Recently, Xiangshan Biyun Temple completed the renovation work and reopened to the public, and the number of tourists has doubled year-on-year since its opening on September 26 this year. As one of the excerpts of the construction of the Yongding River Cultural Belt in Xishan, a total of 7 cultural relics such as the Luohan Hall and the Bodhisattva Hall were repaired, with a repair area of 2837.13 square meters, accounting for about one-third of the total number of buildings in the temple.
Xiangshan Biyun Temple is located in the col of Jubaoshan on the north side of Xiangshan Park, covering an area of more than 40,000 square meters, was built in the second year of Yuan Zhishun (1331), and then expanded by the Ming and Qing dynasties, especially in the Qing Dynasty, it was used as a royal temple and palace, forming the existing pattern and scale. The whole temple sits in the west and faces east, builds according to the mountain situation, stacks up layer upon layer, is the mountain gate hall, the Maitreya hall, the Daxiong treasure hall, the Bodhisattva hall, the Zhongshan hall, the tower courtyard and other buildings on the central axis, at the same time, there are two cross-courtyards of the meditation hall courtyard and the water spring courtyard on the north and south sides respectively, the layout is symmetrical, and the staggered fall is caused. The ancient trees in the temple are towering to the sky, the spring water surrounds, the four seasons are distinct, the scenery is excellent, the buildings of the Ming and Qing dynasties and many exquisite stone carvings and stone carvings are preserved, with its precious cultural relics, profound cultural heritage and unique natural environment, it has become one of the most exquisite temple scenic spots in the Xishan area, and was listed as the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units in 2001.
It is understood that since the opening of Xiangshan Biyun Temple in 1954, it has carried out several partial cultural relics repair work, but the closure and repair is the first and the largest cultural relics repair. "Due to the long age, the main buildings such as the Daxiong Treasure Hall, the Bodhisattva Palace, and the Luohan Hall in Biyun Temple, the roof leaks, so that the wooden frame is damp, deformed, partially sinking, crooked, etc., this time it is to repair these main buildings, the most important content is to pick up the roof, and then the wooden frame is corrected and returned, and the rotten part is replaced, repaired, and finally restored to the roof, in fact, just like we are now building a house to do a good job of roof waterproofing, Although the roof waterproofing of ancient buildings is different from the current practice, it is to better protect the internal timber frame, walls and interior decoration. Liang Jie, deputy chief of the park planning and construction section, said, "In addition, there are some wall and ground repairs, color painting dust removal and other work, the main purpose is to protect the building." ”
In order to implement the requirements of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics for the protection and repair project of Biyun Temple "minimum intervention, maximum protection, and maximum retention of historical information of cultural relics and buildings", the repair project is carried out by a professional ancient building maintenance unit, and adheres to the "four originals" principle of "raw materials, original technology, original form, and original practice" of cultural relics repair, but in actual operation, there are still many difficulties.
Clever transport of materials
Biyun Temple relies on the mountain to build, is gradually rising, compared to the flat ground of the building repair, there is a lot of difficulty in transporting materials, the Daxiong Treasure Palace, the Bodhisattva Palace, the Luohan Hall, each place is not only separated by steps, but also affected by its own layout, the corner is often very narrow, needless to say that large vehicles can not enter, even the means of transport such as the trolley have lost their usefulness here. At the same time, there are many first- and second-class ancient trees in the temple, and these precious "living" cultural relics must be protected, but they also add another layer of difficulty to the transportation of materials.
Transporting raw materials alone can be difficult. To this end, the construction personnel first set up scaffolding on the main repair buildings such as the Daxiong Treasure Hall, the Bodhisattva Hall and the Luohan Hall, and then used a large number of wooden boards and wires to build a "plank road" to connect each building, and at the same time, leveling according to the height of the building position, reducing the slope of the "plank road" between the buildings, so that the trolley can be unimpeded, so that the transportation of materials is both stable and safe. This innovative approach alone greatly saves the time of transporting materials and effectively shortens the construction period.
"Three pulps and three pressures"
This sounds confusing words, but it is the "highlight" of the renovation of the cultural relics of Biyun Temple, the building waterproofing is done, it will better protect the building, and the "three slurry and three pressure" is a vital method and step in the roof waterproofing.
The roof of the ancient building is composed of four parts: the base layer, the back layer, the joint layer and the tile surface. Among them, the one responsible for the insulation and waterproofing of ancient buildings is the back layer, which generally includes the mud back layer responsible for thermal insulation and the gray back layer responsible for waterproofing, and the "three slurry and three pressures" is the ancient building practice of the gray back layer standard. The "ash" in the ash back layer is hemp knife ash, that is, hemp is added to the mortar to improve the degree of bonding, and then these mortars are spread on a layer, and the water is driven out in a "rush" way, and then a layer is laid, and then "rushed" again...... In this way, it is called "three slurry and three pressure", so that the superposition of layers can make the gray back layer better play the role of waterproofing. "However, in order to make the effect better, it is common to do it more than three times." He Han, the captain of the park engineering team responsible for the daily construction management, said, at the same time, he also said: "In the gutter and other important parts, a layer of tin back layer has been added, due to the high cost and complex process, which is not used in today's ancient building restoration projects, but the waterproof effect is definitely better, and the quality of the project is the most important." ”
"Gold-covered earth" color
When repairing the wall of the front Xuanmen wall of the Luohan Hall of Biyun Temple, after cleaning the mottled red paint on the wall, the original earthy yellow color was revealed, and the craftsmen and masters recognized at a glance that this was the gold-filled earth color, and the entire wall was completed in accordance with the practice of "red and white lines of the boundary of the big green wall" in the "Code of Engineering Practices" of the Qing Dynasty, which fully confirmed that the Luohan Hall building adopted the official practice of the Qing Dynasty. However, difficulties also followed, the gold-filled soil originated in Hebei, and now it is difficult to buy ready-made gold-filled soil, so you can only mix it yourself. The craftsmen first carefully scraped some gold-clad soil from the wall, and then added water to dissolve, according to the color of the soup, the loess purchased in Shanxi, the red clay purchased in Yunnan and other materials were proportioned, compared with it, again and again experiments, a little bit of proportion, after dozens of efforts, finally obtained the color that is most similar to the original gold-clad earth.
"Pull" up the large wooden frame
There is also a difficult task in this repair, which is to make the large wooden frame in front of the Luohan Hall be put back in order. Due to the influence of time and topography, the large wooden frame in front of Luohan Hall appeared to be more obviously crooked, causing the wall to tilt, and the baseline of the original building was about 10 cm different. In the traditional renovation of ancient buildings, the professional approach to this is to "straighten and straighten", that is, without dismantling the main wooden frame, the inclined frame as a whole is "pulled" back to the right, and then reinforced. It sounds simple, but the timber frame of the entire Qianxuan building is so large and complex that it can be said that it affects the whole body. It is necessary to straighten the inclined wooden frame as a whole, which position to pull, how to pull back, how much to pull back, etc...... It has to be studied and demonstrated repeatedly. Finally, the focus of pulling is on the 8 columns in the middle of the building, and the tic-tac-toe frame is set up next to it as a fixed stress point, and then the hoisting belt and the inverted chain are installed on the column, and the pulling can be carried out manually with the help of the force of the chain. "Considering that there will be a certain degree of rebound after pulling back into position, a total of 'three reference lines' are set, the first is the actual inclination angle of the building, the middle one is the standard of the vertical center, and the last one is the position that needs to be pulled, this position is about 3 centimeters different from the standard line of the vertical center, which is to leave a margin for the rebound, which is also the experience of the old craftsmen." Liu Hao, as the leader of the engineering team with the daily management of the construction site, always sighs at the professional ability of the craftsmen and old craftsmen in the repair of ancient buildings every time he talks about some difficulties in the construction process. In this way, the front of the Luohan Hall was returned to its original position and was strengthened and maintained.
In the process of repairing the ancient buildings of Biyun Temple, many historical imprints have also been found. Xu Yinping, chief of the park publicity section, said: "This ancient building repair, found a lot of interesting places, such as after the demolition of the roof of the Daxiong Treasure Palace, when the large wooden frame was exposed, there was charcoal black handwriting, writing that Wang Xiaozhai would be repaired in the third year of the Tomorrow Dynasty, which was clearly recognizable, and then for example, the Ming Dynasty paintings that had been covered by the Qing Dynasty paintings were exposed behind the eaves of the building, and there were also some architectural practices, both the practices of the Ming Dynasty, the official practices of the Qing Dynasty, and some traces left by the repair during the Republic of China. These are the best proof of history, and they are also vivid teaching materials for us to learn and study ancient buildings. Therefore, in the whole repair process, we also pay great attention to the training of professional and technical personnel, and we can experience such a large-scale repair work of ancient buildings, and we have also gained a lot of knowledge.
The renovated Biyun Temple has recently reopened, closed every Monday (except statutory holidays), and important nodes will provide voluntary interpretation services for citizens and tourists in the main hall. In autumn, although it is only "separated by a wall" from Xiangshan Park, there is no noisy garden atmosphere in the park, but it is more quiet and elegant, especially in the Bell and Drum Tower, Hanbi Zhai and other places, several tall and ancient ginkgo trees, golden leaves and simple buildings, magnificent color paintings echo each other, attracting many photography enthusiasts and Hanfu lovers to take pictures and check in.
Editor/Zhang Peng