A century-old silkworm breeding station has been reborn as a cultural landmark for the Greater Bay Area. On June 26, the Guangdong Silk Textile · Lunjiao Xiangyunsha Cultural and Creative Park officially reopened at its historic site in Lunjiao, Shunde, and its core business — the Zhishan Intangible Heritage Community Lifestyle Space — launched at the same time. Through the revitalization of old factory buildings, the Lunjiao subdistrict brought in three leading Xiangyunsha (香云纱) enterprises: Shangjiukai Xiangyunsha (Foshan Shunde) Silk Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Xiangyun Guli Culture Development Co., Ltd., and Foshan Zhishan Space Xiangyunsha Culture Communication Co., Ltd., bringing two national-level Silk Road ICH crafts — Xiangyunsha and Song brocade (宋锦) — together on one site. The park is a flagship result of Guangdong province's "Bai Qian Wan Project" (百千万工程) for rural-cultural revitalization and of Shunde's use of culture to drive high-quality urban-rural development.
The Zhishan Space was led by the Xiangyunsha company of the provincial Silk Textile Group, in partnership with three brands: Shangjiukai, Xiangyun Guli, and Liaocaotang (了草堂). Centered on Lingnan Xiangyunsha and Jiangnan Song brocade — both national ICH items — it blends tea ceremonies, literati gatherings, and modern fashion design into the Greater Bay Area's first immersive ICH lifestyle space.
Rather than the static display model of a conventional ICH museum, the space builds a multi-functional compound for ICH viewing and experience, fashion shows, literati salons, and high-end business receptions, filling a gap in Shunde's high-end ICH lifestyle offering and shifting the craft from passive viewing to touchable, experienceable, everyday living aesthetics. Its operations span weaving research and development, ICH garment custom tailoring, tea tasting, and study tours, and it runs a regular platform for ICH artisans to exchange ideas under an "ICH plus tourism, lifestyle, and co-creation" model that mobilizes the region's whole Xiangyunsha industry chain.
On opening day, Xiangyun Guli staged the theme show "Woven Clouds in Splendid Color" (云织华彩). The 28 outfits used Xiangyunsha in the classic four shades of red, gold, green, and coffee-brown, cut with modern three-dimensional tailoring to stage the collision between traditional technique and contemporary aesthetics — the opening chapter of Zhishan's expression of Eastern beauty.
The park's transformation is rooted in a century of silkworm memory. The No. 456 Silkworm Breeding Station, founded in 1925, was one of Guangdong's earliest original-strain silkworm breeding bases and once shouldered the province's entire silkworm breeding and supply task, witnessing the rise and fall of the regional sericulture industry. The Xiangyunsha company of Guangdong Silk Textile Group took on the cultural responsibility of the state enterprise and carried out protective renovation of the century-old site. The park keeps the historical red-brick and gray-tile architectural character while adding modern functions such as ICH display, fashion launches, and gathering exchanges. From "heritage" to "asset," from static protection to living transmission, the old breeding station has completed its transformation. Looking ahead, the park will continue recruiting quality textile ICH projects from across the country to build a sustainable ICH ecosystem, with the goal of becoming a national-level ICH industrial park.
As the birthplace of Xiangyunsha, Lunjiao has brought in three companies with distinct strengths: Shangjiukai holds the Song brocade national ICH lineage and high-end silk brand experience, Xiangyun Guli is deep in Xiangyunsha market promotion and channel building, and Zhishan Space specializes in ICH lifestyle scene-building and space operation. Together they form a complementary pattern of "scene operation plus brand empowerment plus market channels," injecting real industrial momentum into Lunjiao Xiangyunsha's march toward a Greater Bay Area brand.
Shangjiukai, one of the space's investors, is the Suzhou-based Shangjiukai Silk Culture Co., Ltd., a technology-oriented silk enterprise devoted to Song brocade research, production, and brand operation, and the drafting unit of the national Song brocade industry standard as well as a national Song brocade industrialization base. Chairman Wu Jianhua (吴建华) said: "In recent years we have extended our research direction to Xiangyunsha. Lunjiao is the authentic home of Xiangyunsha, with deep ICH technique accumulation, and it is close to the Guangzhou-Shenzhen fashion front line, which is very favorable for our brand's innovative research." He plans to use Song brocade as a bridge between the Yangtze and Pearl River weaving civilizations, bringing the two great textile traditions into deep dialogue in the Greater Bay Area.
Wang Xue (王雪), chairman of investor Guangzhou Xiangyun Guli, said: "The Silk Textile Xiangyunsha industrial park brings the brand back to the homeland of Xiangyunsha. ICH can only walk steadily and far when rooted in local cultural soil." Li Qi (李琦), director and general manager of the Xiangyunsha company of Guangdong Silk Textile Group, said the company's complete silk industry chain will provide all-round support for product research, daily operations, and brand promotion. Huang Yijin (黄乙津), a member of the Lunjiao subdistrict party working committee, said the cross-brand cooperation of four enterprises and the joint effort of artisans from three regions have created a quality model for Shunde's local ICH revitalization, and expressed hope that all parties will hold fast to the artisans' original intention, pass on the ancient techniques of Xiangyunsha and Song brocade, preserve the root of ICH culture, and create more popular, life-friendly products.
