At Qingshuitang, a small cottage survived a citywide fire and became the seed of a museum.

The Former Site of Changsha Museum stands at No. 538 Bayi Road in Kaifu District, Changsha, within a historic compound of about 40,000 to 42,000 square meters. Its oldest pulse comes from autumn 1921, when the cottage at Qingshuitang No. 22 was rented as the secret headquarters of the CPC Hunan Branch, later the CPC Xiang Area Executive Committee. It also became the first married home of Mao Zedong and Yang Kaihui, giving the site a rare intimacy: political history begins here at the scale of rooms, windows, and a courtyard gate.

That cottage endured the 1938 Wenxi Fire, which destroyed more than 90 percent of Changsha. Its survival owed much to its then-suburban isolation. Today, its brick-and-wood frame, two-entry, three-bay plan, 179-square-meter plot, and 112-square-meter building area still draw the visitor inward. Wooden partitions divide its nine to ten rooms. Hollowed wooden lattice windows filter light like carved breath. A blue-brick courtyard, entered from the east, holds the quiet weight of domestic life turned historical evidence.

In 1951, the residence was restored and opened to the public. In 1969, a major environmental restoration reshaped the site with a public square, a Mao Zedong statue, and a main exhibition hall. The hall, built from January to October 1969, was designed by a team led by Jiang Qiansheng of the Hunan Provincial Architectural Design Institute. Its facade carries the form of a party flag, centered by a circular mosaic portrait of a young Mao. The portrait was made from weather-resistant colored glass rods, developed with Zhuzhou Glass Factory; under daylight, the surface reads like glass caught between ceremony and weather.

On February 5, 1986, Changsha Museum was formally established here. It remained until December 28, 2015, when the museum moved to Binjiang Culture Park. The compound later housed Changsha Art Museum briefly in 2017, then reopened on July 1, 2019, as the CPC Changsha History Museum.

Protected at national and provincial levels, the site now receives more than a million visitors each year. Its lance-shaped lamps, lakeside stela corridor, stone-carved poems, alloy-concrete statue, and preserved cottage make time feel close enough to touch.