How should we confront, reconcile with, and live with the ‘heritagised’ past in the built form, if said past is politically and historically contentious?

Sited in Yuanming Yuan, a former imperial summer palace in Beijing destroyed in 1860 during the Second Opium War by the Anglo-French Expedition, the project seeks to realise the multiple potentialities of national heritage through active use. Since the 2000s, the meaning of Yuanming Yuan has been increasingly monopolised by the Chinese party-state for anti-foreign propaganda, in the name of heritage conservation. The way in which the ruins of Yuanming Yuan are curated and consumed has brewed a revanchist nationalism that is difficult to contain.

As a response, the project proposes to return the ruins of Yuanming Yuan to the local population. This will allow people to reconcile themselves with a dark chapter of their national history through the active reuse of the ruins, which form a symbiotic relationship with the inhabitants and their interventions. By literally dwelling on the past, we embark on a journey to de-monumentalise our ‘heritagised’ past, so that we no longer dwell on the past as slaves to the past.