Every summer, since the days of Mao Zedong, the leaders of China's Communist party have decamped to the coastal resort of Beidaihe to debate the country's future from the comfort of luxurious seaside villas hidden behind high walls. Four hours' drive from the distractions of Beijing, it has been a perfect place to escape the capital's stifling heat, take in the sea air, and conduct secretive conclaves in heavily guarded compounds.
But in recent years, the region has been attracting visitors of a very different kind. On a chilly morning, just a little way south along the coast, the windswept beach is teeming with style-conscious twentysomethings. Crowds of young tourists, wrapped in thick down coats, queue up to take photos in sub-zero temperatures - not next to statues of Mao, but in front of striking works of contemporary architecture.
Some pose on the steps of a pitch-roofed white chapel, which stands like a piece of crisply folded origami, raised on slender columns above the sand. Some clamber on the roof of an art gallery that emerges from a sand dune. Others queue up for a peek inside a bunker-like library on the beach. Electric buggies glide to and fro, shuttling visitors from hotels nearby.
Aranya is a surreal gated community that has turned this remote stretch of coastline into an unlikely mecca for China's fashionable gen Z. Over the past few years, the former site of a failed property development has been transformed into a showcase for China's top young architects, attracting more than 1.5 million visitors a year.
"They say the internet saved Aranya," says Qing Feng, a professor of architecture at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "Architects now feel they have to have a project here to prove their status. Many developers are trying to copy the model. There is nothing like it anywhere in China."
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