In order to build Beijing's first regional comprehensive urban renewal demonstration area, Fangzhuang urban renewal planning is positioned as "elegant Fangzhuang, warm life", and is planned as a whole from three aspects: function, business format and vitality, focusing on warming people's hearts and hearts.
Outlook Oriental Weekly reporter Zhou Lina editor Gao Xuemei.
On January 22, 2024, Liu Ying, chairman of the Li Keran Art Association, explained the exhibition to the volunteers of the Keran Art Center (photo by Yang Lin).
The pure white façade of the building, the low red brick wall, and the floor-to-ceiling glass windows allow adults, the elderly, and children to read quietly in the reading area, or chat softly in the café ......At the end of 2023, a more than 10-year-old unfinished building in Fangzhuang Street, Fengtai District, Beijing will be transformed into a Fangzhuang (Fangzhuang Culture and Art Center), where nearby residents can visit the Joint Bookstore at their doorstep, see the famous painting "Ten Thousand Mountains Are Red" by landscape painting master Li Keran, and listen to the live performance of the famous violinist Lu Siqing and the Meijie young artist team.
There is a comprehensive cultural and art center right on your doorstep, which is so convenient! Mu Jianping, an art market critic who lives in Fangzhuang, told Oriental Outlook that before the opening of Yifang Bookstore, he had to go to the National Art Museum of China once a week, and now the second floor of Yifang Bookstore is the Ke Art Center hosted by Li Keran's Art Association, which holds exhibitions of famous works all year round.
Jiang Yujiao, a consultant for the health of the building's indoor environment, brings her four-year-old son to a bookstore almost every day, "The bookstore has a wide range of activities, rich content, low threshold, and is friendly to all ages. Every day, the children read books in the children's reading area or participate in physical fitness classes, and the adults and children are very happy. ”
The innovation of public cultural space has a "direct heating" effect on enhancing the ability of urban fine governance and continuously improving the happiness of citizens. The creation and operation of public cultural space is faced with the challenge of balancing business and public welfare, how to ensure that it gives full play to the social function of culture and art through institutional innovation? Yifang Shuzhuang handed over the answer sheet with practice.
Create a demonstration area.
Urban renewal is not about changing new clothes, but about functionally changing from the inside out. Zheng Shanwen, deputy director of the Department of Urban Planning of Beijing University of Technology and executive secretary general of Fangzhuang Urban Renewal Alliance, told Oriental Outlook that the Fangzhuang urban renewal project has been researched since the beginning of 2021, and for this purpose, he has also served as the assistant director of the Fangzhuang Sub-district Office.
Fangzhuang Street is located between the second and third ring roads in the southeast of Beijing, with a total area of 314 square kilometers with a permanent population of 750,000 people, and residential buildings account for 77% of the existing building scale. According to Zheng Shanwen, in the first ten years of the last century, Fangzhuang was the first batch of residential areas in Beijing to sell commercial housing to individuals, and it was synonymous with "rich area" at that time.
However, after 40 years of wind and frost, the community has become "old", which is mainly manifested in the relatively traditional business format of the business district, the lack of vitality, the lack of cultural and sports facilities, and the urgent need to upgrade.
There are many cultural people in Fangzhuang, but there are no cultural facilities. Mu Jianping recalled that he often saw the painting master Wu Guanzhong going to the Fangzhuang Post Office to send things, and the famous lyricist Qiao Yu buying vegetables at the Fangzhuang Market, but there was a lack of a bookstore at the doorstep.
Through the analysis of the call content of 12345 citizen service**, it is known that Fangzhuang residents have a high demand for commercial formats, culture and sports. Based on the fact that Fangzhuang is a large-scale comprehensive living area focusing on residence, in order to build Beijing's first regional comprehensive urban renewal demonstration area, Fangzhuang's urban renewal planning is positioned as "elegant Fangzhuang, warm life", and is planned as a whole from three aspects: function, business format and vitality, focusing on warming people's hearts and hearts.
Take care of the "spiritual home".
How to balance service cost and service quality is the biggest problem faced by Yifang Bookstore in the early stage of operation. Losses in the bookstore industry are the norm, and through measures such as actuarial costs, reducing personnel, improving service reach, holding high-quality events, introducing new cultural and creative products, and carefully selecting books, the bookstore on the first floor has achieved a balance of revenue.
The introduction of international cultural resources from the municipal level into community cultural centers is a new way for Beijing to explore in urban renewal and the provision of cultural public services for residents. High-quality and multi-dimensional cultural supply services make Fangzhuang a "fire in winter". In the more than three months since its opening, Yifang Bookstore has held more than 60 high-quality cultural activities, driving cultural consumption of one million yuan, and the bookstore alone has served more than 70,000 readers. Yifang Shuzhuang not only warmed the residents of Fangzhuang, but also "went out of the circle" and became an Internet celebrity check-in point on the social ** platform.
The residents of Fangzhuang take great care of the "spiritual home" of this community. Mu Jianping held up the album "Hutongs in Beijing" he just bought and said: "Although e-commerce is cheaper than physical bookstores, there is a feeling of shopping here. We all joined the WeChat group of the Yifang Book Club, and we want to support it to survive and leave the house to visit. ”
On the first day of the bookstore's opening, bibliophile Kong Zhen used a small cart to pull away books worth more than 7,000 yuan, and within three months, he bought nearly 30,000 yuan of books. "I have lived in Fangzhuang for more than 20 years, and it is convenient and well-equipped, and now the urban renewal has upgraded the public cultural space, and I like it even more. Kong Zhen told "Outlook Oriental Weekly".
Citizens need not only tall public cultural places, but also small and beautiful cultural and art centers at their doorsteps. Jiang Yujiao said: "Being able to get close to high-level culture and art with the least time cost not only makes it convenient for residents, but also reduces transportation costs and carbon emissions. ”
Innovate operating models.
Cultural renewal is the core content of urban renewal and an important measure to meet the people's yearning for a better life. The construction of a new type of public cultural space in the context of urban renewal is conducive to revitalizing urban assets, improving the utilization efficiency of old space, activating the endogenous power of regional cultural industry ecological development, and enhancing the attraction of external cultural industry talents and entrepreneurs. Peng Yanshu, chairman of the board of directors of Fangshuzhuang Culture and Art, told Oriental Weekly.
According to Peng Yanshu, the operation of the Yifang Shuzhuang project is jointly operated by a mixed-ownership company formed by the state-owned enterprise Fengtai Cultural Tourism Group and the introduction of market-oriented funds.
This kind of cultural renewal project is generally operated by public institutions, and a small part is entrusted to a third party, and it is very rare for a joint venture company to operate it.
This is the biggest innovation of the project, which can not only reduce the pressure of financial investment and staffing, but also ensure public welfare while being recognized by the market, taking into account social and economic benefits. Peng Yanshu said.
At the end of January, the office of Li Keran Art Association was relocated from the Henderson Center in Beijing's East Second Ring Road to Yifang Bookstore. Liu Ying, chairman of the association, told Oriental Outlook Weekly: "Chinese painting is a special symbol of Chinese culture, and it is our urgent mission for classic culture to enter the social life of the people." This relocation has promoted a change in the direction of the work of the Association, which used to focus on academic research and now takes into account the popularization of art and culture. ”
In addition to the favorable time and location, the people of Fangzhuang also gave Liu Ying an unexpected touch. Two and a half hours of boring art history lectures, and no one left early; None of the books and albums in the exhibition hall have been lost ......She plans to take out the classic collection and cooperate with other partners to promote immersive aesthetic education and create a model of grassroots culture in Beijing's community.
The cultural charm and aesthetic atmosphere of the city cannot be achieved overnight, and the impact of culture on economic development and urban ecological creation is far-reaching, which requires continuous investment and support. Peng Yanshu believes that in the context of urban renewal, the construction of a new type of public cultural space requires efforts at both ends of the first behavior and market behavior, adhering to the concept of openness and win-win, and the close connection between the operating body and the market partner, forming a cultural industry ecology of a virtuous cycle of space, industry, creation and service, and promoting the high-quality development of the city with the endogenous power of culture.