Brick

The bricks, in the jargon short brick (from Latin tegula ' tile ' of tegere " cover "), cognate, also called brick or brick, is a man-made of ceramic material stone, which is used in the construction industry for construction of the Wall.

• 3.1 Traditional production
• 3.2 Industrial Production

• 4.1 Curing
• 4.2 colors
• 4.3 formats 4.3.1 monastery format
• 4.3.2 Reich format
• 4.3.3 selection of tile formats

Distinction between the terms

• Perforated bricks: an optimized hollow brick
• Plan brick: brick with ground surfaces
• Hand-molded bricks are especially made ​​for the restoration

History

Early civilizations

Adobe in addition to wood, stone and plant fibers, the first in the early settlements of the Neolithic period (about 8000-6000 BC) construction material used. Opposite walls of unformed clay brick walls have many advantages: they are easier to transport than unformed clay, walls are more stable than walls made of unformed clay and requires for its establishment no formwork. The oldest brick in 1952 during archaeological excavations in Jericho found ( 7.500 BC).

The technique of firing clay for vessels was known in the Neolithic period, but was not used for bricks. Instead, limestone was blown, which was processed to the screed.

The first brick ( adobe ) were hand-formed and thus irregular in shape. Brick with smooth coated form are known since about 6300 BC in Mesopotamia. Here was BC developed the use of molds 5900-5300. Between 3100-2900 BC the first time fired clay used in brick form extensively and developed and perfected the technique of glazing. The Ishtar Gate is an outstanding example of the achievements of Babylonian time of development of the techniques. It was built under Nebuchadnezzar II ( 604-562 BC).

The perfect one-handed burned brick, as a prefabricated and perfectly streamlined device until today is used in the proportions 1:2:4, was first developed between 2800 to 2200 BC in the former Indus Valley Civilization or Harappan culture. This brick is arbitrary summable in all directions.

• Selection of remarkable brick

Constantine Basilica in Trier

Motives of the friezes made ​​of brick in the choir of the village church Steffenhagen

Brunelleschi's dome of the Florence Cathedral

The highest brick tower in the world in Landshut

Chile House in Hamburg

Brick Expressionism: Holy Cross Church in Gelsenkirchen

Brick buildings of the 1920s in Hamburg- Barmbek-Nord

Mies van der Rohe Haus, Berlin, 1933

Industrial architecture with brick facade on the former power station Vockerode

Rural brick architecture with sandstone elements ( Třebnouševes, CZ )

Göltzschtalbrücke (1845 ), largest brick bridge in the world

Battersea Power Station (1929 ), former coal power plant, one of the largest brick building in Europe

Amsterdam School: The apartment block Het Schip in Amsterdam

Spasskaya Tower in Moscow

Wasserzugturm in Moscow

St. Mary's Church in Prenzlau, a significant example Nordd. Brick Gothic. In the foreground: The Mitteltorturm, a template for designing the Berlin Oberbaumbrucke

Early Chinese brick architecture

In China, bricks were used from about 1000 BC. Typical of Chinese brick buildings was the renunciation of mortar by a great dimensional stability of the brick was made ​​possible, and the construction of hollow masonry walls that were filled with debris.

Antiquity and Late Antiquity

For the Roman architecture of the burnt brick had an increasing and finally the end of the Roman Empire great importance. By Roman building was spread with baked brick throughout the Roman Empire. Typical of the Roman brick, thin brick.

The extensive use of fired bricks for masonry sat in the first century BC, but was, for example, in the city of Rome to the time of the reign of Augustus ( 27 BC to 14 AD) did not prove. This is probably why took the description of the technique of building with dried and fired bricks in Vitruvius only a small space. By 100 AD, the technology was already widespread throughout the empire by the Roman legions, the field everywhere established brickyards. Up to this time brick walls were regularly plaster or paneling. In the 2nd century bricks were also used as a decorative surface and replaced tuff, and other stones as a disguise for the invented by the Romans concrete walls (Latin opus caementitium ). Individual inserted into the delusion of the cast masonry brick layers are referred to as brick bullet. End of the 2nd century, the heyday of the brick building in Rome ended again.

The construction of the Basilica of Constantine in Trier is an example of a large brick building in the territory of today's Germany. However, this was originally plastered externally and internally covered with marble.

In the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Empire in the west of the brick structure was further developed. Thus, the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople Opel is ( built 532-537 AD) constructed entirely of bricks. Typical of the Byzantine brick are very thin bricks and joints, the thickness of the brick part still outperforms. In the Western Roman Empire, there are outstanding examples of brick architecture in particular the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna.

Non-European Cultures

Outside the European culture, there is an extensive brick architecture in buildings with Islamic origin ( Samanids mausoleum in Bukhara) and in Buddhist tradition ( for example, in Bagan (Myanmar ) / Burma ) and China.

Middle Ages

While the tradition of brick building in Italy has continued unabated since the Romans, the brick disappeared into Northern Europe with the end of the Roman Empire completely. It was introduced by monks back in the 12th century and spread because of better dimensional stability compared to natural stone in Präsentalbau. Roskilde Cathedral and St. Mary's Church, begun in 1160 in Kalundborg in Denmark are early examples.

The heyday of the decoration made ​​of brick was the brick Gothic, a German special form of Gothic, was widespread, especially in the area of the Hanseatic League. The formative model was the Marienkirche in Lübeck, which has the highest brick vault in the world. Worth mentioning here is the monastery of Chorin in Eberswalde. For what reasons the brick technique in the 12th century came up again, is not fully understood. In any case, the lack of availability of natural stone is important. Another reason is the availability of the starting material. A niche product was the letter tiles for decoration of floors.

The St. Mary's Church ( first mentioned in 1298 ) was from 1625 until the destruction of its then 151 -meter high Gothic Lace by lightning in 1647 the world's tallest building. Since then, the finished in 1500, the tower of St. Martin's Church in Landshut with 130.60 meters the tallest brick tower in the world. An example of Brick Gothic outside Germany is the cathedral of Albi in France.

Renaissance and Baroque

During the Renaissance and Baroque exposed masonry of brick was not very popular. The bricks were covered with plaster or stucco, or at least überschlämmt. Under the veneer brick but was probably in Italy, the most commonly used building material of the time, because the manufacture of bricks was cheaper than transporting and hewing of stones, bricks are also lighter than most natural stones. Therefore, Brunelleschi built the dome of the Florence Duomo from bricks.

On the other hand, had brick architecture with exposed stone walls in England 1450-1650 heyday. Finally, the third Great Wall is built largely of brick.

1650-1800

Between 1650 and 1800 exposed brick - masonry in Europe was built mainly in the Netherlands, France and England, each with national characteristics. From the Netherlands, the pediment of Amsterdam are known. In French classicism brick was installed together with natural stone. In London, were allowed to be built after the great fire of 1666 only stone and brick buildings. Brick dominated only because of its price.

The 19th century

Very large brick buildings spread found in northern Germany back into the brick Gothic Revival. Traditionalism were built multi-storey tenements in Berlin with Niederlausitzer clinkers. Increasingly, however, were plastered brick. The Göltzschtalbrücke is still the largest brick bridge in the world. It was built from bricks to reach the carrying capacity and weather resistance.

The 20th century

Steel, concrete and glass sparked economic and structural reasons, the brick as a building material from. Brick is not sufficiently viable to build about skyscrapers. Brick Expressionism and homeland security architecture continued the tradition of the brick building in the 20th century but continued not only in North Germany. Significant industrial (power plants, steel mills, coking plants) were still built in the mid-20th century brick or at least covered with bricks. The Berlin Cathedral rests on a foundation of piles of bricks.

Production

Traditional production

The starting material loam or clay is first dissolved in water a few weeks or spread out over the winter after repeated addition of water stored outside and frozen solid. This " freezing " the sound is finely crumbled. These steps take place today for quality products, sound is recorded horizontally in large basins and dredged vertically. In this " Mauken " balances out the moisture, it escaping gases that might be beyond the bricks during firing and the material is thus mixed. After the clay is cleaned of solid and organic ingredients, occasional sand or clay is still buried and finally the mass is in an open top and bottom mold frame or only top open box pressed (brick model ), which has traditionally been from the month of May. Partial brick signs are applied in these forms. Supernatant material is scraped off and plunged the form - this gives the hand molded bricks. As a visible feature they have typical creases. ( This processing is still used today in culturally and historically significant restorations. ) The bricks are then air-dried for several weeks, in areas where it can be to deal with rain, in an airy dry dandruff.

To burn the shape of bricks are alternately layered with charcoal in a kiln. The kiln is finally covered with inferior quality clay and bricks. The subsequent combustion process takes about 14 days, where the bricks are exposed to only about 3 days a temperature of 600-900 ° C. The remaining time is used for heating and cooling, wherein the fired bricks can not burst. In a kiln furnace, the quality of the tiles is very different, one-third is burned at too high temperature and tends to splinter, a third is burned with too low temperature and weathered quickly. Often individual bricks were limited use even half of good quality and therefore. The fired bricks are therefore sorted according to quality. A much better yield is achieved in shaft furnaces, which are often lined with limestone. This is possible because such Lehmbrandziegel can only be burned at temperatures up to 900 ° C and lime passes only at temperatures above 900 ° C in quicklime. A shaft furnace can be fed about five times a year by applying the conventional technique in Central Europe.

In contrast, bricks were cut out at the beginning of the Middle Ages and from the lump of clay, then dried and fired.

Manufacture of hand stroke bricks at Dukatole ( Maletswai, South Africa) The following series of pictures shows the production line of hand bricks. Roughly 200 brick manufacturer to live here from the manufacture of bricks.

House of a brick manufacturer. (Fig. 2)

Prepare clay by mashing

Dry hand-pressed brick

Brick kiln nearing completion

Ready, burnt hand molded bricks

Ready burnt bricks sorted according to quality

Notes: Figure 2: Using a sieve is filtered out of the ash residues of coal. The carbon-containing ash will be provided by resident holdings free of charge.

Industrial Manufacturing

With industrialization, the production was soon mechanized. First, there were machines that took over the skimming and shapes. Only then can a method prevailed, in which the bricks are obtained and cut their shape by extrusion. Extruded bricks have a very smooth surface. In the extrusion process, it is also special shapes such as hollow bricks finished.

Other progress has been made during firing. First was reduced evenly and so that the Committee or the proportion of inferior quality in the kiln by about beating so-called flame temperature. Then ovens came on with permanent fire ( ring -oven), which was burned continuously in different chambers. Warm-up and cool-down of the total furnace accounted for. Today, so-called tunnel kilns are common, in which the bricks move during firing on cars through the furnace. In contrast, the brick was laid in the ring stove and the fire traveled through the chambers.

The innovations of the production made ​​it possible to cope with the massive construction of industrialization with the factory buildings, housing estates, tenements and representative town houses. For a Berlin tenement over a million bricks were required, the construction of the pickup station in Berlin consisted of 16 million bricks.

Kalksandziegel (or Brownstone ) are known since 1855 and were manufactured in the late 19th century with the help of patented manufacturing process in large quantities. They were made of sharp-edged siliceous sand, which should be of earthy matter, such as clay and humus as freely as possible. When lime was fat lime ( calcium lime ), Magerkalk ( Graukalk ) or hydraulic lime ( black lime ) into consideration. The mixing ratio of lime to sand was approximately 1:6.

Classifications

Curing

• Dried air bricks ( ADOben ) are not calcined but dried for a long time in air. The consequence is that they are in intake of water can soften again and are used in low rainfall, dry regions. These bricks are also referred to as mud bricks. Carrying capacity of this brick: 150 kg / cm ²

• Carrying capacity of this brick: 250 kg / cm ²

• Carrying capacity of this brick: 500 kg / cm ²

Colors

The color of the brick depends primarily on the minerals contained in the clay. A high iron content ( red iron ( III) - silicates) leads to light - to dark red ( brown ) shades, depending on firing temperature and firing atmosphere by the oxidation of iron. A high lime content and low iron content leads to yellow hues. The color nuances can be influenced by oxidizing ( excess oxygen in the furnace atmosphere ) or reducing (lack of oxygen in the furnace atmosphere ) firing, which can be adjusted by means of the fuel and air supply. An old way was the addition of wet tree trunks during firing: The generated thus reducing atmosphere in the furnace (arise at the temperatures required for firing of coal and hydro carbon monoxide and hydrogen) allows blue shades by elemental iron ( oxidation state 0). Since in this case the oven is damaged, this technique was limited to a few special cases.

By engobe, which are applied before firing, the color palette can be greatly expanded. This technique is used in Europe since the Middle Ages, when Islamic brick buildings since the early middle ages. In addition, to find many shades and colors already in the heyday of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar II.

In Burgundy and then in Hungary glazed roof tiles were used to decorate the roofs. This architectural feature was developed in Burgundy ( known example is the Hôtel- Dieu de Beaune) and came through the marriage of a queen to Hungary, where today is particularly the Buda Castle in Budapest known for.

Formats

The traditional small-sized brick is an oblong square, whose largest edge length (length ) corresponds to slightly more than twice the measure of the average edge length ( wide). The difference corresponds to the width of the vertical joint, the so-called butt joint. Taking into account the gap thus corresponds to a longitudinal walled brick, called the rotor, exactly two transverse walled so-called ties. The need to brick up brick because of their capability for the composite, thus determines its format.

Monastery format

The so-called " Monastery format" of hand molded bricks is no uniform system, but differs in the individual Klosterbauschulen as expansive standardization during the manual production of Brick Gothic was not necessary. Fritz Gottlob are as average dimensions of sizes from 28 cm × 15 cm × 9 cm to 30 cm × 14 cm × 10 cm, the height may be in individual cases up to 12.5 cm. The joints were typically 1.5 cm thick.

Reich format

Industrialization allowed the transport of construction materials over long distances and the suppliers had to be interchangeable. Thus was born in 1872 in Germany by law the so-called "Kingdom Format" for bricks (now " old empire Format" ) introduced: 25 cm × 12 cm × 6.5 cm. For a building could be built of bricks of different origin. For state buildings the use of this format was authentic. For other buildings, it became more economical to use standardized bricks, so make those too. This brick format was proposed in 1869 by the Berlin architect lambs Hirth. Thus the number is connected to the Plan Measurement 1 cubic structure. One cubic meter of masonry including 1 cm joint and common losses at the corners consisted of 400 tiles.

With the metric system was the (new ) Empire format with 24 cm × 11.5 cm × 6.3 cm and the normal size of 24 cm × 11.5 cm × 7.1 cm necessary. This brick floor area and one centimeter mortar, the buildings were in 1/8-Meter-Einheiten rasterized ( oktametrisches System). Through a missing or extra mortar for interior and exterior dimensions is always a difference of / - 1 cm. On this basic dimension called grids were later the dimensions of other construction trades, such as windows and doors, coordinated and standardized in their dimensions.

Other countries and some regions have developed other formats. The density of bricks, depending on the burning conditions between 1.4-2.0 kg / dm ³. Sizes and densities are regulated in Germany by DIN 105.

Selection of tile formats

All brick formats listed in the table ( with the exception of two Swiss formats ) indicate two different proportions:

Basis of most of the listed formats was the module, a six - or eight thin normal -sized bricks (including joint strengths ) of existing cube whose edge length was equal to the edge length of a brick. The other dimensions of the brick blocks were determined by deducting from the predefined joint thickness.

Molding

Bricks can be shaped before or after firing. For shaping before baking mold frames are used. The sound must be relatively moist so that the stones need to dry before burning to get any cracks during firing. The conglomerates of Brick Gothic prepared in this manner.

After firing bricks can be trimmed or ground down. Bricks were ground down in particular to compensate for differences in size and thereby achieve narrower joints.

Brick today

In the construction of the traditional small-scale brick today as load-bearing masonry only minor importance. The bricks were riddled getting bigger and bigger because of the growing weight, so-called perforated brick. The holes made ​​on the one hand the brick lighter and thus more manageable formats, on the other hand serves the walled air for thermal insulation, more precisely to reduce heat losses due to thermal conduction in the material. In order to improve these properties still, the brick material is now even made ​​porous by the raw material is mixed with combustible material such as sawdust or plastic beads. These substances burn during firing and leave pores. The foaming with blowing agents is less common. These products bear the name Schaumton. In most formats, the old standard dimensions still apply, as these bricks are always multiples of the normal or thin format. A modern variant of the brick is the plan brick.

As brickwork bricks are mainly in northern Germany traditionally very popular. The construction industry has developed a wide range of formats, tints and textures to meet individual needs of architects and building owners. This includes the split tiles, consisting of two set against brick surfaces and cleaved for veneering and placed on the masonry. The range of the offer includes both in different colors glazed tile, as well as by different mass composition produced colored bricks in yellow, red, blue and brown to almost black. In contrast to historic bricks, which were due to impurities in the clay in the surface a vivid picture, had wall surfaces of industrially produced brick initially often sterile. This is prevented in the modern manufacturing targeted Anflammungen during firing, applying granules, and the structuring of the surface during manufacture. Rustic molded baked bricks are manufactured according to the historical model of the machine now throwing the clay into molds.

Old bricks ( so-called demolition bricks) are now saved for renovations and new buildings in traditional style from leaving and re-used. This type of recycling has a very long tradition, since bricks are an expensive building material. It has already been observed in buildings in Mesopotamia or in Roman bricks and is to be found in medieval buildings. In historic preservation it is often very difficult to repair damage to historic brickwork, as modern brick have different formats and colors. Even in such cases is sometimes resorted to demolition bricks, but there are a few companies that produce in a traditional way and can produce bricks in historical styles. Because of the small numbers and strongly influenced by handmade production such special designs are of course more expensive than industrially produced brick.

Trivia

" Feierabend bricks " are special bricks, which were adorned with dates, texts, sayings or ornaments. This name is also common as a generic term for decorated tiles. The bricks were originally fired in a kiln, that is, under the open sky. A fire involved a lot of 5,000 to 10,000 bricks, the rejection rate was very high. In order to ask for the blessing for the success of the fire, the first and the last brick with rising suns and moons decorated. Defence bricks were order-related decorated (with tiles ), that is provided with waves and jagged patterns that were probably modeled on a flash brand and should protect the house as well as residents from the adverse weather. There are also good luck flowers, crosses and animal motifs, also hand and Kinderfußabdrücke can be found. The tradition lasted until in the pre-industrial period, the ornaments are also found on extruded tiles. In times of manual production of the still soft clay was decorated with it. This was often after work instead - after work.