Living in Anchorage, Alaska as I do it always surprises me that the city has very few 'brick' homes and buildings.
Having spent half of my life in St. Louis, Missouri - a city that was 80% brick buildings, I grew up thinking all cities had tons of buildings that were brick built and of many hues.
Bricks were a low cost building material in the days when St. Louis was at it's early stages of becoming the 'Gateway to the West' thanks to the explorers Lewis and Clark.
Brick architecture has fascinated me most of my life. Colors range from reds to dark chocolate browns and pinks to beige.
It is quite expensive to use bricks or even some common stones for building in Alaska. They must be shipped up from one of the lower 48 continental states. So brick buildings are few and far between in any of the cities of Alaska. Most often when one see's a brick building, the bricks are utilized more as a decorative enhancement.
Bricks may be made from clay, shale, soft slate, calcium silicate, concrete, or shaped from quarried stone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick
Clay is the most common material, with modern clay bricks formed in one of three processes - soft mud, dry press, or extruded.
- Silica (sand) - 50% to 60% by weight
- Alumina (clay) - 20% to 30% by weight
- Lime - 2 to 5% by weight
- Iron oxide - 5 to 6% (not greater than 7%) by weight
- Magnesia - less than 1% by weight
Fascinating about the scarcity of bricks in Alaska - I didn't know that!
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