Five buildings and Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the Next Millennium” (1, revised)
Lightness: Anthony Browell Magney House, New South Wales, Australia
While the mud is nothing more than a bunch of sodden dust, the land as its origin is a full gravity. The dried clay turns into the hardened cuboid, with which people achieved a 122 m tall stupa Jetavanaramaya in Sri Lanka 1700 years ago. Familiarized for its commonplace raw resources, convenient manufacturing process and straightforward building method, the brick is one of the oldest construction materials of human history.
The story of the three little pigs reveals why; their other houses made of straws and sticks are blown away by the simple breath to demonstrate that solidity and durability are crucial for the construction material. In reality, numerous ancient monuments preserved today are mostly made of elements proved for these conditions. Aula Palatina, as known as the Basilica of Constantine, was built with fired bricks around AD 310; in the Colosseum of Rome completed in AD 80, we can easily find the traces of brick arches.
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