Twenty-four-year-old Liu Yujia has become an unlikely guardian of China's rapidly vanishing urban landscape, spending two years traveling across the country to photograph buildings that many consider eyesores. Known online as "Tiehe West Street," Liu has documented nearly 10,000 structures from China's economic boom period between the 1980s and 2000s, many of which are scheduled for demolition.
On a humid May afternoon in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, Liu stood among hundreds of spectators watching the demolition of the famous Huatie Hotel, a 1980s concrete tower beside the old Caiyuanba Railway Station. As the 25-story building – once a proud symbol of the city's gateway to the southwest – collapsed into a thick cloud of dust, the usually reserved photographer found himself crying. "It felt like saying goodbye to a friend he had only known through photographs over decades," Liu later reflected.
Liu has gained cult status among China's urban explorers for his documentation of what he calls "millennium" or "Chinese dreamcore" buildings – glass towers with unusual shapes erected during China's economic boom. These structures include tiled apartment blocks, aging industrial zones, and wholesale markets that characterized the nation's rapid modernization. His photographs capture buildings that others dismiss as ugly, but which Liu sees as repositories of collective memory and architectural ambition.
Born in Jilin City, the industrial heart of northeastern Jilin province, Liu's online alias comes from a street near his childhood home – Tiehe West Street, a modest lane beside a now-defunct carbon factory. "That area still carries the atmosphere of the 1990s," he explains. "While others dismiss such architecture as ugly, it's where my sense of beauty began." As a child, weekend trips to see the city's tallest buildings – the Unicom Tower, the local post office, and City Plaza – sparked his fascination with tinted glass panels that reflected the clouds.
After studying architecture at the China University of Mining and Technology in Beijing, Liu received his first DSLR camera from his parents upon entering university. Within three years, he had worn out its shutter from extensive use. He began systematically cataloging buildings in the nation's capital, particularly neighborhoods dotted with Soviet-era concrete apartment blocks known as khrushchevka. His interests then expanded to neighboring cities, where he sought out structures others ignored: cylindrical office blocks, green-glass hotels, and towers with decorative spires shaped like lightning rods.
"They represent a time when we thought modernity meant mirrors and metal," Liu observes. "You could feel society's confidence in the bright colors, sleek tiles, and oversized balconies." In 2023, he embarked on an ambitious two-year cross-country expedition, traversing more than 20 provinces and 180 cities. His mission has become increasingly urgent as rapid urban development threatens these architectural remnants of China's recent past.
Liu's journey has revealed the systematic erasure of China's urban memory. In eastern Shandong province, he found that almost every tiled building had been painted over, while in Shanghai, entire blocks had been replaced with empty lots. "It feels like cities are erasing their own memories," he says. "Each layer of paint hides what the city used to be. It's like building an archive of the archive era." His work has become a race against time, documenting buildings that may disappear within months or years.
The photographer's daily routine is methodical and physically demanding. Each day begins with identifying a district on an old map, followed by four to five hours of shooting before retreating to a local RT-Mart supermarket. The Taiwanese-founded chain's tiled floors and colorful aisles serve as a mnemonic device, reminding him of the stores' early symbolism of urban prosperity and consumer culture. On longer trips, he may cycle 20 to 30 kilometers or walk several kilometers to achieve the perfect perspective.
Liu's systematic approach to mapping China's urban fabric allows him to quickly understand new cities upon arrival. "I 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," he explains. "Even in a city I've never visited, I can predict where things are. They all follow the same logic of expansion. Industrial zones sit beside railway lines; commercial districts stretch along rivers."
Shanghai particularly captivated Liu during a five-day walking tour from the high-rise enclaves of the modern Gubei residential district to the aging clothing markets of Qipu Road. "Shanghai feels different from any other city," he notes. "Gubei's buildings have a distinct texture – big, glossy tiles, oversized balconies. Every tower has its own design language. You can see how international influence is mixed in." The city's contradictions struck him most: gleaming office towers coexisting with residential blocks barely changed in decades.
Southern coastal cities, China's first Special Economic Zones, offered Liu glimpses into the origins of the country's economic transformation. "Walking through old high-tech zones or industrial parks from the 1980s and 1990s feels like stepping into the moment when everything was just beginning," he reflects. "The air feels clean. The buildings are clean. Even my mind feels clean." These older zones, with their simple concrete façades and blue-tiled roofs, evoke a tangible optimism – a belief that space itself could embody progress.
Life on the road requires extreme frugality, as Liu operates on meager savings with minimal income 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 he spends nights wrapped in a sleeping bag to avoid filthy hostel bedding. Despite these hardships, he maintains his rigorous documentation process, pausing every 100 meters to capture shots of beautiful buildings and processing images the same day for online publication.
Since last year, Liu's journey has attracted hundreds of thousands of online followers who appreciate his crisp, symmetrical shots of tiled façades and roadside apartments. His work taps into widespread nostalgia for the millennium's urban aesthetics. One follower commented on his architectural photos: "I love this feeling – the weekend sunshine and the sound of cicadas from my childhood. The blue glass casts a filter over everything inside. That's my lost youth."
Reflecting on his favorite moments, Liu recalls late autumn in northern provinces when distant sunlight hit buildings softly, making windows glow one by one "as if the city itself were breathing." His observations reveal regional architectural personalities: "Every place had its own dream. In the north, stoic symmetry; in the south, flamboyant curves. In my hometown of Jilin, half-forgotten factories still bear the logos of vanished enterprises." Through his lens, Liu preserves not just buildings but the dreams and aspirations they once embodied.
