Tiexi Old Industrial Base Exhibition Hall

Tiexi Old Industrial Base Exhibition Hall

The Tiexi Old Industrial Base Exhibition Hall is a patriotic education base.

The Tiexi Old Industrial Base Exhibition Hall refers to two museums: the Tiexi District Foundry Museum and the Workers' Village Living Museum. The Foundry Museum was reconstructed on the original site of the Shenyang Foundry Factory, while the Workers' Village Living Museum is China’s first ecological museum themed around workers' lives.

The Tiexi District Foundry Museum was converted from the sand-casting workshop of the Shenyang Foundry Factory. A group of “retired” old lathes, worn milling machines, and vintage tractors have been put back to work, together bearing witness to half a century of Shenyang’s industrial hardships and glories.

Workers' Village was China’s earliest and largest residential area for workers. “This place was once a symbol of the working class taking charge in New China, renowned nationwide for having 'electric lights and telephones in every upstairs and downstairs home.' It reflects the lives of workers in China’s largest and most densely concentrated heavy industry and equipment manufacturing base—a microcosm that truly bears witness to the ups and downs of the development of the Northeastern industrial sector and the working class within it.” Constructed in 1952 according to Soviet-designed blueprints for “three-story gable-roof attic-style residences,” the foundation stone was laid on September 23, 1952, on a vast tract of wasteland in western Shenyang. In just two and a half months, by December of that year, 79 buildings were erected, with 3,396 dormitory rooms completed, finishing the first phase of construction and setting a then-record “Shenyang Speed” in the city’s architectural history. In 1954, 13 more buildings were added, followed by 51 more in 1957. Across these three phases, a total of 143 buildings in the Soviet architectural style were completed, forming a massive complex covering an area of 730,000 square meters with a total floor space of over 400,000 square meters.