Chongqing, a municipality in southwest China, is often associated with hot weather and spicy hot pot as well as “a train through the 19-storey building” (Liziba Station). However, this city, which is crisscrossed by mountains and cities, is integrating art and culture into the rapid development of the city in recent years at a unique pace, attracting a group of young creators who love art, design, media and brand to stay here.

One of the most fascinating things about any place in the world that can be called a city of culture is its spiritual contents, like the rebellion of Berlin and the melancholy of Paris. In mainland China, Shanghai and Beijing have also been building a new era of art temples through a number of international exchange programmes and efforts to spread the country’s traditional arts and cultures. However, when it comes to the spiritual contents, as a sign of spirit, the propaganda slogans issued by these two cities are “mutual trust, mutual benefit” and “patriotism, innovation”. This view seems to be taken for granted in this country that emphasises economic development. Therefore, I am looking forward to this trip to Chongqing, where I can personally feel the different cultural atmospheres in southwest China and have a new perspective on the development direction of cities in mainland China.

On the first day, I visited the Eling Testbed 2 in Chongqing. This large cultural and creative space was officially opened to the public in the middle of 2017, which was once a note printing factory of central bank in China’s Republican Era. Now it has become a comprehensive space integrating cultural and creative store, exhibition space, restaurant and snack street. Everywhere in this old factory makes people recall the old times. Each building is about four to five storeys high, and each floor is occupied by different cultural brands. On the top floor, there is a coffee shop themed on the movie I belonged to you. Visitors and photography enthusiasts are excited to take pictures and go shopping in these “check-in” places. The whole reconstruction project of the Testbed 2 was carried out in Chongqing by the well-known British architect Prof. Will Alsop and his team. They first created Testbed 1 in London and then applied it to Chongqing based on their successful experiences at that time, so it was named Testbed 2 here.

This new cultural landmark of Chongqing not only displays many interesting cultural and creative products, but also develops “eyeball economy” incisively and vividly. In the network of sharing and giving likes, to get the greatest click rates and attentions is to take a good picture. The space design of the whole Testbed 2 is full of the flavour of China’s Republican Era, as if entering the film set. “Check-in places” are not necessary to have a spectacle of the world and a large subject to shoot, but to present the scenes with the breath of life in an “artistic way”. When the space design has helped you prepare everything, you just need to pick up the camera and press the shutter.

The second day of the trip, under the recommendation of friends, I went to the most beautiful bookstore Zhongshuge that combines elements of Bayu culture and innovatively delineates the “hometown” in Chongqing people’s hearts. In recent years, the operation of physical bookstores has become more and more difficult. Even Shanghai Jifeng bookstore, which advocates freedom of thoughts, ended its operation in 2018. It means physical bookstore simply cannot make money from book sales. So there have been different types of bookstore to explore new profit model. Zhongshuge bookstore is the more outstanding one among them. The space design with the concept of shan zhai (translation: mountain city) has become a highlight, making the bookstore become a cultural landmark as popular as a tourist attraction and successfully attracting a large number of visitors. With the label of “popular place for Internet celebrity”, the bookshop also characterises itself as a combination of culture and fashion. It attracts passenger flow first, and then passes the culture of reading to them. However, as far as I can see, 90 percent of the people were taking photos with cameras there. Only a few readers pitifully escaped from the large public space and went to the coffee shop in the bookstore to order a cup of coffee, and then they could peacefully settle down to read books.

Leaving Zhongshuge bookstore, I took the subway and looked at the scenery on both sides of the Yangtze River Bridge, and sighed that there should be a lot of cultural consumption cities like Chongqing that has quietly became a “check-in city”. City serves as a mirror for us to see the possibility of different cultural visions. Culture can indeed change our environments, but going back to the spiritual contents of a city I talked about at the beginning of this article, I haven’t got any answers yet.