Architectural History

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The Brick Bulletin

The eternal brick
Dan Cruickshank recalls discovering in his travels ancient brick
buildings that are testament to the material’s incredible durability

Bricks express the essence of architecture. They possess all three qualities that 1st-century BC Roman architect Vitruvius said characterise architectural excellence – commodity, firmness and delight. A well burnt brick of good clay properly mixed is incredibly strong, almost invariably of a beautiful mellow colour and can be put to many structural and decorative uses.

Bricks, in the past at least, also possessed an almost magical quality. I suppose this was because they were a fusion of the four elements – clay transformed by flame or the fire of the sun into a virtually indestructible material that none of the four elements can harm. It was alchemy. And the soundness of a fine brick made it a symbol of eternity, an emblem of immortality.

When walking through the 6000-year-old remains of Uruk in Iraq – a pioneering creation of the Sumerians and one of the world’s first cities – I found myself confronted by some of the oldest bricks on earth. They are made from sun-dried clay, dusty dull yellow in colour and slab-like in form with each about a foot square. They had been used to form the core of the vast stepped pyramid or ziggurat that formed the heart of the city’s temple area. This pyramid, perhaps as much as 1400 years older than the first of the Egyptian masonry-built pyramids – that of Djoser at Saqqara – was probably clad originally in harder material that has long since been looted for reuse elsewhere. The original cladding could have been especially hard sun-dried or even kiln-fired brick although it is probable that kiln technology was pretty limited 6000 years ago …

It is no doubt for this reason that the Sumerians devised another solution. The site of Uruk is covered with tens of thousands of clay cones of various colours and sizes. Even the largest is considerably smaller than the bulky bricks and consequently much easier to kiln fire to its core. These hard cones will indeed last until the end of time and some I found still in situ, forming the weatherproof outer skin of temples built from sunfired brick. To my amazement, the patterns formed with these cones of different colours are those familiar from mosque design and Romanesque architecture in Europe

– chevrons, spirals and lozenges, all of which ancient and sacred motifs appears on the early 12th-century transept and nave columns of Durham Cathedral.

As well as developing brick architecture, the people of Uruk also applied the newly evolved art of writing, using what is now called cuneiform lettering, to the recording of stories. The world’s first known book, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is thought to have been written about 4700 years ago and was rediscovered in the mid 19th century on hundreds of clay tablets. The text is not complete but what survives is remarkable and remains moving. It tells of Gilgamesh, a king of Uruk, and his quest for immortality – a goal that he eventually finds through architecture. Build well, build cities and temples and your name and fame will live for ever – and central to this immortality is the brick.

The belief in immortality through architecture – expressed by the use of name-bearing bricks – became a tradition in Iraq, or Mesopotamia as it was called by the Greeks. As I walked through the mighty works completed by Nebuchadnezzar in the 7th century BC at Babylon and at the nearby ruined and remote city of Borsippa, I could not help but admire the wonderful pale yellow, slab-like bricks – 2600 years old but as hard as the day they were made, with sharp arises intact.

Like the earlier Sumerian bricks, each was about a foot square and two-and-a-half inches deep and occasionally one would be stamped with an inscription: “I am Nebuchadnezzar, king of kings …” By stamping his name on bricks, a ruler would not only ensure his name would be read for centuries – and so ensure a form of immortality – but by signing bricks he literally built himself into the fabric of the country. He and the great buildings that give a people pride and national identity would become one. This was a trick not lost on Saddam Hussein who, in the 1980s rebuilding of Babylon, had many of the new bricks stamped with the proclamation that he was responsible for the rebirth of Babylon and was – by implication – the new Nebuchadnezzar.

Bricks may appear the most humble of building materials but their unyielding strength has for thousands of years haunted man’s imagination so that they have become symbols of stability. Timber rots, limestone gradually dissolves, iron and steel corrodes – but well-wrought brick will last for eternity.

Dan Cruickshank is a consultant, TV presenter and author of Around the World in Eighty Treasures published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson at £20
VIEWPOINT

[ahmeds]

wonderul artical you gave us, that explains the technology of the past, by simple methods and materials they made bricks and out of the same ( bricks) they produced adimireable buildings and with very attracting architecture.

[P.C.]

Yes nice papers --- and I guess it fit well with how we can realise how it all started by finding stones on the ground or preparing bigger stones into "bricks" , how at some point clay was taken from the ground and burned to add resistance towerds the weather , how chalk ,sand fire was our horison --- but what about the limitations of the brick, what about how far it has been develobed and how much further we can expect to develob it.

What I say is that this brick is so celebrated, that we now stop further develobment ; concrete was a dead end, curtain walls and steel profile structures was a dead end ?

We stay here with the brick and it's limitations yes ?

[ahmeds]

what you mean to say or if I may ask , is the era or usefulness of brick is over ?

[ahmeds]

also one importance of studying architectural history is to know the great of architects of the past. I don't know if there any of the current architects will reach to those old guys levels, in designs and the way they developed architecture. (since apart from computersation of architecture,there is nothing new).

[P.C.]

Why is it you think there are only black and white ?

Before bricks, let's say it was Timber -- then one day this guy come and say "Architecture must change" , we must use the new technology the Brick.

Now how much could be said against bricks ; they are heavy and not strong and flexible as Timber : "Do you realise how heavy a Brick wall will be?"

"what do you think will happen when these fragile bricks has to carry hundred of tonns ; when the bottom Brick has to carry all the enormous weight ontop it, and gluing them together with this fragile plaster -- do you realise how fragile that is ?"

Please let me continue --- there would be so much to say "against" bricks, from the view of the proud Timbers crafts, that the bricks would newer get a chance. --- And even you started using Bricks, you would still need the lovely Wood for floors stairs and internal walls , beside as Timbers between the Brockwork , where are the great advanteage ?

------- And the same is said against the new architecture , or rather, all the mistakes building up to a brand new structure, is also said against it, even it is totaly different structures, then they are not brick structures , so anything you can say against rigid lattrice steel beam structures , can also be said against 3dh when you don't realise these are as different as Timbers and Bricks was.

[P.C.]

The Caves serves us well, the Timber houses served us well, the stone, brick concrete houses served us well , for each new material new technikes, progress and culture. The steel lattrice highrise structures served us we finaly realised the box how the box both expand and limit our emagination, every new material every new technology and technike was a step forwerds.

Why step backwerds, why fail the oppotunity to realy engage the computer force it to deliver, realise that the computer is so different, that the manufactoring it provide are so unique and is the new jobs, the new crafts, the new economy and production, --- the same progress that happened when iron replaced timbers and bricks.

[csintexas]

[csintexas]

Here is a relevant article on history:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/opinion/20brooks.html?_r=3&n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/David%20Brooks&oref=login&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[P.C.]

"Honeycomb and 3dh has already been done also"

Please I want to be polite when I tell you, that in 1998 it was not possible to find a way to generate a reliable structure from what you projected 3D with a CAD program.

Since I started publishing 3dh the same and same strange arguments surfaced again and again , your statement are one of them ; but even I tried and tried again to ask for graphics for pictures there newer was a proven 3dh. There was lamella structures various rib structures , some structures that was not even frames or ribs but cast structures, and what I found simply was, that those like you who claim 3dh was there before I develobed it, simply don't know what 3dh is -- why it is unique and newer seen before.

What vorry me though are the resons to claim that, and the perspective of claiming it. Belive me I realy are a profesional boatsbuilder , who else then a craftsman shuld know the difference ?

So when you point to some lamella structure and claim it is 3dh, then think about it ; you could be wrong and suddenly realise what others have allready realised, that 3dh realy are a new thing and that it in fact are so difficult without a computer, that an engineer would turn to the tradisional way's of creating a box structure -- and has I said I invented the box structure no, but you think that this is just a box structure and then 3dh was allready there.

3dh is generated with a computer. It is the only system that section out a buildable framework even today. But what you do by arogantly stating it was there before, even others like you realised it was not and it is unique, what you do is to undermine a great new structural system ; you don't go into it to understand it, all you do is to convinse yourself and others, that Per Corell is an idiot --- why don't you instead point me to a genuine 3dh that "was there before" , not some trivial lamella structure as that fail all descriptions of a 3dh , but one that conform the clear descriptions you obviously havn't read.

Don't think I do not know the arogant craftsman who can't toerate others to be better or just as good -- I has all the qualifications to be one myself with my background in a proud old craft --- but I try open my mind for others, I do not fly out to down what I don't understand, and if someone say to me, that there are something I failed to understand, then I atleast look again.

So why shuld a guy with genuine crafts experience keep claiming he made an invention ,and when he had a decade to listen to people who have been ancious to prove othervise, then why havn't anyone in that time delivered that prove ?

[P.C.]

I wonder if you even realised, that 3dh are generated from two planes , two planes that is placed so , in a way that was newer allowed.
When you make some lamella structure, do you then realise how tight you are to work within the tradisional 3 planes ?

3dh do everything that is not allowed in tradisional construction technike, it jettison the tradisional planes you are so used to, that you don't see them, what other structure jettison the tradisional construction planes, and why was that not "allowed" before the computer you shuld know ; I tell you, it is becaurse that if you don't follow the tradisional 3 planes, then calculations become allmost impossible -- and that is just one reson no one would use a 3dh , before the computer made it possible.

[csintexas]

Everyone has proved it PC, you just don't listen. We have all looked at your ideas and none of us (as far as I know) think it is anything new or worthwhile.
You are an artist and a genuinely nice person but you have no architectural abilities as far as I can tell and your English is so bad most of the time no one can really understand much of what you say.

[P.C.]

Also I again and again put two very different structures up, to ask anyone what other method can maneage such structures this and this ;

http://www.designcommunity.com/scrapbook/images/1969.jpg

http://home20.inet.tele.dk/h-3d/manzard-wh-r.jpg

I newer got an answer, and if you can not give me one, and realise that there maybe be something about what Per Corell say, then please stop convinsing others that I am an idiot !

Case you has an open mind now, then look what a simple Solid model is needed to generate the Manzard house structure you just seen ;

http://www.designcommunity.com/scrapbook/images/2580.jpg

And don't start talk about style or trends, when so little are nessery to generate a strong framework for a house, and any form is possible , just look at the foundations for floors and walls --- then tell me please ; where and when was that there allready ???

[P.C.]

" Everyone has proved it PC,"

Where and when --- documentation please, not just words .

"but you have no architectural abilities as far as I can tell "

Now that was not what they said at the architect acadamy when I was a student there. Offcaurse we in Denmark don't know so much about architecture I guess ......

[JonBailey]

your stupidity and close mindedness overwhelm me, csintexas.

because of you i am finding this forum less and less appealing.