When I naturally referred to the Fusuijing Building as the "People's Commune Building" and the "Communist Mansion" during interviews with its original residents, their reactions were unfamiliarity and even denial. Over the past few decades, they have simply called it "the building." Listening to the oral histories of Fusuijing Building residents has shown me a different picture, a Fusuijing Building within the collective memory of the residents. Undoubtedly, these voices and memories should be part of history, yet they are being forgotten and marginalized by society and history. When we study historical buildings, we should pay more attention to voices like these.

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, under the background of "learning comprehensively from the Soviet Union"[1] and the urban People's Commune movement, Changru Zhang designed the Fusuijing Building from 1958 to 1960, which was located in the northwest of Beijing, now at No. 1, Santiao, White Dagoba Temple Palace Gate, Xicheng District. Today, the Fusuijing Building carries the collective memory of two generations and witnesses the transformation and transition of Chinese society as a microcosm of society. In the collective memory of society, the Fusuijing Building is also known as the "People's Commune Building" or the "Communist Mansion."

This project focuses on the architectural space and daily life within collective memory, starting from the perspective of the original residents of the Fusuijing Building. It relies on oral history and spoken accounts of events to present the marginalized and forgotten voices and memories[2]. In practice, it is not only about listening to and recording the stories of the original residents but also about using collective memory as a research method. Through visual analysis, oral history interviews, and collaboration with the original residents, the collective memory of the Fusuijing Building's original residents is reconstructed, analyzed, and redrawn within an architectural context based on the original design archives. From both architect and non-architect perspectives, the descriptions of daily life and architectural space in different periods from the collective memory of the original residents are reimagined through speculative architectural drawings. By using various forms of recording and translation, the residents' own memory stories of the Fusuijing Building are narrated. Furthermore, this project explores the potential of using collective memory as a design method in the adaptive reuse of the Fusuijing Building within the context of rapid urbanization in contemporary Chinese society.

[1] After the signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance in 1950, a wave of comprehensive learning from the Soviet Union surged across China.

[2] Janina Gosseye, Naomi Stead, and Deborah Van, Speaking of Buildings: Oral History in Architectural Research (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2019), 15.

Unknown. Aerial View of the Fusuijing Building. Date unknown. Photograph. http://cn.obj.cc/article-18707-1.html.

After the Fusuijing Building was completed in 1960, aside from the initial year of "Communist life," the 43 years of history and stories during its use by residents remain silent, with few official historical records. To give voice to these stories, I use collective memory as a tool and research method.

This method includes several aspects. Since the residents of the Fusuijing Building moved out in 2005, I first conducted oral history interviews with the former residents and visually analyzed old photos of the building shared by them. As some residents are now elderly and some memories are blurred, I tried to help them recall stories of the Fusuijing Building through four significant historical milestones to collect their collective memories. Then, in collaboration with the original residents, I overlaid tracing paper on the original design archives for memory-based redrawing and modification, initially identifying the Fusuijing Building in residents' memories. Finally, based on the reconstructed archives, from both the perspectives of architects and non-architects, I used speculative imagination methods to translate and reconstruct the architectural space, daily life, and stories of the Fusuijing Building from the collective memory of its residents into architectural creation drawings.

Author. Speculative Floor Plan of the Standard Section III of the Fusuijing Building in Collective Memory. Interviewees: Hanran Zhang, Shuo Yu, Lanping Xu, and Yehang Yu. February 8, 2024.

Author. Speculated Floor Plans of Standard Section III of the Fusuijing Building in Collective Memory from 1978-2005, 2024. Speculative Architectural Drawing.

Naixin Mo (莫奈欣) is an architectural and interior designer based in Guangdong, China, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in China. He is also a researcher and recorder of Chinese architecture, focusing on the marginalised and forgotten voices and memories of Chinese architecture, which he terms “Another Architecture.” This concept does not explore spatial forms but rather the everyday life of people within architectural spaces.