In 2013, Tongde Hall's restoration project was included in the plan, and started in 2015. Today's Tongde Hall, more than half of the restoration project, golden glazed tile roof in the sun shining golden brilliant, and these tiles, but there is a very difficult recovery process, to tell the story of Tongde Hall, it begins from this tile.
Tongde Hall is divided into two stories. It adopts reinforced concrete frame structure. It has a typical "Manchurian" architectural style. Tongde Hall was designed and constructed by Japanese. Many elements, such as Japanese architectural style and European classical design style, are used, but some local architectural designs adopt design symbols with Chinese traditional architectural style, which is the most representative "Sino-Japanese combination" and Western style architecture.
The most obvious manifestation of this style is the roof covered with golden tiles. The greatest feature of Tongde Hall is the tiles and dripping water on the top of the hall. The words "one virtue and one heart" are burned on the tiles and dripping water on the top of the hall, which is also named Tongde Hall.
In 2013, the Puppet Manchu Palace Museum became a national key cultural relic protection unit. The repair work of Tongde Hall was the first. At that time, in order to repair Tongde Hall, a Japanese expert, Mr. Yoji Maruda, was invited. He was born in Changchun and studied the architecture of Puppet Manchukuo.
The renovation project was put on the agenda by 2015, and the construction began formally. After the construction, it was found that the roof of Tongde Hall had been repaired three times, only a few of the original tiles. When peeling tiles, we were careful not to damage one. But even so, many tiles have been broken and can no longer be used at all. When all the tiles were taken down and counted carefully, there were 18 kinds.
A nationwide survey to find factories burning tiles
How to burn the same tile as before? It has become a difficult task in the project of restoring Tongde Hall.
According to the Shengjing Times of March 10, 1938, the cylinder tiles needed for the newly built Tongde Palace in the palace were fired by Shichuan Ceramic Shop in Daguantun, Fushun. The tile is a cylindrical tile with seal inscription "Yide" on it and seal inscription "Yixin" on dripping water. A total of 62700 pieces were fired. In addition, there are 7 kisses, 11 beast heads and 6 waist blocks. The total cost is 20,000 yuan. The raw material used for manufacturing is Fushun local product and Nagoya Japanese product.
Wang Bin said that in order to find a tile factory, they went to Fushun specially and found Daguantun, but Shichuan pottery had already disappeared. No way, they searched for the most famous tiling plant in the country.
After three rounds of verification work, from size to material selection, pattern, weight... Finally, a ceramics factory in Jilin City was selected. The tiles fired by them met the requirements most, and the materials were also in line with the characteristics of the north. The production process was basically reduced.
After all this hard work, tiles were finally fired, and compared with the original tiles, from pattern to process, have been recognized by experts, even Japanese expert Yoji Maruda nodded his head and praised, even better than the original tiles.
Now, when you visit Tongde Hall again, the glazed tiles on the roof have been laid. Although they are not the tiles of that year, they are bright and golden. "It's back to the palace, but it's not easy!" Wang Bin said.
The "Owl Kiss" Ridgeback is still burning hard.
The most distinctive feature of the building on the roof of Tongde Hall is the decorative form which is a bit like a dragon. It is called "Owl Kiss" or "Gu Kiss". It originates from ancient Chinese architectural components and is a building component with decorative function and given a certain cultural connotation.
As a kind of hornless dragon in ancient legends, the "stinging kiss" is mostly used in ancient buildings or crafts. There are 7 kisses and 11 heads of beasts in Tongde Hall. Many of them have cracks and can not be used. At present, the difficulty of recovery is these 11 animal heads, because they are too huge, cracking is often unavoidable when firing porcelain, and several firing failures. Because the firing work can not be carried out in winter, experiments will be carried out next year (2016).