History of bricks (Part three)
History of bricks (Part three)
In contrast, broad areas of the Roman Empire were built of brick. The letters “SPQR” (“the senate
and the people of Rome”), which demanded respect from all, can be found along with various legion
symbols carved into Roman bricks throughout the entire scope of their empire. From aqueducts and
early Christian basilicas to military, cultural and civil constructions. Bricks, wherever one looks.
The post card photographs of Europe would be bereft of so many powerful subjects if Rome’s brick
had never existed.
In Vienna, brick production has had a continually growing tradition at least since the construction
boom during the last third of the 19th century. In a museum dedicated expressly to the history of
brick, one can enjoy an introduction to this material so deeply connected with humankind. From Babylon
to Wienerberg, a Central European brick centre, from a legendary hallmark of early cultural history
to the trademark of a “global player”.
The pride of an entire culture is expressed through bricks. Consider, for instance, the impressive
achievementsof those unknown engineers who built the Roman aqueducts. A good two thousand years later
in Vienna, the imperial capital and residence city had grown into a metropolis, brick structures with
unmistakeable character arose. As with the Roman brick, the “Kaiser brick” was also the building block
of an empire.
The history of the brick is all around us. If one cuts into a city anywhere in Europe to examine its historical
organs, what does one see? Bricks! Everywhere, at all the deeply buried and temporally disparate levels of
civilization, bricks can be seen at the border between yesterday and today. So continues the tradition of the
ancient and ever modern building material of baked clay from the present day through the days to come – straight
back into the earth from which we all were formed. Supposedly.