GAZING THE MILL FACTORY
Lens Magazine|May 2021
Xi'an Dahua Cotton Mill was the earliest modern textile factory established in Northwest China in the 1930s.
WANG KEYAO
GAZING THE MILL FACTORY

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.

This film's photography series is the result of these three years of intense documentation of the factory.

Gazing the factory through the lenses of my cameras, discovering its past, and documenting its present and transformation was a very personal experience that definitely impacted my architectural approach to renovation and design.

This story is from the May 2021 edition of Lens Magazine.

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This story is from the May 2021 edition of Lens Magazine.

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