in 2015, when a video of the seaside library reached over 600 million views, giving the library “wanghong” (internet celebrity) status overnight. The sight of this jewel-like reading room, seemingly stranded on a beach in the middle of nowhere, attracted the attention of a generation of exhausted young urbanites. Dubbed “the world’s loneliest library,” it’s a dreamlike place where light filters through curved openings in raw concrete walls, where sloping wooden seating offers readers grandstand views of the ocean horizon framed by glass block walls. Designed by Beijing-based Vector Architects as a brutalist homage to Le Corbusier, it is a place to escape the stress of city life and a 24/7 online existence with the primitive novelty of a physical book (unusually for China, phones are banned inside). ).
“The library has become a spiritual symbol,” says young architectural designer and social media phenomenon Athena Li, who shares her visits to Aranya with her millions of followers. “It captured the imagination of those longing for a slower, more ritualistic lifestyle, seeking a place to be alone in nature, and finding fulfillment in non-materialistic cultural activities, away from the noise and chaos of the city.”
The online craze has taken designers by surprise. “We never thought it would be this popular,” says Vector’s Dong Gong, who also designed the neighboring chapel. “But in practice it saved the whole development.”
Before Dong arrived, the area was home to a troubled real estate development all too familiar with China’s recent post-boom years. The original plan, which was partially built, was for a community of Florida-style Spanish revival villas arranged around a golf course. However, it began to collapse when the Chinese government imposed bans on golf as part of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crackdown; golf courses have become a favorite place for crooked cadres to broker dodgy deals.
Ma Yin, who works for the developer, stepped in to purchase the project in 2013 and set about transforming it into a place where “life could be more beautiful,” as the Aranya slogan puts it. She took its name from the Sanskrit word for wilderness and hired Kenya Hara, the branding mastermind behind Muji, to come up with a visual identity for she. Everything from the buildings to the staff uniforms is in white and pale gray tones, giving the place a cult atmosphere. “Together we will create new intimate relationships based on culture and values,” says the Aranya manifesto. “The quest for wisdom, self-realization and, above all, love.”
Ma was keen to differentiate the project from other housing projects. He saw a gap in China’s stagnant real estate market in addressing the emotional needs of what became known as the “liar” generation, a generation that rejected social pressures to overwork and overachieve. Aranya will be an antidote to the chaos and anonymity of city life, with a strong emphasis on community and fun. Residents are encouraged to eat in communal canteens and socialize in organized hobby groups, from dog walking to flower arranging; This gives it the feel of a luxury, high-security holiday camp, where license plates are scanned at checkpoints on arrival.
The final phase, which brings the 220-hectare project to almost 10,000 homes, takes the form of a walkable European-style neighborhood of mid-rise apartment blocks flanking public squares. Around the yacht marina, there will be a basketball court and cable surfing court, as well as Asia’s largest skateboard park. “Aesthetics are the new language,” says the construction hoarder. “Style has its own power.”
It turned out to be much more powerful than they could have imagined. Properties here sell for four times the local average and are marketed to affluent Beijingers looking for a weekend home or a retirement spot for their parents, and they can easily be rented from Aranya’s dedicated app (optional butler service). Three other Aranya projects are currently under construction, with sites ranging from the mountains near the Great Wall to a lakeside community near Guangzhou, each punctuated by their own thoughtful architectural follies and curated lifestyles.
“Our generation cares about beauty and service,” says Ma’s young design assistant, walking past a design boutique curated by Wallpaper magazine. “Our parents worked hard to build modern China, but we are not fighting the same struggle. “We are all looking for spiritual and emotional comfort.”
In the seaside chapel, pipe music and scented candle smoke fill the air while quiet visitors sit on pews overlooking the ocean through a large window. There are no Christian symbols in sight: the cross on the building’s roof was recently removed, as overt religious iconography is prohibited in China. However, the authorities were unusually lenient, considering that these buildings were built illegally on a public beach. “The local authorities were going to tear them down,” one insider told me. “But then they realized how beneficial it is for the region; tax revenue from Aranya is now the second highest in the region.”
Construction orders continue apace as crowds flock here for regular ticketed events, from classical concerts to electronic music festivals and sporting events. Wandering through the eerily clean streets feels like leafing through the pages of a glossy architecture magazine. Projects include a dog-themed hotel by Atelier GOM, an art gallery by Neri&Hu, a theater by TAO, and a recording studio by Xu Tiantian. Vector recently completed the Chapel of Music, an uncanny acoustic space where ethereal sounds are channeled through the ceiling into a pivotal cylindrical listening chamber from a secret floor above. The audience, like some high council of design priests, lounges on the circular concrete bench below and indulges in aesthetic-spiritual reverie.
One of the most popular attractions is the Dune art museum, run by Beijing-based UCCA, an internationally respected contemporary art institution. It is located within a network of concrete caves. Entering through a curved tunnel, visitors find themselves inside interconnected bubbles where curved walls are covered with intricate traces of wooden moldings and installations hang from the ceiling. “It was built by local boat builders and barrel makers,” says Li Hu of Open Architecture. “We were going to finish the interior with smooth plaster, but we decided to preserve the raw beauty of the craft. “This shows that this was not done by robots or a 3D printer, but was done by local people with pleasure and by hand.” In keeping with Aranya’s Ruskin sensibilities, the craftsman’s hand is always present.
Li says the region has flourished during the pandemic. “It was like a shelter. While other cities were under lockdown, Aranya continued with cultural events, poetry readings and film festivals. “It was like a fairytale paradise.”
Louis Vuitton staged a star-studded fashion show here in 2021, followed by Chanel and Marni, and the following year Valentino arrived and painted the chapel bright pink as the catwalk backdrop. Since then, luxury brands have begun to compete more diligently with beachside launches. While Porsche displays its sand-blasted cars message-in-a-bottle style, LV’s latest show saw models parading among giant sand sculptures.
Old and new China collide in Beidaihe, which to this day remains a stronghold of the patriotic Communist party. A group of young Aranya visitors, carrying designer shopping bags, pass a group of elderly women performing coordinated dances to shrill nationalist songs in the forecourt of the train station. Here the banners do not advertise lifestyle concepts in beige tones, but exhort citizens in bright red characters: “United tightly with one heart and one mind, work hard and move forward boldly!”