SHANGHAI \u2014 On a humid May afternoon in China\u2019s southwestern megacity of Chongqing, photographer Liu Yujia stood among hundreds gathered at the foot of the famous Huatie Hotel, a 1980s concrete tower beside the old Caiyuanba Railway Station.<\/p>\n
As the countdown over the loudspeaker echoing through the surrounding structures approached zero, the 25-story building \u2014 once a proud symbol of the city\u2019s gateway to the southwest \u2014 folded in on itself, disappearing into a thick cloud of dust.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t help it,\u201d Liu says quietly. Rarely one to show emotion, in that moment, he cried. It felt like saying goodbye to a friend he had only known through photographs over decades.<\/p>\n
At 24, Liu \u2014 better known online as \u201cTiehe West Street\u201d \u2014 has become a cult figure among China\u2019s urban explorers. His feeds are filled with photographs of what he calls \u201cmillennium\u201d or \u201cChinese dreamcore\u201d buildings: glass, often oddly shaped towers erected between the 1990s and 2000s \u2014 China\u2019s economic boom. Traveling alone with a backpack and camera, he has spent the past two years documenting tiled apartment blocks, aging industrial zones, and wholesale markets.
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Born in Jilin City, the industrial heart of northeastern Jilin province, Liu\u2019s online alias comes from a street near his childhood home \u2014 Tiehe West Street, a modest lane beside a now-defunct carbon factory. \u201cThat area still carries the atmosphere of the 1990s,\u201d he says. While others dismiss such architecture as \u201cugly,\u201d Liu insists, \u201cIt\u2019s where my sense of beauty began.\u201d
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As a child, weekend trips into the city were a treat. His father would take him to see the tallest buildings \u2014 the Unicom Tower, the local post office, the City Plaza \u2014 and Liu would marvel at their tinted glass panels reflecting the clouds. That fascination never faded.<\/p>\n
He studied architecture at the China University of Mining and Technology in Beijing, but it was his camera, not his drawing board, that guided him through the city. His parents gave him his first DSLR camera upon entering university. Within three years, he had worn out its shutter.<\/p>\n
Liu began cataloguing the buildings of the nation\u2019s capital, its neighborhoods dotted with khrushchevka \u2014 Soviet-era concrete apartment blocks. He then ventured to neighboring cities, drawn to structures others ignored: cylindrical office blocks, green-glass hotels, towers with decorative spires shaped like lightning rods.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey represent a time when we thought modernity meant mirrors and metal,\u201d Liu says. \u201cYou could feel society\u2019s confidence in the bright colors, sleek tiles, and oversized balconies.\u201d
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In 2023, Liu embarked on a two-year cross-country expedition, traversing more than 20 provinces and 180 cities, photographing nearly 10,000 buildings from the 1980s through 2000s, many already scheduled for demolition. \u201cIt\u2019s a race against time,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the eastern Shandong province, almost every tiled building had been painted over; in Shanghai, entire blocks had been replaced with empty lots. \u201cIt feels like cities are erasing their own memories,\u201d he says. \u201cEach layer of paint hides what the city used to be. It\u2019s like building an archive of the \u2018archive era.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
What Liu photographs are seldom landmarks. Each day begins at a marked district on an old map, shooting for four or five hours before retreating to a local RT-Mart \u2014 a Taiwanese-founded supermarket chain. The tiled floors and colorful aisles of the supermarket are a sort of mnemonic for Liu, reminding him of the store\u2019s early symbolism of urban prosperity and consumer culture.<\/p>\n
His daily routine is rigorous. On long trips, he may cycle 20 to 30 kilometers or walk several kilometers for a better perspective. In Shanghai, he spent five days walking from the high-rise enclaves in the modern Gubei residential district to the aging clothing markets of Qipu Road, photographing everything from mosaic fa\u00e7ades to the deep balconies of early 2000s apartment towers.
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\u201cShanghai feels different from any other city,\u201d he says. \u201cGubei\u2019s buildings have a distinct texture \u2014 big, glossy tiles, oversized balconies. Every tower has its own design language. You can see how international influence is mixed in.\u201d<\/p>\n
What struck him most was the city\u2019s contradictions: gleaming office towers beside residential blocks barely changed in decades. Cycling through a new development zone, he noted how old \u201cindustrial parks\u201d from the 1990s \u2014 areas that were once symbols of China\u2019s earliest \u201chigh-tech\u201d ambitions \u2014 coexisted with glass-and-steel headquarters of global firms.
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\u201cI realized Shanghai isn\u2019t just one city,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s many cities living side by side \u2014 industrial, commercial, residential, each with its own rhythm.\u201d To Liu, the city\u2019s geography reads like a microcosm of modern China: the northeast bears heavy industry; the southwest reflects early technological ambitions; the west near Hongqiao feels international and corporate.<\/p>\n
If Shanghai revealed the coexistence of eras, southern coastal cities \u2014 China\u2019s first Special Economic Zones \u2014 reminded him how those eras began, preserving the traces of the optimism that fueled China\u2019s \u201copening-up\u201d decades ago. \u201cWalking through old high-tech zones or industrial parks from the 1980s and 1990s feels like stepping into the moment when everything was just beginning,\u201d he says. \u201cThe air feels clean. The buildings are clean. Even my mind feels clean.\u201d<\/p>\n
By contrast, newer developments feel \u201cempty, emotionless \u2014 all glass and slogans but no soul.\u201d The older zones, with their simple concrete fa\u00e7ades and blue-tiled roofs, evoke a tangible optimism \u2014 a belief that space itself could embody progress.
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Liu follows a methodical system for mapping China\u2019s urban fabric, which helps him swiftly get the hang of a new city upon arrival. \u201cI start at the old train station, then go to the wholesale market, the city center, the riverside park, the new district, and finally the high-speed rail station on the outskirts,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEven in a city I\u2019ve never visited, I can predict where things are. They all follow the same logic of expansion.\u201d Industrial zones sit beside railway lines; commercial districts stretch along rivers.<\/p>\n
Life on the road is minimalist, especially as Liu is running on meager savings and earns little from his online work. With a daily budget of 60 yuan ($8.40), he sleeps in youth hostels, eats simply, and launders clothes every few days, sometimes spending his nights swaddled in a sleeping bag due to the filth of hostel bedding.<\/p>\n
On his walks through Shanghai, he rides and wanders, pausing every 100 meters to capture a shot whenever he finds a building \u201cbeautiful\u201d \u2014 sometimes crossing the street to find the cleanest, most direct view. Within the same day, he completes the process of straightening and color grading the images, and publishes them online.<\/p>\n
Since last year, Liu\u2019s journey has attracted hundreds of thousands of online followers. His crisp, symmetrical shots of tiled fa\u00e7ades and roadside apartments tap into nostalgia for the millennium\u2019s urban aesthetics.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder a set of architectural photos he posted, one comment read: \u201cI love this feeling \u2014 the weekend sunshine and the sound of cicadas from my childhood. The blue glass casts a filter over everything inside. That\u2019s my lost youth.\u201d
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Asked about his favorite moments, he recalls late autumn in the northern provinces, when the sun felt distant, the air was cool, and light hit buildings softly, making windows glow one by one, as if the city itself were breathing. \u201cEvery place had its own dream,\u201d he says. \u201cIn the north, stoic symmetry; in the south, flamboyant curves. In my hometown of Jilin, half-forgotten factories still bear the logos of vanished enterprises.\u201d<\/p>\n
Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.<\/p>\n
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