GAZING THE MILL FACTORY

Xi'an Dahua Cotton Mill was the earliest modern textile factory established in Northwest China in the 1930s.

- WANG KEYAO

The factory went through most of the most significant events of the Chinese ancient capital's modern history; its walls are traces and witnesses of the past. The factory had nearly eighty years of production history before it was abandoned in 2008.

From 2011 to 2014, while I was participating in the factory's renovation design process, I had the opportunity to walk through every place and corner of this factory countless times.

Through my eyes of both architect and photographer, I kept on gazing at this vast industrial complex, collected memories, traces of the locus, and snapped brief scenes which would no longer occur during the metamorphosis of the construction site.