Workers' Village Life Museum

Workers' Village Life Museum

The Shenyang Workers' Village Life Museum is located at No. 2 Zangan Street, Tiexi District. It is semi-enclosed by seven workers' dormitory buildings constructed in the 1950s, and includes a courtyard, the former site of Workers' Village dormitories, the Tiexi Figures Museum, the Model Workers Activity Center, an art gallery, and more, covering a total area of 15,000 square meters. Among them, the “Workers' Village Life Museum” reconstructs the living scenes of former residents across three floors in the dormitory buildings, arranged chronologically. It preserves the collective memories of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s through authentic objects, photos, and written descriptions from those eras, leaving a deep and nostalgic impression.

Workers' Village is currently the largest preserved workers' residential complex in China. In September 1952, following Soviet-designed blueprints for “three-story gabled and attic-style residences,” Shenyang invested 12 million yuan to build the Workers' Village housing complex—79 buildings with 3,396 dormitory units. It was once a symbol of the working class taking charge in New China, famously known nationwide for having “upstairs and downstairs, electric lights and telephones.” The first residents of Workers' Village were mostly employees of large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, model workers, senior intellectuals, and highly skilled technicians.

The exhibition hall primarily introduces the initial overview of Tiexi Workers' Village, the first workers' residential area established during the rise of the People’s Republic. The exhibits include woodworking tools, masonry tools, cement, and sand used in the construction of Workers' Village. There are also door curtains made from calendar paper in the 1980s, various handkerchiefs collected by resident Zheng Yuhong, and ration coupons from the planned economy era.

It authentically bears witness to the history of Northeastern industrial development and the everyday lives of the working class throughout that process. After screening over 300 Workers' Village families, the Workers' Village Life Museum has restored the homes of 13 families from different historical periods, displaying more than 200 vintage photographs and over 5,000 artifacts, recreating a microcosm of workers’ lives spanning nearly half a century starting from the 1950s.