后湖国际艺术区

Houhu Lake International Art Zone lies in Yuelu District, Changsha, at No. 15 Du Jiatang in Houhu village, between Yuelu Mountain and the Xiang River. It is bounded by Xiaoxiang Avenue to the east, Houhu Road to the west, Xinjiang Road to the south and Fubuhe Road to the north, and is surrounded by Central South University, Hunan University and Hunan Normal University. The lake covers about 600 mu (40 hectares) within a planned art zone of 2,110 mu (141 hectares). The site was enclosed as a fishery in the late 1950s and by the mid-1990s had become central China's largest cluster of art-training schools; pollution and village sprawl later pushed artists away. From May 2017 the district carried out a comprehensive clean-up: demolishing illegal structures, intercepting sewage and treating the lake, while lakeside houses were renovated into white-walled studios and galleries. The park fully opened on 9 December 2018. Its core spaces include the Scaffold Art Museum, the Masters' Island and the Houhu Design and Creative Park. More than a hundred artists and designers, among them Zhu Xunde and Wang Yuewen, have settled here, creating an open district that combines original painting, design, exhibition, trading, dining and leisure. It is often called Changsha's "little Gulangyu".