Bricks Through Time

As a college student taking a week of work experience at HWA, I have been graciously allowed to accompany multiple visits to structures of varying ages, sizes and functions. Among many other things this has led me to one revelation in particular; that there are an awful lot of bricks around.

So I, having been kindly invited to write this blog, decided to research the history of these unassuming cuboids which have quite literally formed the building blocks of civilisations.

The process of shaping clay into blocks and heating them to create bricks is truly ancient. Bricks moulded by hand and left to dry in the sun were already being employed in Jericho as far back as 9000BC and by 2900BC the great cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation built structures from kiln-baked bricks, all perfectly standardised by a 4:2:1 ratio. Around this same time in China too this fundamental ingredient of structure was being produced on large scales.

The civilisation of ancient Rome, famed throughout history for its feats of civil engineering, used bricks as its staple building material. Bricks were the principal constituents of structures ranging from their renowned aqueducts and villas to the Colosseum in Rome. They considered the availability of these so necessary that legions even transported mobile kilns.

With the fall of Rome however brick production in the west went into decline, until they were once again needed only a few centuries later as the construction of castles became more prominent. As the middle of the second millennium approached, bricks became unfashionable, but due to their immense utility were simply covered up rather than replaced. Then with the industrial revolution brick buildings once again became almost homogeneous as every street in every town of Victorian Britain was lined with millions of the reddish cuboids, which have very much survived as the quintessential backdrop of many of our communities until today.

All considered, these blocks, so individually small, become easily forgotten and ignored as we take for granted what is a product of thousands of years of progress. It is easy to forget that such a common object, coming in myriad different compositions, shapes and sizes, has been fundamental to the development of civilisation throughout history and remains integral in sheltering our communities and workplaces. I hope that in reading this you may have developed a greater respect for the bricks which make up our buildings, almost entirely unnoticed.