New Beijing café offers brews and White Pagoda Temple views

JM Café, White Pagoda Temple, with the historical landmark in the background

(Image credit: Courtesy of B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio)

A new Beijing café and bakery adjacent to the city’s White Pagoda Temple is one of many new ventures among large-scale urban renewal plans for the city’s Xicheng District. Known as a hub of the Chinese capital’s ‘citywalk’ trend – the promotion of walkable routes that tour key historical, cultural and commercial sites – the area is tapping into locals’ appetite for café culture.

B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio introduces JM Café, White Pagoda Temple

JM Café, White Pagoda Temple delivers a delicate balance between the district’s historical heritage and recent commercial and residential developments, ‘establishing a sense of place in a broader urban context’, as described by the project’s architects at B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio. The multi-level space is contemporary in essence, but its modest palette of white and grey complements rather than jars with the storied Tibetan pagoda, the largest in China.

As you approach through an alley, a large stainless-steel façade eventually emerges within an open square – a frosted front mirror reflecting incoming and outgoing guests. The coffee shop offers a semi-outdoor space as well as an indoor dining space on the ground floor, which integrates the kitchen and bakery display area alongside an additional alfresco, stepped seating area at the back. Upstairs, a rooftop terrace is equipped with its own, sculptural white ’pagoda’, a mini geometric counterpoint to its historic neighbour.

The layered, fluid interiors at JM Café, White Pagoda Temple deliver a dialogue between the organic textures of stone and brick and the sleekness of stainless steel. Irregular windows and frosted acrylic light boxes fill the space with brightness, while three original wooden structural columns have been transformed into sculptural forms.

‘We expect that this combination of old and new will not only preserve the depth of the city’s history but also become a part of it, providing it with a new landscape and vitality,’ says B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio.

JM Café, White Pagoda Temple is located at No.30, Dongcha, Gongmenkou, Xicheng District, Beijing, China; @blue_architecturestudio

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Sofia de la Cruz is the Travel Editor at Wallpaper*. A self-declared flâneuse, she feels most inspired when taking the role of a cultural observer – chronicling the essence of cities and remote corners through their nuances, rituals, and people. Her work lives at the intersection of art, design, and culture, often shaped by conversations with the photographers who capture these worlds through their lens.