I was a few days in Guangzhou this week and it is a very nice city for urban exploration. This time, I did not have much time so I could not go to the place I wanted to visit the most (that’s a secret for now!), but I had the chance to find a beer-themed space called « Party Pier » where there is a very high concentration of bars… Since this project is the result of an urban renewal program, there are still remains of the abandoned Zhujiang Beer Factory, a huge industrial complex on the city river that is currently undergoing a very fast transformation.

This factory was the main production site of Zhujiang Beer, it was built in 1983 and started to produce beer in 1985. At the end of 2014, a plan to move out the production got implemented. It was completed this year: Zhujiang Beer is now located in Nansha. The former factory site is now being redeveloped, just like the other parts of this area, where industrial buildings became bars, night clubs, etc. In our case, even if some parts will be preserved, a large proportion of the demolished factory site will be used to built luxury housing, as the factory is not far from the Guangzhou Tower and land is very expensive on the riverside…

Coming back to the abandoned factory, the 20 very beautiful and shiny beer barrels that attracted my attention at first will unfortunately not be part of a conservation plan, which is quite sad…

On the roofs, one gets a nice view on those beer barrels.

From the rooftop, one also gets to see how large the demolished zone is…

One factory building will be remodeled and is now being repaired.

There are old machines which will be kept as « industrial heritage »…

Then, I went under the beer barrels to discover a complex system of pipes.

But the system of pipes is likely to be altered as well because this level will become a restaurant, that is why it was important to take those pictures.

To conclude, even if the factory’s architecture will change a lot very soon, I found interesting that the beer factory space I visited today would become… a new (smaller size) beer factory! The opening will happen in only one month, and I hope the beer will taste better than the former one!