More Art Zones
|
Brickwork of St. John Aliturgetoes Church, Nessebur, Bulgaria Photographic Print Miller Hopkins,... 24 in. x 18 in. Buy at AllPosters.com Mounted As long ago as between the 4th and 3rd millennia B. C. the Sumerians faced their buildings of sun-dried bricks with bricks of fired clay. Brick in its unglazed form, or as tiles, glazed and moulded or carved in relief, was the most common building material in the architecture of Western Asia, Persia and the world of Islam, although it was used less in Greek and Roman Antiquity.
The Romans often plastered or faced the façades of their brick buildings, whereas a brick structure in the fullest sense of the term should have its walls left bare. The use of brick was revived in the Lombardic architecture of the early Middle Ages and in the 12th century spread to Bavaria, northern Germany and Denmark.
During the following centuries, up to the end of the Gothic period, brick architecture flourished in northern Germany from the Lower Rhine to East Prussia (red brick Gothic). It reached the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the Baltic and Poland through the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights.
Churches, abbeys (such as Chorin in the Brandenburg province), castles of the Teutonic Order (Marienburg in West Prussia), town halls (Lübeck, Thorn), hospitals (Heilige Geist Spital, Lübeck), universities (Cracow), city walls (Reval), their gates and towers (Holstentor Lübeck, Tangermünde), were all built in exposed brickwork. But this technique lost its vigour during the Renaissance, when brick walls were mostly plastered. The 19th century saw a revival of yellow ( London stock) and red brick.
Although England does not on the whole possess buildings which, as examples of brick architecture, can stand comparison with the best work produced in northern Germany and Scandinavia, brick has been continuously used since the 13th century, and Hampton Court is a world-famous 16th-century brick structure. Indeed, at a time when architectural design throughout the world was at its lowest ebb, English architects played no small part in reviving brick, using it in an entirely original manner to suit the English climate ( Philip Webb's Red House, built for William Morris, houses in Kensington, in Chelsea and New Scotland Yard by Norman Shaw).
|
 |
RSS Feed XML Sitemap HTML Sitemap Contact Us Privacy Policy