At No. 61 Dian-Tibet Highway, in the village of Zhoucheng, the air carries the sharp, sour scent of fermenting Isatis root. Here, the Puzhen Bai Tie-Dye Museum stands as a physical archive of a thousand-year-old craft. Established in 1998 as a family workshop by eighth-generation dyer Duan Shukon and his wife Duan Yinkai, the site expanded in 2008 when they acquired the defunct Zhoucheng National Tie-Dyeing Factory. By 2015, they completed this five-thousand-square-meter sanctuary, preserving the classic Bai architectural layouts of 'Three Rooms and a Reflecting Wall' and 'Four Courtyards and Five Skylights.'

The architecture mirrors the craft it houses. Green-gray tiled roofs and white-plastered walls frame a central courtyard where production remains active. Visitors walk past large stone and wooden vats bubbling with dark indigo solution. Overhead, long sheets of cotton hang from high wooden drying racks, snapping in the mountain wind. The fabric emerges from the vats a pale yellow-green, transforming into deep blue as oxygen touches the wet fibers.

Inside the exhibition halls, the museum preserves 1,178 registered artifacts, including antique ethnic clothing, historical dyeing tools, and traditional wooden looms. The founders rescued over 1,800 traditional patterns and 3,600 templates from extinction.

Today, the museum operates as a public, non-profit space. Local Bai artisans guide visitors through the physical steps of sketching, tying, dyeing, and drying. It serves as an active research base for over twenty Chinese universities, welcoming two hundred thousand visitors annually. The building functions as a living workshop where the past is continuously remade by hand.