Introduction  The construction of beautiful China should show the beauty of modernized engineering, and more importantly, it should rely on the excellent traditional Chinese culture. The paper aims to study the design method to improve the existing industrial buildings with culture and aesthetics, which is limited by process modeling and engineering economy.

  Method  Through case study and engineering practice, we studied the aesthetic design cases of power projects at home and abroad, summarized the three perspectives of traditional regional culture, scientific and technological innovation culture, and diversified fusion culture, and applied them to the design ideas of "Distant Shadows - Rising Clouds - Sky" for the new 2×1000 MW project of CHN Energy Yueyang Power Plant.

  Result  Through the design practice of typical projects, the engineering aesthetic design method of "cultural empowerment expression", "innovation-driven design" and "sharing and integration development" is refined.

  Conclusion  We expect to take the Yueyang Power Plant as a starting point to explore the feasible way for culture as a conceptual starting point and innovation foothold to empower engineering aesthetics, especially in the overall planning and architectural design of thermal power plants.