Gulangyu Bagua Building Repair: Restoring the surprise hidden in history

Bagua Building repair construction site.

When this century-old building revealed its original appearance little by little, the cultural protection experts were surprised: it still had such a little-known side.

Bagua Building, a national key cultural relics protection unit, is one of the core elements of Gulangyu World Cultural Heritage. Reinforcement and improvement work was initiated in July last year, and now the repair work is more than halfway through. This is the largest cultural relics restoration project after the successful application for the heritage of Gulangyu Island. Affected by the island's high temperature, high humidity, high salt and other factors, the main structure of the Bagua Building has safety hazards, and the focus of this project is to strengthen and repair and upgrade, which not only improves the seismic safety of the cultural relics building, but also restores the century-old building to a more authentic original appearance.

When the cultural security personnel "swept away the dust of the years" for the Bagua Building, they found that the Bagua Building, which was well known to everyone, had many "secrets" hidden in history. A literature and history expert said that the reinforcement and repair of the Bagua Building has brought many surprises and become another re-understanding and re-protection of this century-old cultural heritage.

Restore the background color of doors and windows:

Reddish-brown with clear wood grain

Trace the original appearance of the doors and windows of the Bagua Building, which has become one of the surprises. In the past, it was beige, magnetic paint oil ornamentation. Not long ago, the cultural security personnel cleaned up an ear room in the Bagua Building and found that a door opening was sealed in the wall. The cultural security personnel carefully removed the wall, and a reddish-brown wooden door frame "saw the light of day again". The staff of the Bagua Building of the Gulangyu Management Committee said, "This door frame has not been repaired and changed, so we judge that it should be the historical original appearance of the door frame." ”

A multifaceted retrospective unfolded. "You see, it's also reddish-brown, with a delicate wood grain that's clearly visible, and the Nanyang Shuluo double wood." The person in charge of the Cultural Protection Department of the Gulangyu Island Management Committee squatted down, pointed to a door and window, and said, "We manually removed the paint from other doors and windows little by little, cut and peeled off the original patent leather, and found that a large number of doors and windows of the Bagua Building were originally reddish-brown, which confirmed our judgment." ”

An old photograph provided by the Xiamen Academy of Arts and Crafts provides corroboration from the perspective of literature and history. In this historical photograph from more than half a century ago, the doors and windows of the Bagua Building are darker in color and less glossy, matching the reddish-brown color.

These "chains of evidence" that restore the original appearance of history must also pass the strict and critical arguments of cultural relics experts. The cultural relics management department checked the customs, and the cultural relics experts held a special demonstration meeting for this purpose, and finally restored the "historical background color" of the doors and windows of the Bagua Building - the reddish-brown color with a clear wooden texture, and the beige should be the result of many subsequent transformations.

According to the demonstration of cultural relics protection experts, the doors and windows of the Bagua Building were all restored to reddish brown, and the magnetic paint process was restored to clear oil and varnish.

What is the difference between magnetic paint and varnish and varnish? At the site of the renovation of the Bagua Building, a special test area was set up. After a stripped wooden door and window, different samples were made of clear oil, varnish and magnetic paint. Even laymen can see that the magnetic lacquer process masks the wood texture, the clear oil and varnish make the delicate wood grain clearly visible, and some of the traces of hole inlay add to the historical vicissitudes. Through continuous comparison and demonstration, experts decided that the indoor doors and windows oil decoration adopts the oil removal process, and the outer porch is used to prevent the sun and rain, and the varnish process is used to restore the original style of the building to the greatest extent.

Restore the door and window style:

Four-stage high louvered door leaf

Restoring the style of doors and windows of the Bagua Building has become another surprise. There are many and miscellaneous styles of doors and windows on the façade of the Bagua Building, and the styles of doors and windows in different directions are also different. The cultural security staff conducted a "scanning study" of the whole building, compared with the old photos of the 1920s and 1950s, and finally restored the façade doors and windows to a four-section high-bay leaf leaf leaf, making it return to its original appearance, more standardized and elegant.

The outer porch floor tiles of the elevated floor of the Bagua Building have also been traced to their original appearance in this repair. The overhead layer has been rebuilt many times, and the ground building materials have cement mortar, hexagonal red brick and square red brick, and the original appearance has been troubled in history, and even rumors have been false. After many studies, combined with the shape of the southern Fujian building, the experts finally determined that it was a square red brick, and according to the principle of benefiting the old, it was uniformly treated.

Minimal intervention for maximum restoration. After 7 months of repairs, bagua building has completed the reinforcement of the main structure such as walls, floor slabs, and steel beams. Next, the repair unit will focus on the repair and upgrading of the façade of the Bagua Building, the interior wall finish, the paint of doors and windows, etc., and the entire project is expected to be completed by the end of May this year. At that time, the Bagua Building, which has been in the wind and rain for hundreds of years, will reappear and meet with us.

Source: Xiamen Daily reporter Zhan Wenfang Shu