# 水泥底下的釉彩：一片花磚的二十年

- URL: https://justfly.idv.tw/%e6%b0%b4%e6%b3%a5%e5%ba%95%e4%b8%8b%e7%9a%84%e9%87%89%e5%bd%a9%ef%bc%9a%e4%b8%80%e7%89%87%e8%8a%b1%e7%a3%9a%e7%9a%84%e4%ba%8c%e5%8d%81%e5%b9%b4/
- 日期: 2026-10-14
- 分類: 我知故我在
- 標籤: 嘉義, 文物修復, 老屋, 花磚

![水泥底下的釉彩：一片花磚的二十年]

##### 先剃掉的是水泥

修復師拿到一件東西,第一個動作不是補,是看。看它被誰動過、動得多狠。老花磚的狀況,多半是後者:屋脊拆下來,磚背黏著一整塊水泥,正面釉彩蒙灰,邊角缺口。處理的順序很固定——先把水泥剃掉,再談釉。

據[嘉義市台灣花磚博物館的介紹](https://www.cabcy.gov.tw),創辦人徐嘉彬搶救的萬餘片老花磚,走的就是這條路:手工剃除水泥、修復釉彩、重新燒製。「手工」兩個字在這裡不是形容詞,是工具清單。電動工具快,但釉面薄,一下重了就是一道裂。剃水泥的每一下,都在跟自己的手腕商量力道。

這種活沒有捷徑,也沒有速度可言。二十餘年,萬餘片,平均下來每一片都得有人低頭盯過。

##### 三合院屋脊上的海外訂單

這批花磚的來歷,本身就是一段貿易史。大正年間(1915-1935年),日本淡路島等地燒出所謂的「馬約利卡花磚」,釉面斑斕、帶立體浮紋。台灣的富商家族買回來,嵌在三合院的屋脊與門額上,講究的是一個「富貴」。

換個角度看,這是一種很直白的炫耀:磚是海那邊燒的,運過來,爬上屋頂,讓路過的人抬頭就看見。每一片背後有一個買得起的家族、一個下單的人、一個爬梯子貼磚的師傅。家族後來怎麼了,多半沒人記得,磚倒是留下來了。

直到老屋被拆。拆屋的人要的是土地,花磚跟著瓦礫一起被載走,是順理成章的事。

##### 製材廠裡的重逢

博物館蓋在嘉義日治時期的木造製材廠舊址。一棟本來處理木頭的老廠房,如今整面牆掛著近千片彩瓷,日本老廠的技術和台灣老屋的記憶,擠在同一個屋簷下。這個安排有它的幽默:花磚離開屋脊,最後落腳在一座曾經鋸木頭的地方,頭頂上仍是木樑。

日治時期的台灣常被當成建築的試驗場,1920至1940年間,純和式、洋館、折衷式的房子都蓋得相當大膽。花磚正是那個年代的產物,隨手一片,就帶著和洋、閩南混著來的長相。日本本土戰後高速成長拆掉了大量老建築,有些東西反而在海這邊的屋脊上留到今天。

##### 修復的分寸

文物修復有一條老規矩:補上去的部分,要讓人看得出是補的。釉彩重燒是另一回事,它牽涉到「補到哪裡才算還原」。補得太亮,老磚像新品;不補,缺角永遠是缺角。這個拿捏沒有標準答案,只有一片一片試出來的手感。

一個人做二十年,最後得到的是一套判斷,不只是一座漂亮的博物館:哪片該留傷,哪片該上釉,哪片水泥底下其實什麼都沒剩。

牆上近千片,倉庫裡還有萬餘片的故事沒掛完。

— 黃思齊

### The Glaze Under the Cement

##### The Cement Comes Off First

When a restorer picks up an object, the first move is looking, not fixing. Who has handled it, and how roughly? Old majolica tiles usually arrive in the rough state: pulled off a roof ridge, the back stuck to a slab of cement, the glaze under dust, the corners chipped. The order of work rarely changes. Cement goes first, glaze second.

According to the [account of the Taiwan Tile Museum in Chiayi](https://www.cabcy.gov.tw), founder 徐嘉彬 has followed this path for more than twenty years with over ten thousand old tiles: removing the cement by hand, repairing the glaze, firing again. “By hand” is not a figure of speech here. It is a tool list. Power tools are faster, but the glaze is thin, and one heavy stroke leaves a crack. Every chip of cement off a tile is a negotiation between the blade and the wrist.

There is no shortcut and no speed to speak of. Ten thousand tiles over two decades means someone bent over each one.

##### An Overseas Order on the Ridge

The origin of these tiles is a trade story. In the Taisho years (1915-1935), places like Awaji Island in Japan fired what are called “majolica tiles”, with vivid glazes and raised relief. Wealthy Taiwanese families bought them and set them into the ridges and door lintels of their courtyard houses, the sanheyuan, as a sign of prosperity.

It was a plainly worded boast: tiles fired across the sea, shipped over, and hoisted onto the roof where passersby would look up and see them. Behind each one stood a family that could afford it, someone who placed the order, and a craftsman who climbed a ladder to set it. What became of the families is mostly forgotten. The tiles outlasted the memory.

Then the old houses came down. Demolition crews wanted the land, and the tiles went off with the rubble as a matter of course.

##### A Reunion in a Sawmill

The museum sits on the site of a Japanese-era wooden sawmill in Chiayi. A building once built to process timber now holds nearly a thousand glazed tiles on a single wall, old Japanese factory craft and the memory of Taiwanese houses under one roof. There is a dry joke in the arrangement: tiles that left the roof ridge ended up in a place that once sawed wood, with timber beams still overhead.

Taiwan in the Japanese period is often described as a testing ground for architecture. Between 1920 and 1940, purely Japanese-style houses, Western-style halls and hybrid compromises were all built with some boldness. The tiles belong to that moment, mixed in their looks from the start. Postwar growth in Japan cleared away a great many old buildings there, while some things stayed on roof ridges on this side of the sea.

##### The Measure of Repair

Conservation has an old rule: a repair should be visible as a repair. Re-firing a glaze raises a different question, which is how far restoration should go. Patch too brightly and an old tile looks new. Leave it alone and a chipped corner stays chipped. There is no standard answer, only a feel worked out one tile at a time.

Twenty years of solo work yields a set of judgments, not just a handsome museum: which tile keeps its scar, which gets new glaze, which has nothing left under the cement.

Nearly a thousand tiles hang on the wall. Ten thousand more stories wait elsewhere.

— 黃思齊