In each issue we identify a key aesthetic trend evident in our archive of recent projects and challenge semiotics agency Axis Mundi to unpack its design codes. In Frame 138, we look at how brick is being used across a range of spaces to revive both ancient and modern traditions.
If the spatial resonances of the humble ‘brick’ across civilizations both ancient and modern has typically been overlooked, its metaphorical associations in popular culture provide us with semiotic clues that might explain its now emerging popularity across various spatial typologies. In Pink Floyd’s 1979 three-part composition ‘Another Brick in the Wall’, the band uses the brick to signify the encoded rules and restrictions of human institutions that inhibit individual freedom and expression. The brand Lego inverts that claim. For them, the brick is an enabler of creativity and human self-actualization. But whether tearing walls down, or building them back up, Pink Floyd and Lego share an interpretation of the brick as a resonant ‘building block’ of human endeavour.
E Imperial Kiln Museum by Studio Zhu-Pei in Jingdezhen, China. Photo: Schranimage
Z33 House for contemporary art, design and architecture by Francesca Torzo Architetto in Hasselt, Belgium.
Pirouette house by Wallmakers in Thiruvananthapuram, India. Photo: Jino Sam
The kiln, the earliest known dating back to 6000BC, is an ancient technology that harnesses the elemental power of fire and heat to harden and dry clays and mud – often into brick. This channelling of primal energy, not unlike Heidegger’s pseudo-mystical interpretation of the windmill (which he says draws energy from the wind but does not ‘extract’ it), has renewed relevance today as our civilizations confront the pressing need for green and sustainable energy. Cavernous interiors mirror those of kilns. Held by brick walls and disappearing ceilings careering in expansive geometries, we imagine the air lingers still with the dusty afterburn of an oven’s heat. Bricks piled high in herringbone patterns and in twisting ‘drunk’ façades lean and enclose like the bark of a tropical tree. Criss-crossing or lattice patterning combines with terracotta colouring to bring a social and personable warmth.
Kahrizak residential building no 01 by Caat Studio in Kahrizak, Iran. Photo: Parham Taghioff
Kitrvs winery by Gramazio Kohler Research, the Chair of Architecture and Digital Fabrication at ETH Zürich in Pydna, Greece. Photo: Michael Lyrenmann
Gusto 501 restaurant by Partisans in Toronto, Canada. Photo: Nic Lehoux
Fast forward to the 19th century and the semiotic signification of brick tugs in a different direction. It is now a vital material building block of industrializing 19th-century societies – in those ‘dark Satanic mills’ of William Blake’s poem and in Gothic schools, asylums and hospitals. Across spaces parametric techniques enliven and distort what would’ve been the slippery rain-soaked red brick of Manchester or London. We can see the stillness of time and the careful hand of the bricklayer illuminated by lighting with the quality of candles. These are patient and slow spaces. Recalling the phrase ‘brick by brick’, we expect that the natural exposure to the environment (light and fluctuating temperature) eventually brings brick, and the institutions they build, to rest as reassuring totems of the landscape.
Aēsop Park Slope store by Frida Escobedo in New York City, US. Photo: Courtesy of Aēsop
Canada Goose office by Roomoo in Shanghai, China. Photo: Xiao Yun
OneLog dispensary by Pentagon in Garberville, US.
But brick needn’t just signify permanence. In other spaces, seemingly hastily arranged and porous walls of brick recall the labyrinthine muddle of growing urban cities of the Global South. Apparently unfinished façades open out into the street. Bricks extrude from walls, jutting out in rumbles of texture. A virtue is made of the lighter-weight bricks with holes, swirling amid dappled tropical light and verdant flora. The sense impression is alive, a rotating and organic energy that doesn’t enclose inhabitants, but sinks into the structured substrate of the urban landscape. Whether brick stands in stately patience or as a kaleidoscope portal, or whether it references ancient or modern beliefs, its subject is time – how much of it we’ve had, and how much of it we have left.
Cover image: Wall house by CTA Architects in Biên Hòa, Vietnam. Photo: Hiroyuki Oki
