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Have you ever witnessed masonry contractors in Tulsa, OK work on a building with the use of bricks? Has it ever come to mind how exactly the brick has come to be? Maybe not, right? It’s not every day that we see beyond the beauty of the brickwork itself. The mere look of a completed brick wall is enough to make one appreciate it already. It’s so iconic, in fact, that a lot of people, not only in our country but also with the rest of the world, are still using bricks for construction. The young generation, in particular, rediscovered the beauty of bricks and are now seen buying bricks for their walls and even imitating the pattern of bricks layout using paint. This resurgence in the demand of bricks makes sure that it will not die out anytime soon. Being as iconic as The Beatles or bacon and eggs, it’s only right for us to give the humble brick its own segment by looking at the history of the humble piece of building material.
The current look of the modern brick is a far cry from the bricks used back in the day. It wasn’t rectangular and it wasn’t red, although the primary material remains the same. The first bricks were rather irregular in shape and had a color similar to the land where it originated. The oldest evidence we have about the brick dates back to biblical times. Herod’s Palace in Jericho is made up of thousands upon thousands of stacked pieces of hardened clay. They were quarried mostly at places near a water supply as it’s one of the primary components of making bricks. If you are able to visit the site, you will notice that the color is similar to the soil you see throughout the land.
The Mesopotamians decided to mix mud with straw to hopefully make it more durable. The experiment proved to be a success and the mud-and-clay mixture soon became the staple for construction at that time. This was also a time when they started tinkering with containers. With the need to improve the overall look of the buildings at that time, they made it more uniform in shape, thus the birth of a more symmetrical looking brick.
Babylonian architecture utilized the use of bricks in almost all of their buildings at that time. But they did not stop there, they wanted to make their walls and buildings more intricate by using custom bricks. One could still see the embossed images of horses on the brick walls of Babylonian architectures if one visits modern-day Iraq. This is considered the birth of brick art.
Romans took what they learned from various cultures and civilizations and used it to their advantages. Along with the rest of their acquired knowledge is the art of brick-making. When the Romans invaded Europe, the knowledge they knew about construction went with them. Wherever they settled, one could see Roman brickwork standing. After the fall of the Roman Empire, brick manufacturing became a lost art, when people in Britain began recycling the old bricks the Romans left, they decided to capitalize on it and transport the idea to the US. When the British colonized the free world, they built grand buildings and flexed their architectural brilliance by using bricks, thus you see a lot of brickwork in places like New York because that’s mainly where the first colonists set foot on.
Nowadays, we have embraced bricks as part of our construction. Construction these days are primarily dominated by three players: wood, brick, and cement. And even though we have come a long way from the manual production of bricks, it’s still a lot more time-consuming to use than cement or wood. Although it may be true that it is indeed time-consuming, one has to admit that brick still dominated over wood and cement when it comes to architectural beauty. Ask any expert in masonry repair in Tulsa about architectural dominance and they’ll hail bricks as the leading material among the three.
The humble brick has a very rich history and demands respect from anyone who is thinking of utilizing it as part of any construction. If you are thinking of utilizing brick for your house, make sure to check in with the professionals who fully understand brickwork and masonry work. Here at Brick 1 Masonry, we provide the best brick services and masonry repair in Tulsa, OK. We fully understand masonry and brickwork up to its aesthetics. The quality of the work we do attests to the rich history of brickwork itself. For more information, you can visit our office at 131 North Birmingham Place, Tulsa, OK 74110. You can also call us at 918-698-3573. You can also leave us an email thru In**@br***********.com. Choose the people who understand brick concepts and respects the art of brickwork and masonry to ensure that you get quality results every time. Choose Brick 1 Masonry!
