The power and the glory : the adaptive reuse of Wuxianmen Power Plant as Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Museum

Abstract

Guangzhou is located in southern China. It is a city with a history of more than 2000 years. There is the Pearl River that crosses the city, the south is flat, the north and west are hills, and the east is a port. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Guangzhou had developed into an important foreign trade port city. After the Opium War, Guangzhou became one of the Chinese trading cities opened to the outside world. This was a semi-feudal and semi-colonial period. A large number of Western buildings appeared in the city, and at the same time Western art and technology were being imported into China. Wuxianmen Power Plant is one of the representative buildings of this period. Wuxianmen Power Plant is the first thermal power plant in Guangzhou’s history. It was originally designed by Australian architect Arthur W. Purnell and adopted a structure combining reinforced concrete and steel columns. The site of Wuxianmen Power Plant is an old factory building with a history of more than 100 years. It was listed as a municipal cultural relics protection unit in 2008. The protection of cultural relics of old buildings is an important task for the construction of the Wuxianmen Power Plant. The Guangzhou Municipal Government decided to repair the Wuxianmen Power Plant and adaptive reuse it as the Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Museum in 2013. Based on the background, value and significance of the project, this dissertation analyses the problems encountered in the design and construction process on the conservation and reuse of the Wuxianmen Power Plant, and provides suggestions for the design and management of the project.