Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Bricks

Starting point is 00:00:00 There's a good chance that every day you encounter bricks. You might drive on them, walk on them, and live inside them, and you've probably never even given them a second thought. However, bricks, brickwork, and bricklaying are some of the constants that have existed throughout human history. We used bricks for construction thousands of years ago, and we still use them today. Learn more about bricks and bricklaying and how it's changed over the centuries on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

Starting point is 00:00:52 It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. If you had to pick a subject for an episode of this podcast about everyday objects that you think would be incredibly boring, It's quite possible that some of you might have selected bricks. Bricks are, well, they're bricks. Yet bricks are so ubiquitous that they've actually permeated our language. If people are stupid, we say they're as dumb as a brick, or a few bricks short of a full load.

Starting point is 00:01:30 If we want someone to leave, we tell them to hit the bricks. If something takes patience and perseverance, we talk about building something one brick at a time. However, if you're frustrated, you just bang your head against a brick wall. And if you receive news that leaves you stunned, you can say that it hit you like a ton of bricks. Whether or not you pay attention to them, simple bricks are a huge part of our culture. While I'm sure all of you would know a brick if you saw one, what exactly is a brick? The simplest definition is that a brick is a rectangular block made from clay or similar material, which is typically used in construction to build walls, buildings, roads, and other structures by arranging the bricks and layers.

Starting point is 00:02:11 It sounds extremely simple, and it is, but as we'll see, there's actually a whole lot more to it. The very first evidence of bricks dates back about 11,000 years to some of the very oldest human constructions. The first bricks were sun-dried mud bricks. Mud bricks are very simple. They're made out of mud with a binding material that was usually straw or some other agricultural byproduct. Mud isn't a technical term. It's just a slurry consisting of a hodgepodge of particulate. matter, which might include sand, silt, or clay, all of which are particles of different sizes. Mud bricks would be made by hand and then placed out in the sun to dry. The ancient city of Jericho, which dates back to 9,000 BC, was constructed out of mud brick. Adobe, which is a construction material used in Mexico and the American Southwest, is just another form of mud brick. The Grand

Starting point is 00:03:04 Mosque of Jene and Mali is made out of mud brick, the current iteration of which having been built in 1907. Mud bricks got the job done, but they were far from perfect. In most places, you could only make bricks during certain times of the year to ensure that they were sun-dried, and likewise, binding materials such as husks and straw, were not available year-round. Most importantly, the quality and consistency of mud bricks weren't very great. Mud bricks were very porous, they could degrade quickly if you had a lot of rain, and there was a limit to how big you could build with them. The next big innovation in bricks was the fired brick.

Starting point is 00:03:39 A fired brick differs from a mud brick in that it doesn't require any sort of organic binding component like straw, and the final product is heated in a kiln, not dried by the sun. Fired bricks were also usually made almost exclusively from clay, not just random mud. Fired bricks were a huge innovation. They were more consistent. They were more resilient and they were stronger. Kieln dried bricks also didn't have cracks in them when they dried like mud bricks often did. The first evidence of fired bricks appeared in China around 4,500 BC, where fired bricks were used as flooring and later to pave roads. The first fired bricks that were used in building construction appeared in the Indus Valley of what is today Pakistan around the year 3000 BC.

Starting point is 00:04:23 Fired brick technology spread to Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Greece, where they were used for much of their construction. One of the major innovations in bricklaying was the development of mortar. Mortar is a substance that goes between bricks, which serves to even even, out the irregular gaps between the bricks and serves as an adhesive between the bricks. The first mortars were just mud and clay, often the exact same substance that was used in mud bricks. Later, mortars developed that use gypsum or lime, which serve to cement the bricks together. These mortars are known as hydraulic mortars. The mortar would set by a chemical reaction, not just from the mortar drying. In ancient China, they didn't actually use a true hydraulic mortar. They had to use organic rice paste as a mortar.

Starting point is 00:05:06 The civilization, however, that really advanced and spread brick technology, was the Romans. The Romans were actually behind most civilizations all the way through the Republican period. During this entire time, Rome almost exclusively used mud bricks that were sun-dried. It wasn't until the start of the imperial period under the Emperor Augustus that Rome began using fired bricks, using techniques largely borrowed from Greece. However, once the Romans adopted fired bricks, they really adopted it. Roman brick-making kilns were found all over the empire. Roman legions would often bring portable kilns with them so they could make bricks for their camps.

Starting point is 00:05:45 One of the things that piqued my interest in bricks, and one of the reasons I'm doing this episode, was when I noticed how different Roman bricks were whenever I visited Roman ruins around the Mediterranean. Roman bricks were much thinner than modern bricks, and were usually wider and sometimes longer. You can instantly tell a Roman brick when you see one, and Roman-style bricks are actually still used in some buildings today. Roman brickmakers developed a system of putting identification stamps on their bricks so you could tell who made them. And starting in the second century, stamps would often include the consoles for that year, which made it very easy to date Roman bricks. Rome also developed several innovations surrounding bricks, the biggest of which was probably their mortar.

Starting point is 00:06:27 The Romans developed a mortar that was very similar to Roman concrete and used the same volcanic ash known as Pazolana. Roman bricks were used everywhere around the empire and in almost every construction project. They brought a uniform system of brickwork and brickmaking to areas throughout the empire. But when the empire fell, brickmaking went into decline. Across most of the former empire, brick was replaced by stone. Stone is much more durable than brick, but more difficult to work with, as each stone has to be quarried and cut by hand. Bricks and bricklaying, however, never completely died out. It was mostly just used for smaller structures, whereas stone was used for larger projects,

Starting point is 00:07:05 such as castles and cathedrals. It wasn't until the 14th and 15th centuries, then an event known as the Brick Renaissance took place. Brick making and brick construction took off, particularly in northern Europe in the cities of the Hanseatic League. Brick allowed for buildings to be built quickly and more cheaply than with stone, which met the demands of the growing merchant class in Europe. Throughout the Renaissance, brick was the primary material for construction.

Starting point is 00:07:30 and many buildings from that period still exist today, all throughout Europe. The Industrial Revolution saw another significant change in brick technology. The rise of large factory buildings and warehouses saw an enormous demand for bricks and brick construction. The demand was met by the mechanization of brickmaking. Brick making had been done by hand ever since bricks were invented. Clay would have to be packed into a mold, put into a kiln, removed and stacked all by hand. In the early 19th century, many steps in the brick-making process were automated, and in 1845, an inventor named Henry Clayton began selling the first automated brick-making machine.

Starting point is 00:08:10 The machine revolutionized brick-making, allowing for just a few men to make as many as 25,000 bricks per day. As automation decreased the cost of bricks, you saw bricks being used in ways that hadn't been used before, primarily on roads. Traditionally paved roads would use stones. But with bricks being so cheap, it was possible to line entire streets with bricks to provide a smoother ride for carriages and carts. And perhaps more importantly, brick roads didn't turn into a pool of mud every time it rained. Over in the United States, the country was growing rapidly, in particular, its largest city, New York. To meet the demand for bricks in New York, the area around the Hudson River, just upstream from New York City, became the largest brick-producing region in the world. There were over 130 brickyards that were collectively producing over one billion bricks a year by the end of the 19th century.

Starting point is 00:09:03 Throughout the 19th century, bricks weren't just dominant. They were almost universal for building in cities. Wood construction wasn't viable due to the fire risks. However, there was a limit to what brick construction could do. In 1891, the 16th-story Menadnach building was built in Chicago. It was, and remains, the tallest load-bearing brick building ever constructed. at 215 feet or 66 meters. Just to build something of this height took specially designed extra thick walls.

Starting point is 00:09:32 If brick buildings were to go any higher, the walls would have to keep getting thicker and the amount of brick used would have to increase accordingly. The problem of height was eventually solved by using steel frameworks in buildings called skyscrapers. Many of the early skyscrapers actually used bricks on the exterior of the building, but it was only for ornament.

Starting point is 00:09:51 The bricks were not bearing any of the load. The Chrysor Building in New York City is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel framework at a height of 1,046 feet or 319 meters. At the start of the 20th century, a new innovation in bricks appeared. The concrete masonry unit, aka the cinder block or the breeze block. The cinder block was basically a large hollow brick that was made out of concrete. The blocks are laid down in the same manner as brick and mortar. However, their hollow interior allowed for the insides to be laid.

Starting point is 00:10:23 filled with cement to create a solid wall or with insulation. While the manufacturer of bricks and concrete blocks has mostly been automated, the laying of bricks and blocks is still largely done by hand. Medieval and Renaissance bricklayers were often part of guilds, either of bricklayers or under the larger umbrella of masons. Today, becoming a bricklayer usually requires some classroom instruction at a trade school and then several years of apprenticeship under a master. If you think that bricklaying is just stacking bricks on top of each other,

Starting point is 00:10:53 think again. How a brick is laid is extremely important. There are a number of different types of bricks. Each brick can be orientated in a different way. Perhaps most important is determining the overall layout of all the layers of bricks. This is known as a bond. If you've ever looked at a brick wall, you'll notice that the bricks are staggered. That is the bond, and there are many different types of bonds. There's the English bond, the Dutch bond, the Flemish bond, the Scottish bond, and many others. And those are for load-bearing walls. For decorative walls, there are many more ways you can lay brick, including herringbone, basket weave, and pinwheel bonds. As of 2020, there were an estimated 1.9 trillion units of bricks and concrete blocks produced every year around the world. There are

Starting point is 00:11:39 avid brick collectors who collect bricks based on the stamp where they were manufactured, and there's an international brick collector association. There are also bricklaying competitions, the largest of which is the annual Spec Mix Brick Layer 500, which is held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada. Contestants are judged both on speed and skill. Bricks are one of the few things that have been around for thousands of years, are still used today, and most probably will still be used centuries from now. In a very real sense, these dried blocks of clay served as the very foundation of the buildings that help make civilization.

Starting point is 00:12:16 The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just want to thank everyone, including the show's producers, who support the show over on Patreon. If you'd like to support the show, just head over to patreon.com, which is currently the only place where you can get show merchandise. Also, if you want to talk to other listeners about the show, head over to our Facebook group or Discord server, both of which have links in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Bricks

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