Yangon’s Secretariat Building might be the most important building in Myanmar.

It was built over 100 years ago as the headquarters of British colonial rule. It was where General Aung San, Myanmar’s national hero, was assassinated along with eight of his comrades in 1947. It hosted the ceremony initiating Burma’s independence in 1948. And it was the site of Burma’s first independent parliament.

But in 2005, Myanmar’s government quietly relocated to Naypyidaw, leaving the Secretariat Building closed off and left to rot.

For nearly a decade, admirers of architecture, students of history, and those wishing to pay respect to the memories of Myanmar’s founding martyrs could only do so from beyond the compound’s towering gate.

Only since 2015 has the public been able to cash in on their right to share in the site’s history, but usually only for a days per year around Martyrs’ Day and only in a small portion of the building.

Over the next few years, the Secretariat will be transformed into a “cultural complex” that will include museums, galleries, event spaces, eateries, retail outlets, gardens, and offices. If the project lives up to its commitments, it will be one of Yangon’s most important spaces – a guided path for the people from the sorrow of history to the triumph of modernity (or, perhaps, the other way around).

But once the transformation is complete, a decade’s worth of detritus and neglect will have been washed away before anyone ever got to see it.

So here are some views of the Secretariat as it may never exist again.