Blog

By Tom Stelmack, Class of  2017

Over the past several millennia, clay became the ingredient of two of the most versatile building materials: terra cotta and brick. The former is created by a multi-temperature (500, 900, & 1000 degree centigrade), sequential-process, producing kiln-fired clay [i] dating back to at least 2600 BC. It has been found in Argos and gained prominence in Greek roofing. Historically, it has had multiple architectural applications, including its importance in Chicago’s design.

The latter, brick, can be sun-dried (first-known manufacturing process), kiln-fired, and/or compressed. Simple mud bricks date to Neolithic man in Jericho and were refined when firing created waterproofing. The best evidence comes from Mesopotamia, circa 5000 BC. As kiln-fired brick was expensive, it was often used only for its water-proofing quality on a building’s exterior, protecting the interior’s mud brick.

A famous example is the ziggurat built in Babylon that incorporated 35 million bricks of which about 10% were fired and placed on the lower exterior. Brick’s relative simplicity, however, carries much elegance. That’s what I’ll explore in this article.

Chicago’s buildings offer much brickwork dating from the mid-19^th century to today’s prefabrication technologies. Much of the early mason-work is attributable to German and Polish immigrants, known both for their technology and precision handicraft. Late in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, skyscraper design developed in response to the great Chicago conflagration. Cost drove the popularity of brick for warehouses, factories, and office buildings. Architects found the use of brick cost-saving while producing an attractive structure for the owners to showcase their businesses.

We see examples in many of our core and neighborhood tours. The Fulton Market: Grit to (mostly) Gourmet tour includes several former commission houses and manufacturing plants that demonstrate a wide variety of design and technology. The River Cruise has several examples, and my favorite is the Reid Murdoch Building.  If you look closely at the Venetian Gothic inspired Chicago Athletic Association on the  Historic Treasures tour, the vertical façade elements are brick. The Historic Skyscrapers tour highlights a world-famous Monadnock Building [ii]  that incorporates hydraulically compressed brick. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style Robie House [iii] is also well known for its unique brick style.

How can brick be simply so elegant? While coloration contributes, the orientation of the brick patterns known as bonding (below [iv]) carries a greater impact. When bricks are displayed in a specific array, the term “bonding” is applied. Most North American bondings are slight variations of the Stretcher and English Garden styles. Corbelling denotes a decorative, usually non-supportive, element and is common.

Inlays highlight the brick façade, giving it a sense of grandeur as seen on the Reid Murdoch façade ( [v][vi]). The former Zette Zuncker Packing Company shows multiple patterns of narrow Roman bricks on its façade .

The Fulton Market Building simulates the hidden buttresses of medieval brick churches. And now we have pre-fabrication technology that reduces labor costs and still allows the rich red color of iron-clay brick to contrast with glass and steel.

Look around during your tours for these hidden brick elements that make our architecture so rich and eclectic.

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Sources

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architectural_terracotta

[ii] J Campbell & W Pryce, “Brick: A World History” 2016 p 248-251.

[iii] J Campbell & W Pryce, “Brick: A World History” 2016 P243.

[iv] Adapted from J Campbell & Pryce, “Brick: A World History” glossary

[v][v] https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/reid-murdoch-center/24795

[vi] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Reid_Murdoch_Co_2018.jpg