Destination MArch: Week 7/8

There comes a point in human expansion when we are forced to move to unfamiliar geography which does not lend the options of living the way we are familiar with. Perhaps through much practice humans are quite proficient at making an unlivable situation livable. One of the most important technology humans have made utilized to expand our territory is bricks and mortar. In areas which do not provide trees or geographical shelter, people processed bricks and major scale architecture rapidly advanced and spread. As earlier mentioned in the last post, much of the earliest architecture was more about modifying the natural environment to suit our needs. Bricks on the other hand require its initial components to be physically changed into a new substance.

Bricks often remind me of bread in the way they are solely a human convention. Unusable components are combined, moisture is added and the entire substance is baked in whatever form best serves our purpose. While other animals make homes from pre-existing geography and trees, our building blocks are unique to us, which I believe should be celebrated. There is something about brickwork which draws us to it. Despite the wide availability of materials, brick continues to have an appeal despite its structural flaws. There is something to be said about knowing someone had painstakingly placed and mortared each individual piece. Its modern day popularity and high price results in many artificial brick type claddings which I will allow you to make your own thoughts about.

Not only is brick building widely available, it allows for endless architectural expansion, most importantly vertical expansion. Building upwards led to two important factors integral to modern architecture: urbanism and the monument. Urbanism - the collection of people in an unseemly concentrated space - results in the acceleration of culture. Even in today’s interconnected world with the internet and international media, the most forward thinking cultural and art centers seem to gravitate towards urban centers. People have the overwhelming desire to create grand monuments to celebrate their culture. More people = more culture = more monuments (if that makes any sense at all). celebrate their culture. More people = more culture = more monuments (if that makes any sense at all).

A great example is the Ziggurat of Urnammu in Muqaiyir, Iraq. Although this building is not an example of conventional shelter (it was made to be an artificial mountain for a temple dedicated to the moon god Nanna), it is a great example of ancient brickwork. The fact bricks were the chosen material for such a grand temple validates their significance. One would assume the best construction techniques of the day would be used for the temple which stood as the apex of the walled city of Ur. Each handmade brick was stamped with the Sumerian king Urnammu’s symbol and the outer layer of bricks was baked to add sharpness of the silhouette. I think the marking of each individual brick as opposed to a large symbol demonstrates the importance of each component within the massive structure.

My ending argument is through allowing us to expand vertically, bricks let us become city dwellers. Although we could have potentially done so with concrete or steel and glass, we didn’t. Bricks came first and without that architectural foundation, who knows if we ever would have advanced our building methods to allow for those other discoveries. If not for bricks we could have ended up as a sprawling cultureless suburban mess of wood huts… oh wait.

I will leave you with some pictures of brick type structures I took on my travels.