Bricks Now & Then
The Oldest Man-Made Building Material

Then: Ancient Temples of Bagan, Myanmar Vleeshal in Haarlem, the Netherlands Wainwright Building in St Louis, USANow: Aban House in Isfahan, Iran (USE Studio) Living – Garden House in Katowice, Poland (KWK Promes Robert Konieczny) Élancourt Music School in France (OPUS 5 Architectes) “Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.” Ludwig Mies van der RoheBuildings made of brick are found in very different epochs and cultures all over the world. Always astonishing, the qualities of brickwork continue to be explored by the world’s best architects until today. A key characteristic of the material’s success since time immemorial has always been the ease of planning due to its standardized production and the resulting harmonized building processes. In addition to longevity, amazing constructive possibilities as well as inexpensive and at the same time environmentally friendly production are among the qualities that are particularly valued today. Using computer software solutions, and even robots in some cases, today’s architects are deploying brick in inventive ways: perforated, pixelated, undulating and more.The featured works from the past and present are a demonstration of how the use and popularity of bricks has not diminished one bit over the millennia, and is even gaining popularity today.