Value Positioning and Spatial Activation Path of Modern Chinese Industrial Heritage: Social Media Data-Based Perception Analysis of Huaxin Cement Plant via the Four-Quadrant Model

Abstract

Industrial heritage—particularly large modern cement plants—serves as a crucial witness to the architectural and technological evolution of modern urbanization. In Europe, North America, and East Asia, many decommissioned cement factories have been transformed into cultural venues, creative districts, or urban landmarks, while a greater number of sites still face the risks of functional decline and spatial disappearance. In China, early large-scale cement plants have received limited attention in international industrial heritage research, and their conservation and adaptive reuse practices remain underdeveloped. This study takes the Huaxin Cement Plant, founded in 1907, as the research object. As the birthplace of China’s modern cement industry, it preserves the world’s only complete wet-process rotary kiln production line, representing exceptional rarity and typological significance. Combining social media perception analysis with the Hidalgo-Giralt four-quadrant model, the study aims to clarify the plant’s value positioning and propose a design-oriented pathway for spatial activation. Based on 378 short videos and 75,001 words of textual data collected from five major platforms, the study conducts a value-tag analysis of public perceptions across five dimensions—historical, technological, social, aesthetic, and economic. Two composite indicators, Cultural Representativeness (CR) and Utilization Intensity (UI), are further established to evaluate the relationship between heritage value and spatial performance. The findings indicate that (1) historical and aesthetic values dominate public perception, whereas social and economic values are significantly underrepresented; (2) the Huaxin Cement Plant falls within the “high cultural representativeness/low utilization intensity” quadrant, revealing concentrated heritage value but insufficient spatial activation; (3) the gap between value cognition and spatial transformation primarily arises from limited public accessibility, weak interpretive narratives, and a lack of immersive experience. In response, the study proposes five optimization strategies: expanding public access, building a multi-layered interpretive system, introducing immersive and interactive design, integrating into the Yangtze River Industrial Heritage Corridor, and encouraging community co-participation. As a representative case of modern Chinese industrial heritage distinguished by its integrity and scarcity, the Huaxin Cement Plant not only enriches the understanding of industrial heritage typology in China but also provides a methodological paradigm for the “value positioning–spatial utilization–heritage activation” framework, bearing both international comparability and disciplinary methodological significance.