Shanghai Labors' Museum

This labor museum project in Shanghai addresses the identity absence issue of the once-proud labor group in the community adjacent to Tongji University.

Our site study revealed that Shanghai underwent a dramatic industrial transformation, leading to the displacement of millions of factory workers. Now dominated by the knowledge industry, the area is home to these former labor leaders, who have become an invisible group within the community. This project aims to reintegrate and honor this group.

We began by analyzing the site's history, categorizing it into three stages: Journey of Misery, Journey of Achievement, and Journey of Absence. This narrative is translated into a spatial sequence. Rather than directly translating historical events into space exhibitions, we extracted the emotions of the laborers from these events, creating spaces designed to evoke similar emotions through light, sound, material, objects, and spatial moisture.

In the Journey of Misery, visitors walk slowly underground along a ramp, entering a series of spaces arouse uncomfortable feelings. In a low-roofed, stone-paved exhibition hall, sharp light shines a like a blade from the walls of the secondary exhibition room. Following the winding and narrow path, visitors eventually enter a towering space, where faint light from above evokes a theme of despair.

In the Journey of Achievement, visitors ascend stairs to the ground floor, experiencing the workers' accomplishments after suffering. This space is composed of familiar elements from the old laborers’ life: the column grid spacing of factories, plants and moist air by the river, architectural details deconstructed from wood and steel, and the historical weight of weathered steel walls.

Finally, as the building material gradually turns to cold concrete, the journey of absence, symbolizing the change of times, slowly unfolds. Here, skylights separate visitors' paths from the exhibits, indicating that former glories have become relics. The exit leads visitors to the community where these former workers live today, highlighting their social absence and continued physical presence after the industrial transformation.