The so-called "golden bricks" refer to the big square bricks laid on the grounds of palaces such as the Forbidden City, about 2.2 feet, 2 feet or 1.7 feet square. The traditional brick and tile production in Suzhou is quite age-old, with the tradesmen long gathered around the Lumu Town, north of Suzhou city. Lumu has a type of yellow soil most suitable for brick making, and the bricks produced in this area are known for its exquisite workmanship, reasonable firing method, and unique technical know-how. The golden bricks made by Lumu craftsmen are particularly fine but hard, which, when knocked, produce clear sounds and when broken apart, are free of "holes" on the fracture surface. Emperor Yongle in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) called the Lumu brick kilns the "imperial kilns". These golden bricks from imperial kilns can be found in Taihe Palace, Zhonghe Palace, Baohe Palace in the Forbidden City, rostrum at the Tian’anmen Square, and Mausoleum Dingling, one of the thirteen Ming Dynasty Mausoleums in outskirt of Beijing.
The making of Golden Bricks in Imperial Kilns is quite complicated, with working procedures amounting to more than 20 steps. The main processes are selecting mud, forging mud, blocking, loading, firing, adding water, taking out of the kiln and grinding. Each process linked with another. In case of a failure in any one of them, all previous efforts will be wasted. Currently, the brick production, except grinding and cutting, still strictly followed the traditional working procedures handed down over the past hundreds of years. From the very beginning of selecting mud to the end of taking the bricks out of the kiln, half a year will be the cost; hence, the yield of such precious bricks is quite limited. Now in United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macao regions, we can see the sales of golden bricks and others ancient bricks, tiles and building members produced from the Imperial Kilns.
Inheritor of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Golden Brick Making: Jin Meiquan
