Shipyard retains its historical glory

Adapted for public use

"This is the original site of the shipbuilding arsenal," says Li Yifeng, a researcher at the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Culture Research Association. That history is central to how the area has been developed.

Today, surviving workshops and industrial buildings have been restored and adapted into museums, exhibitions, performances, and other public uses. The 116-hectare Foochow Arsenal cultural area brings together the surviving grounds of the former shipyard and several sites connected to its history, including the Museum of Foochow Arsenal 1866, the Majiang Naval Battle Memorial Hall and Luoxing Pagoda Park.

At the museum, visitors encounter ship models, historical objects and digital displays. A screen allows them to explore more than 300 items from the collection, while multimedia presentations re-create scenes from the history of the Foochow Arsenal.

But the museum does not end at its doors.

"We call it a 'big museum'," says Lin Junjie, head of the industrial development department of the Fujian shipbuilding culture management committee.

"Every building and workshop here is itself a cultural relic and historical site."

The idea is evident at the iron-rib factory, one of the former Foochow Arsenal's surviving workshops. Originally an ironworking workshop, it was converted into an iron-rib factory in 1876 to produce ship components such as ribs and keels. Rebuilt as a steel-frame workshop in 1898, it is regarded as one of China's earliest modern Western-style steel-frame factory buildings. It later became a site for early aircraft manufacturing.

Today, its surviving steel framework forms the centerpiece of an exhibition on shipbuilding and aviation, making the former workshop itself part of the museum experience.