Keep going past the galleries and cafes to D-Park west of 798 and you’ll intersect with a raised walkway offering remarkable views of industrial chimneys, gargantuan metal edificies and other defunct utilitarian architecture – the business end of what was collectively called 718 Joint Factory. The scale of it all is bewildering, looking like the ultimate steampunk movie set.
D-Park, together with 798, contains what was the gold standard of communist industrial might in China from 1957 when it was built (with East German expertise) until Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms in the 1980s. The whole zone was destined for demolition in the mid-noughties, to be turned into a technology park. Fortunately, public outcry and international involvement saved the site and earned preservation orders for the old industrial structures.
