(Not Just) Another Brick in the Wall

99% Invisible

The episode explores the history, evolution, and cultural significance of brick in Chicago, centering on the Monadnock building and the rise and fall of locally produced 'Chicago common brick.' Host

Key takeaways

• The Monadnock building stands as the world's tallest masonry skyscraper, constructed entirely of stacked brick up to six feet thick at its base.
• Following the 1871 Great Fire, Chicago rapidly rebuilt using locally sourced 'Chicago common brick,' which was heavily criticized for its messy, stony appearance but valued for structural utility and massive production scale.

Main topics

• Chicago common brick history
• Monadnock building architecture

Notable quotes

Bricks are like brushstrokes in a van go. Each one is a beautiful part of a more beautiful whole.

Conclusion

The episode reveals how a humble, locally sourced material fundamentally

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) This is 99 % Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Speaker 2 (0:06) The Monadnock building in Chicago is unlike any structure you'll ever come across. A few years back, I brought my wife Joy to gaze upon it with me because, you know, of course I did. Speaker 2 (0:18) Okay, and so I want you to, I'm not trying to quiz you, but I want you to tell me what you see when you see this building. What are some of its characteristics? Speaker 1 (0:27) Okay. Well, it's massive, but not in the same way like super tall like these other skyscrapers. Yeah, Speaker 2 (0:34) it feels heavy. Speaker 1 (0:35) Yes, it feels heavy, dense. Speaker 2 (0:38) Built in 1891, the Monadnock is an office building that is needed shoring up to keep it from sinking beneath its own weight. From the sidewalk, the structure's purplish-brown facade rises in one smooth, continuous motion. There are no gargoyles or decorative moldings. Instead, what you notice is how the building gently curves or rounds where you typically expect a sharp corner or a flat edge. Its entrances and windows are also set deep into the wall, like four, five, even six feet back. And that's because the Monadnock was built the old-school way. by layering and stacking brick upon brick upon brick, six feet thick at the base and 16 stories into the sky. So this is the tallest masonry skyscraper in the world. So it is completely made of bricks. Speaker 3 (1:35) So the Monadnock, to me, the really remarkable thing about it is that it is so utterly seamless. It's all this sleek, perfectly produced brick. Speaker 2 (1:48) This is Will Quam, a fellow Monadnock lover and a scholar of the essence of this building, Speaker 3 (1:54) bricks. I've had people ask me with the Monadnock, you know, did they get all these flat bricks at sight and then start chiseling them? And no, they actually, they made... hundreds of special molds for these particular bricks. They also then, when they fired them, had to be incredibly careful in firing them so that they knew they would all come out about the exact same color. So the Monadnock is really, to me, the perfect demonstration of what a brick could be at that time in the world. Speaker 2 (2:24) In the palm of your hand, a single modular brick is often unremarkable. But together, bricks can transform into a wall or an arch or a building and occasionally maybe even something remarkable, like the Monadnock. Speaker 3 (2:39) My version of the analogy is that bricks are like brushstrokes in a van go. Each one is a beautiful part of a more beautiful whole. You get up close and you can appreciate it in a different way than if Speaker 2 (2:50) you step all the way back. As a way of celebrating the building blocks of his home city, Will founded Brick of Chicago, an award-winning architecture tour. So I give Speaker 3 (2:59) tours of 12 different neighborhoods around Chicago that start from a place of brick architecture, of I'm going to make you passionate and excited about a brick. And then once you're passionate and excited about a brick, what else can I make you start to see and care about? You know, on my tours, it's almost like a dare. Why would I go on a brick tour? What could this possibly be? I guess I got to find out. Speaker 2 (3:22) Will also recently wrote a book called Fire and Clay, How Bricks Reveal the Hidden History of Chicago. Using the city as both muse and case study, Will weaves together a modern history of brick and in the process offers us new ways to appreciate this humble building material. Here's my chat with Chicago brick historian Will Quam. Speaker 2 (3:46) Okay, so like in its simplest form, what is a brick? Speaker 3 (3:50) What is a brick? A brick is a clay building block that is burnt. And Speaker 2 (3:56) so, you know, by that definition, humans have been building with bricks for thousands of years. Yeah. But your work focuses on Chicago and its history with bricks. So for you, where does that story start? Speaker 3 (4:06) So before the Great Fire of Chicago, Chicago is very much a city of wood. We had access to so much wood, so cheap. And that's just what we built everything out of. And then 1871, the city burns down in this unbelievable fire. A third of the city burns. A third of the population becomes homeless. And we really quickly need to start rebuilding. The good news, though, was Chicago was really perfectly positioned to rebuild with brick. First, because we're sitting on this enormous quantity of clay. 14,000 years ago, Chicago was covered by this enormous glacial lake that dropped all this fine clay across the land. But intermixed in all this clay are stones and pebbles and just stuff. And so when Chicago brickmakers started making brick out of that clay, they found the bricks came out looking... unbelievably messy and ugly, pink and red and brown with these bleached white bits of limestone on the face and all these pores and stuff that would just soak up so much soot and dirt and turn black over time. And these bricks, which are called Chicago common bricks, came to be known as the ugliest bricks in the entire country. For that reason. Yeah. There's a Boston brickmaker in 1892 that said in an industry speech that if Adam from the Bible had been a brickmaker, he would have caused the fall of man by making a brick as ugly as those they make in Chicago. Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:34) That's pretty floridly harsh. It is. It Speaker 3 (5:38) led to a Chicago brickmaker. to respond, quote, when Boston can show as fine buildings as Chicago, when Boston can show as many people as Chicago, when Boston can show as much enterprise in Chicago, then we will listen to all the criticisms that Mr. Fisk has to make about the brick in Chicago. You Speaker 2 (5:56) think you're better than me? Yeah, Speaker 3 (5:57) I know. We've always been the second city. We've always been a city with a chip on our shoulder, even when it comes to our bricks. Speaker 2 (6:03) Yeah, so good. Speaker 3 (6:05) With these bricks, they're really ugly. They're considered really ugly, but they're perfectly fine for building. And we can make an enormous quantity of them. Speaker 2 (6:13) Yeah, and we should say something else is happening at the same time as the Great Fire, which is the ability to make bricks at scale just kind of explodes. Right, exactly. Can you talk about that and how we used to make bricks one way and what changed heading into the turn of the century? Speaker 3 (6:28) Yeah, Speaker 2 (6:28) bricks Speaker 3 (6:30) for thousands of years were made by hand. Starting from a place of mixing mud and straw and sand together, baking it in the sun, building what's called a clamp. It's a big pile of unfired bricks lit on fire from the inside, like a bonfire. Eventually making kilns to fire it, to make it more permanent. And all bricks were coming out in really varied ways when you made bricks that way. One brickmaker who had experience in that said that a good burn... of brick was much more a matter of luck than any kind of skill. It's just what does chemistry do in that time? Yeah. Yeah. And all bricks kind of look like, in a way, that Chicago common brick. Really messy, varied. But starting in the 1830s and 1840s in places