Kaohsiung Daliao Kilns 大寮磚窯廠

Kaohsiung is home to an old famous brick kiln near the Love River. While that is certainly an important and interesting spot, there are two more kilns in Kaohsiung’s Daliao District (大寮區), that are pretty cool in their own right.

Daliao used to be a famous kiln area in Kaohsiung. I’ve read that there were at least 15 kilns. Only two (maybe three) remain.

The first one is the Gongyi Brick Kiln (共益磚窯廠). It was built in 1949 and was in operation until at least the early 1970s.

This Hoffmann Kiln is known in Taiwan as a Bagua kiln (八卦窯). This is because the slopes of the two sides are octagonal just like the Bagua or eight Trigrams. (Think of those eight-sided things that hang above some people’s doors in Taiwan)

After the kiln stopped operating it was just left and forgotten about. Because of this it definitely has an Angkor Wat kind of feel.

The interior of the kiln was cleaned up in the past few years, but there is still a bit of garbage and of course lots of bugs. So be careful.

This kiln was forgotten for a long time. However, in the past few years, people have made sure to clean up the kiln and also speak about its historical value and make sure that it won’t be demolished.

Even if you don’t care about kiln history, it’s still a pretty cool spot to visit and an excellent place for photos.

Kiln number two in Daliao is the Ruirong Kiln (瑞榮紅磚工廠) This kiln was used to make ceramics.

This kiln is a Dehua or Deng kiln (登窯), called a muzi kiln 目仔窯 in Taiwan.

This kiln was built before 1947 and like the other one, it stopped operation in the 70s. As with the Gongyi kiln, it was mostly forgotten about. It’s even lesser talked or written about than the Gongyi kiln.

It’s funny when I first came here I thought that this was the Gongyi kiln. I then went home did some googling and was like, hey this isn’t it and found out that there are two of them!

A local temple seems to have taken an interest in the kiln.

This kiln also has kept a nice lost world vibe.

Both kilns are pretty easy to find. And while Daliao isn’t my favorite district these kilns are very close to many cool spots in Fengshan (鳳山).

So if you’re in the area, kiln No. 1 is at 大寮區共益磚窯廠（高雄市大寮區鳳林四路302號） and kiln No.2 is at 大寮區瑞榮紅磚工廠(高雄市大寮區鳳林四路207-1號後方) just google those and go and say Hi!