A scene from The Glory Belongs To Foochow Arsenal, an immersive, progressive real-life performance at the Foochow Arsenal cultural scenic area in Fuzhou, Fujian province.

The engine workshop at the scenic area, where China's first marine steam engine was produced.

Visitors explore the cultural scenic area.

A group of students visits the Museum of Foochow Arsenal 1866 to learn about China's modern shipbuilding history.

At the end of the stage play The Glory Belongs To Foochow Arsenal, the seats begin moving.

More than 400 audience seats, arranged as a movable "time ship", carry spectators out of the former repair workshop where the performance has unfolded. A wall opens, sunlight pours in, and a naval vessel on the Minjiang River comes into view.

For a moment, the boundary between theater and real-life history disappears.

"It was astonishing when the seats moved from the workshop toward the river. It felt as if I were a witness to history," says local resident Lin Min after the show.

The scene takes place in Mawei district, about 20 kilometers southeast of downtown Fuzhou in Fujian province, at the former Foochow Arsenal, the 19th-century shipbuilding complex established in 1866.

Today, the complex has evolved into a shipbuilding culture area, where old workshops, warehouses and other industrial sites are being given new life while retaining their original setting.

The Foochow Arsenal was established as China sought to strengthen its naval and industrial capabilities in the late Qing (1644-1911) period. It built and repaired ships, established a school for naval and technical education, and became closely associated with the development of China's modern navy and early aviation.

More than 160 years later, local authorities are working to transform its shipbuilding legacy into something meaningful for people who weren't there.

Adapted for public use

"This is the original site of the shipbuilding arsenal," says Li Yifeng, a researcher at the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Culture Research Association. That history is central to how the area has been developed.

Today, surviving workshops and industrial buildings have been restored and adapted into museums, exhibitions, performances, and other public uses. The 116-hectare Foochow Arsenal cultural area brings together the surviving grounds of the former shipyard and several sites connected to its history, including the Museum of Foochow Arsenal 1866, the Majiang Naval Battle Memorial Hall and Luoxing Pagoda Park.

At the museum, visitors encounter ship models, historical objects and digital displays. A screen allows them to explore more than 300 items from the collection, while multimedia presentations re-create scenes from the history of the Foochow Arsenal.

But the museum does not end at its doors.

"We call it a 'big museum'," says Lin Junjie, head of the industrial development department of the Fujian shipbuilding culture management committee.

"Every building and workshop here is itself a cultural relic and historical site."

The idea is evident at the iron-rib factory, one of the former Foochow Arsenal's surviving workshops. Originally an ironworking workshop, it was converted into an iron-rib factory in 1876 to produce ship components such as ribs and keels. Rebuilt as a steel-frame workshop in 1898, it is regarded as one of China's earliest modern Western-style steel-frame factory buildings. It later became a site for early aircraft manufacturing.

Today, its surviving steel framework forms the centerpiece of an exhibition on shipbuilding and aviation, making the former workshop itself part of the museum experience.

When restoration began, only its steel structure remained. Rather than removing it from its original surroundings, restorers encased the structure in a transparent glass shell.

"The heritage is the exhibit, while the glass enclosure is its display case," says Wang Fang, head of the cultural protection department of the Fujian shipbuilding culture management committee.

The restoration follows four principles: keeping the heritage's original site, condition, objects, and character, Wang adds.

This approach has also shaped other surrounding buildings. The former general warehouse has become the Museum of Foochow Arsenal 1866, while the old repair workshop is the theater hosting The Glory Belongs To Foochow Arsenal.

Rather than gathering the industrial heritage in one new building, the development leads visitors through the original workshops and related spaces where ships were once built, repaired, and designed.

Drama in the factory

The transformation of the old repair workshop is the most dramatic.

The Glory Belongs To Foochow Arsenal, which premiered in December 2023, integrates the building into the production. The performance traces the founding of the Foochow Arsenal, the establishment of its school, the difficulties of shipbuilding and talent training, the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), and the development of modern industry.

Its most unusual feature is that the audience does not remain still.

The seats move as the story progresses, while mechanical devices fold different scenes into the workshop. The stage can become a shipbuilding school, a government office or a warship, with the audience carried between them.

Zhou Manqin, head of the performance troupe, says the design grew out of the old workshop's physical characteristics.

The connected spaces and rows of columns reminded the creative team of something that could be folded and unfolded, inspiring the idea of a "folding progressive" theater in which both the scenery and the audience move.

The result is a performance in which the building's columns, machinery, spaces, and openings become part of the narrative.

The production has staged more than 1,170 performances since its debut and created about 200 jobs, according to the management committee.

Lin Junjie has noticed that some visitors, particularly those from outside Fuzhou, initially come to see the performance. Afterward, they visit the museum or explore the surrounding historical buildings to learn about the story they have just watched.

For them, the theater becomes an entry point to the site rather than the destination. Families have also told Lin Junjie that they want to return.

"I must bring my child to see this again," he recalls visitors saying.

The growing audience has encouraged the site to extend its activities beyond the traditional museum visit.

During summer, daytime programs include museum study tours and virtual reality experiences, while evening activities make use of the lawns and riverfront setting for camping, musical performances and night study tours.

In 2025, the scenic area received about 2.14 million visits, up 62.5 percent year-on-year. In July, it received nearly 260,000 visits, up more than 40 percent from the same period last year.

On afternoons, schoolchildren line up inside the museum. Visitors pause beneath the steel structure of the iron-rib factory. At the theater entrance, people of all generations wait for the next performance.

Li has also followed the Foochow Arsenal's story beyond Mawei.

Ships built here later served at ports along China's coast. He says he sometimes feels a particular connection to the vessels and their history.

"When I visit these cities, I feel as though two members of the same family are visiting each other," he says.

Contact the writer at yangfeiyue@chinadaily.com.cn