Braiding

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

No matter how ancient brick construction is, interest in it from professionals and users does not subside. Architects from all directions appreciate this warm, human and infinitely diverse material. Representatives of modernism understand that there are few details in this style, and brickwork with a fine texture in a sense takes on the role of details, and is responsible for the beauty and rich texture of the surface. Therefore, they experiment a lot with bricks, invent new types of masonry. Architects working in the neoclassical and art deco styles use the entire arsenal of techniques for decorating a brick facade, created over the centuries.

What is this arsenal? Types of brickwork can be roughly divided into traditional and innovative. Traditional masonry is still actively used. It includes the following types of masonry, or brick dressing: butt (the brick is laid out with the short side to the face of the facade) and spoon (the brick is laid out with the long side), English, Dutch, Flemish, Gothic, monastery, etc. The masonry differs depending on the shift of the brick in the next row by half or by a quarter, depending on the alternation of the butt and spoon rows. By connecting bricks of different colors or different masonry, as well as by varying the color of the mortar joint, an infinite number of patterns and combinations can be obtained.

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1/5 Types of Traditional Brickwork Courtesy of Wienerberger
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2/5 Types of Traditional Brickwork Courtesy of Wienerberger
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3/5 Types of Traditional Brickwork Courtesy of Wienerberger
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4/5 Types of Traditional Brickwork Courtesy of Wienerberger
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5/5 Types of Traditional Brickwork Courtesy of Wienerberger

A newer method is to create reliefs on the surface of the wall and perforation, or weaving. The creation of relief - both regular and fantasy, asymmetric, as if chaotic, turns the surface of the facade into a sculpture.

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1/3 Embossed masonry Courtesy of Wienerberger
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2/3 Embossed masonry Courtesy of Wienerberger
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3/3 Embossed masonry Courtesy of Wienerberger

The perforated brick pattern is increasingly used in modern buildings. The braid also has a traditional origin. This is a Brazilian masonry called claustra and comes from the word for "fencing". Braids are actively used, for example, as hidden windows.

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1/4 Masonry Claustra Courtesy of Wienerberger
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2/4 Claustra Brickwork Courtesy of Wienerberger
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3/4 Claustra Brickwork Courtesy of Wienerberger
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4/4 Claustra Brickwork Courtesy of Wienerberger

It is perforation - all kinds of braids and lattices - that has been the main trend in recent years. One of the resonant cases of brick weaving was the Columbus Museum in Cologne, built by the outstanding Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, a place of pilgrimage for architects from all over the world. Zumthor created a famous hall in the museum with the archaeological remains of an ancient Romanesque-Gothic cathedral, which can be viewed by moving along the footbridge in the twilight to the accompaniment of bell ringing. Through a brick wall with holes, sunlight penetrates into this hall, creating an atmosphere of reflection in the spirit of the maxim "And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not encompass it."

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1/3 Peter Zumthor. Museum of St. Columba in Cologne. Photo: Raimond Spekking via Wikimedia Commons. CC-BY-SA-3.0-migrated license
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2/3 Peter Zumthor. Museum of St. Columba in Cologne.
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3/3 Peter Zumthor. Museum of St. Columba in Cologne.

Zumthor embodied the brick weaving at the Cologne Museum in 2007. The architects picked up the idea, and today there are a lot of its modifications. Interestingly, brick braiding is used in both cold and hot climates. In hot weather, in addition to beauty, it contributes to the natural ventilation of the building, and in cold weather, in most cases, it requires a double facade. Interest in perforating brick façades is clearly demonstrated by the last two Brick Awards 2018 and 2020.

The old 13th-century church in Vilanova del Barca (Catalonia) was destroyed during the 1936 civil war. It was recently decided to rebuild its ruins and make a concert hall there. In order to fill the voids between the ancient walls, double brickwork was perfectly suited, facing the interior with the porous side of the brick, which formed solid, but "airy" boundaries, clearly denoting modernity. Part of the walls are lined with openwork masonry. The project by AleaOlea Architecture & Landscape was judged by the Brick Award 2018 jury and awarded a special prize.

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1/3 Church in Vilanova (Catalonia). AleaOlea Architecture & Landscape © Adrià Goula Courtesy of Wienerberger
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2/3 Church in Vilanova (Catalonia). AleaOlea Architecture & Landscape © Adrià Goula Courtesy of Wienerberger
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3/3 Church in Vilanova (Catalonia). AleaOlea Architecture & Landscape © Adrià Goula Courtesy of Wienerberger

The Faculty of Radio and Television of the University of Silesia in Katowice received the Grand Prix at the 2020 Brick Award for the variety and subtlety of the use of bricks. The old façade of a preserved building with traditional brickwork is juxtaposed with a transparent modern "lattice" made of exactly the same brick. The brick lattice extends up and to the sides of the old building (it makes up about one-sixth of the new building), and at the top the lattice forms an attic slope, repeating the slope of the attic of the neighboring house, and then passes into a flat roof. In the solution of the facades of other buildings, the reception of a brick lattice in combination with wood is used. In the interior, hand-molded bricks with various nuances of sintering and color gradations cover the walls, the floor, and in some places even the ceiling. For the ceiling, the architects also came up with a perforated structure - something like brick caissons.

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1/4 Faculty of Radio and Television, University of Silesia Architects: BAAS Arquitectura (Spain), Grupa 5 architekci (Poland), Maleccy biuro projektowe (Poland) Photo © Jakub Certowicz, Adrià Goulà / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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2/4 Faculty of Radio and Television, University of Silesia Architects: BAAS Arquitectura (Spain), Grupa 5 architekci (Poland), Maleccy biuro projektowe (Poland) Photo © Jakub Certowicz, Adrià Goulà / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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3/4 Faculty of Radio and Television, University of Silesia Architects: BAAS Arquitectura (Spain), Grupa 5 architekci (Poland), Maleccy biuro projektowe (Poland) Photo © Jakub Certowicz, Adrià Goulà / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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4/4 Faculty of Radio and Television, University of Silesia Architects: BAAS Arquitectura (Spain), Grupa 5 architekci (Poland), Maleccy biuro projektowe (Poland) Photo © Jakub Certowicz, Adrià Goulà / Courtesy of Wienerberger

The Mexico City-based photography studio, which won the 2020 Brick Award, offers yet another brick-knit option. Openwork walls made of locally made bricks are both a link and a border between the house and the surroundings. The brick pattern is simple but expressive: rows of two thin horizontal bricks alternate with vertical bricks twice as thick, located with air pauses between them. Shined by the sun, this pattern forms a whimsical pattern in the interior, woven of light and shadow.

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1/4 Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela / Workshop of photographer Graciela Iturbide in Mexico City Photo © Rafael Gamo / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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2/4 Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela / Workshop of photographer Graciela Iturbide in Mexico City Photo © Rafael Gamo / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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3/4 Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela / Photographer Graciela Iturbide's workshop in Mexico City Photo © Rafael Gamo / Courtesy of Wienerberger
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4/4 Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela / Workshop of photographer Graciela Iturbide in Mexico City Photo © Rafael Gamo / Courtesy of Wienerberger

Along with the modern perforation of the brick façade, it is curious to refer to such historical elements as the pattern as the trademark of the place. This is what the authors of the Bolshevik residential complex, IND Architects, did. Since the historical building of the Bolshevik factory of the late 19th century, former Einem with a characteristic pattern of light and red bricks, is located next to the complex, the architects invented a pattern of light crosses on red bricks in the new buildings of the apartments and kept it throughout the complex. Moreover, sometimes the pattern is combined with the relief, that is, it becomes voluminous. And even the masonry itself can imitate a slight historical unevenness, then, when illuminated, the wall takes on life, chiaroscuro and emphasized hand-made.

Stricter types of masonry are also possible, on closer inspection creating an expensive elegant surface. The rows in the Kunstmuseum Basel form an expensive “corduroy” surface; upon closer inspection, this “corduroy” turns out to be brickwork with a protruding row.