Jinan Bocuiminghu Textile Culture and Arts Exhibition Hall: Jinan, China

Beijing-based practice YI+MU Design Office has renovated and updated the Fourth National Cotton Factory of Jinan (formerly known as the Chengtong Yarn Mill) into an exhibition, sales, and community centre that celebrates the region’s historical importance in China's textile industry. Once a major hub for cotton and textile production, Jinan - the capital of China’s Shandong Province - was home to a quartet of state-owned factories that were collectively known as the 'Four Golden Flowers'. Lufeng Yarn Mill, the first of the four, was established in 1919 to become the First National Cotton Factory of Jinan.

Two more factories were swiftly set up in the ensuing period of infrastructure development, which eventually concluded with the opening of the Chengtong Yarn Mill as the fourth such facility in 1932. Unfortunately, circumstances in the years since have forced all of the factories to either cease their operations or be torn down.

At present, the remaining structures have become important city landmarks. Having retained much of its original layout, workshops, and style, the Fourth National Cotton Factory now serves as a monument to the rise and gradual decline of textile design and production in this particular locality of northeastern China. The designers mention in an official release, “Even though times have changed and the enterprise has closed, the citizens of Jinan still refer to the structure as the Fourth National Cotton Factory. It carries their many collective memories of the textile industry and strong sentiments toward a bygone era.”

With this in mind, the Jinke Group - a Chinese real estate company - commissioned YI+MU Design Office to revitalise this metaphorical mausoleum to the city’s once-thriving textile industry. They handed them the remains of the factory for an adaptive reuse venture that would create a new commercial sales centre as well as a community activity space, breathing life into the structure’s desolate halls once more. Reflecting on their initial objectives for the venture, YI+MU Design Office relays that "the goal was to retain the traces of history and inject fresh vitality into the new project." While surveying the building, the designers were impressed by the marks of history embedded into its mottled walls and dilapidated spaces, viewing them as a time capsule from the heyday of Jinan’s textile industry, whose optimism and passion has long since been washed away by the tides of time. In their view, the facility’s serrated skylights and high-ceilinged main textile workshop also offered opportunities to merge the old and new, in a fresh example of cultural architecture built upon the foundations of preserved heritage.

"Apart from the function of a sales centre, the venue is also intended to serve multiple other functions built around the theme of textile culture," states YI+MU Design Office. They add, "It is an interactive complex for hosting small exhibitions, opportunities in art education, cultural exchange salons, hands-on learning experiences, DIY workshops, family and community events, a textile library, and a marketplace for cultural and creative products." Through this multifunctionality, the firm hopes to provide residents and tourists with a space “that will help them gain an in-depth understanding of traditional and modern Chinese textile spinning, weaving, and dyeing techniques via a variety of activities.”