The Forbidden City in Beijing, China, also known as the Forbidden City, was the palace of 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, with a history of 600 years, still well-preserved, the roof of the palace is still glittering, and their is little bird droppings fall on it, Zhou Gan, the senior engineer at the Palace Museum, mentioned that the main building materials and roofing materials, “glazed tiles”, which has a smooth and water leakage prevention function.
Zhou Gan engineers pointed out that glazed tiles are also fired from clay, but more than one “secondary re-firing” process, will be fired into shape of clay, coated with different colors of glaze on the surface of the step is called “glazing”, after the second high-temperature firing, the glaze will be adhered to the clay tiles, glazed tiles are the more commonly used construction materials in ancient palace buildings.
Glazed tile color variety, each with a different meaning, for example, yellow means emperor, and belongs to the emperor’s special color, wherever you see the red walls and yellow tiles, you will know that is the emperor’s special palace, and green on behalf of the garden, such as the emperor’s recreational places, “Summer Palace”, the blue indicates that the blue sky, used for sacrificial buildings, such as the Temple of Heaven “Hall of Prayer for the Year”.
According to the “West China Metropolis Daily” report, in addition to the cultural significance of the glazed tile, but also has a practical function, can prevent water leakage, protect the body of the tile from wind sun, rain, and cracks, glazed tiles also have the characteristics of a smooth surface, easy to reflect in the sunlight to reduce the chance of birds and other animals near the roof of the palace, so that less bird droppings. Not only that, since the establishment of the Forbidden City, successive generations have attached great importance to the maintenance of buildings, maintenance, cleaning, and other work every year.
