Stand at the northern edge of Zhongshan Square and face the heavy, unyielding geometry of 108 Zhongshan Road. Completed in 1937, this structure formed the final architectural piece of the plaza. The Tokyo-based architect Gunpei Matsuda, designed the 6,142-square-meter edifice with a strict minimalist aesthetic. He stripped away all classical ornamentation, favoring a square, pragmatic silhouette that speaks directly of power and utility.

Run your hand along the ground floor’s exterior. The rough, white washed-stone finish holds the physical memory of the laborers who shaped it. Look upward to the second through fourth floors, where smooth, dark brown ochre ceramic tiles absorb the Shenyang sunlight. Beneath this skin lies a robust reinforced concrete skeleton, anchoring four stories above ground and one semi-underground level into the earth.

The building’s identity shifted rapidly alongside the region's turbulent history. It began as a financial fortress for the Japanese Mitsui Corporation, managing the conglomerate's commercial interests in Mukden. Soon after, military boots echoed through its corridors when it was repurposed as the Japanese Puppet Manchukuo Air Force Building. The unadorned walls absorbed the tension of wartime commands.

Following the liberation of Shenyang in November 1948, the structure transitioned into state hands. The Shenyang Military Region Air Force Headquarters and the Shenyang Garrison Command successively occupied the space, their officers pacing the same concrete floors. By 1962, the Liaoning Provincial Electronic Industry Bureau filled the rooms with the hum of early technological development.

Today, the building holds National Major Historical and Cultural Site status. The lower levels now house the Huludao Bank, while guests sleep in the upper floors' Crystal Orange Hotel. The structure remains a quiet observer of time, its ochre tiles and sharp modernist lines preserving the complex layers of twentieth-century history.