Brick by brick
A new coffee-table book celebrates the enduring appeal of the ultimate building material
Age has not withered the humble brick, but nor has it afforded it much prestige. More than any other material, bricks have enshrined civilisation, protected it, provided space for it to grow, yet they’re seen as the humdrum standard, little more than architectural bread and butter. This prosaic reputation is why, according to William Hall, there has been a dearth of illustrated volumes celebrating the world’s oldest man-made construction material. It’s a void that Phaidon are hoping to fill with a handsome new coffee-table book, Brick, which Hall authored and Dan Cruikshank has provided an introduction for. The book features photographs of a wide range of brickbased architectural wonders, from the checkerboard facades of the Grosvenor Estate in London to Louis Khan’s virtuosic National Assembly Building in Bangladesh to Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision for an American vernacular in his Prairie Houses.
Brick by William Hall is released 6 April 2015; £29.95, visit Phaidon.com to pre-order