The whole renovation of Zhizhu Temple

When Zhizhu Temple was discovered by relevant parties in 2007, it was already dilapidated and surrounded by a complex of buildings composed of houses of different eras. It had long been forgotten by people, and its ruins lay in the afterglow of the setting sun. , exudes a shocking beauty of despair, which is what initially inspired the Dongjingyuan management team to want to rebuild the ancient temple.

The maintenance project began in 2008. The reconstruction and maintenance of this ancient temple has become the area where the restoration team members invest the most energy, because the cultural relics protectors want to protect as much as possible the historical features and original features of the ancient buildings related to Zhizhu Temple. It took more than 5 years to complete the structural style, and the project is still ongoing until now. They not only restored the buildings of the ancient temple, but also preserved a small number of buildings from various historical periods after the founding of the People's Republic of China to ensure the continuity of history and times. Every detail reveals their love for this place. Historical love.

Adhering to the concept of "all-round preservation of historical features", the Dongjingyuan management team is open to learning, recruiting talents, and working closely with the Beijing Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau and a group of knowledgeable professional ancient building architects . Today, landmark buildings such as the Main Hall of Zhizhu Temple are listed as government protected heritage, and various typical buildings from different historical periods around them are also listed as cultural relics.

“At the beginning, everyone thought that the restoration of Zhizhu Temple was an almost impossible task. To succeed, we had to ignore time and cost.” An architect involved in the restoration once described it this way, "We are very careful to compare and select restoration methods, and try to make the restoration as old as possible." We select usable materials from the old buildings, then find new materials that are closest to the old materials, and rebuild them one-to-one according to the original appearance of the building. The well-known Greek temples and other world monuments were restored according to this method. "This method is much more time-consuming and labor-intensive than dismantling everything and rebuilding it according to old drawings with new materials. Many people say we are too 'luxury'."

But there is another problem: How to revive a 400-year-old Buddhist temple?

Be cautious, patient and step-by-step. First, the rubble is removed to expose the column, and then the repair work begins one by one, beam by beam, and sometimes even brick by brick.

Here *** 200 trucks of rubble were removed, equivalent to 500 tons of domestic waste. 80 cubic meters of new wood were purchased for the renovation and reconstruction work. 71 wooden posts were replaced and 1,400 square meters of shed roof was renovated. The renovation work resulted in the restoration of 43,000 roof tiles.

A fire in 1961 severely damaged part of the roof of Zhizhu Temple, so the architect carried out careful repair work on the outer tiles and the inner ceiling. In fact, the most delicate part of the project was the removal of a false flat roof that had been used for winter insulation more than 60 years ago. The reconstruction work revealed a layer of delicate wooden boards from that time, and some of the original Sanskrit paintings that had been hidden for decades were faintly visible, much to everyone's delight.

An artist's skill was crucial in cleaning and refinishing these panels, a challenge that calligrapher Tang Guo and an ink painter enthusiastically took on. Their team eventually removed more than 400 panels from the ceiling, but only 70 of them could be fully restored and 120 were restored to good condition. Tang Guo sorted out the panels of different sizes and listed them one by one. He adopted a traditional method: no nails and putty as an adhesive (made from tung oil from the Japanese tung tree, fine sand, lime, etc.) , the back of the panel is filled with fine linen. For Master Tang Guo: "Art is not a process of discovery. Art is knowing how to use tradition to create."